F

Flavorwire

Tupac

Books

The Private Book Collections of 10 Famous Readers

By Emily Temple on

Earlier this month, we stumbled across Carolyn Kellogg’s great article about Bernie Madoff’s book collection, parts of which are being sold slowly on eBay by the person who won Madoff’s books in an auction. Sure, the books someone has may not be as great an indicator of their personality as, er, some other things we know about them, but, nerds that we are, we tend to consider our libraries extensions of ourselves. So of course, we did a little digging, pouring through the collections of famous (or infamous) cultural icons and see what they were made of. After the jump, browse through our excerpts of the private libraries of everyone from Darwin to Houdini to Oprah, and draw your conclusions where you may. … Read More

Music

The Year in Memorable Musical Controversies

By Tom Hawking on

2012 has been a crazy year in many ways, and the music industry hasn’t exactly been immune to its air of pervading insanity. (In fairness, the music industry is rarely immune to any sort of insanity, but still, humor us here.) This year has given us a particularly rich vein of memorable controversies, conflicts, and contretemps, and as part of our ongoing end-of-year wrap-up, we’re looking back at some of the most significant. Some of these are hilarious, some of them depressing, some of them hilariously depressing, and some just plain old bewildering — but from the resurrection of dead rappers through homeless people functioning as wifi hotspots to a record company suing an entire country, all of them have been worth remembering. … Read More

Web

What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds In Our Office

By Alison Nastasi on

Today at Flavorpill, we briefly considered this bizarre sweater onesie for the winter ahead. We were drawn to the awfulness of real estate agent headshots. We watched a moving performance of Pina Bausch’s legendary “Kontakthof,” put on by senior citizens. We browsed New York City’s Recession Art’s local holiday gift guide — connecting emerging artists and aspiring collectors. We remembered when six real-life authors turned themselves into fictional characters. We listened to Tupac mashed up with James Brown for the Django Unchained soundtrack. … Read More

News

The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. In the future, if all goes according to Goldenvoice’s plan, there could be as many as four Coachellas each year — which we suppose is better than four Bonnaroos. [via Vulture]

2. Amanda Palmer has invited her fans who play the strings, saxophone, and brass to join her on stage at gigs… Read More

Music

The Bands Who Inspired Your Favorite Bands

By Tom Hawking on

We ran a rather lighthearted feature earlier this week about endearingly silly hair metal bands, one of which was the enduringly awesome Hanoi Rocks. At the time, we noted that despite inspiring many of the bands who’d rule the Sunset Strip in the 1980s, Hanoi Rocks had already broken up by the time hair metal went global. This got us thinking about how often this pattern has been repeated over the years — it’s not always the bands who are the first to play a new sound who enjoy that sound’s success. And in a happy coincidence, there’s a new album by one such band — Seattle proto-grunge pioneers Melvins — out this week, so it seems a fine time to explore the idea further. … Read More

Pop Culture

A Brief Survey of Holograms in Pop Culture

By Victoria McNally on

Those of you who missed last night’s Coachella performance may have noticed the buzz around the Internet today regarding Tupac Shakur’s cameo with Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. Don’t get too excited, he hasn’t been alive and in hiding this whole time — not that we know of, at least. The Tupac that everyone saw last night was actually a very elaborate holographic image projected on stage.

Holograms have always fascinated us as a culture for some reason, probably because they’re so gosh darned cool in theory — but their execution is sometimes hit or miss (as is the case with the Tupac projection — you’re either super weirded out by it or you love it). To celebrate this new creepiness and/or awesomeness, we’re looking back at some of our favorite holograms in pop culture and real life. Let us know what you think in the comments! … Read More

Music

The 30 Harshest Musician-on-Musician Insults in History

By Tom Hawking on

[Editor's note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we're revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published August 15, 2011.] Our recent, wildly successful posts about author-on-author insults and filmmaker-on-filmmaker insults got us thinking about similar cattiness in the music industry, which has long been a breeding ground for both feuds and lunatics. An investigation of the history of musician-on-musician insults didn’t disappoint, and we’ve collated 30 of the harshest after the jump. It’s interesting comparing them to the previous pair of posts, too. The verdict: what musicians might lack in verbosity, they more than make up for with vitriol. And UK musicians are far bitchier than US ones (or, perhaps, the UK music press just delights in reporting on insults). Anyway, don’t let your boss catch you reading this… … Read More

Music

The Pope’s Playlist: Muse, Mozart, Fleet Foxes, and Tupac

By Zara Golden on

To celebrate it’s UK launch, MySpace Music has been busy putting together a series of celebrity playlists. R&B boys Pretty Ricky’s list suggests an unsurprising taste in bedroom music, while fans can imagine what Beyonce might be playing for her hubby Jay-Z. Inexpicatley, amongst these celebrity lists is one put together by the Vatican.… Read More

Music

Download: Listen to What Warren G Has Been Up To

By Michael Rosen on

Back in 1994, Long Beach, California charged onto the rap scene along with a few other West Coast hot spots. While most of the major artists from the area (Pac, Dre, Snoop) stuck with the West by signing to labels like Death Row, one rapper in particular went East — Warren G. … Read More

Music

Exclusive: Kaki King Talks Tupac Mash-ups, Guitar Gods, and Mozer Poseurs

By Carly Wray on

It’s amazing that Kaki King only has two hands. When she picks up a guitar, the sheer complexity and depth of sound she creates through tapping, banging, and intricate picking is more than ten fingers can manage. Deemed a “Guitar God” by Rolling Stone, the 29-year-old virtuoso has a resume that just won’t quit: since her 2003 debut, Everybody Loves You, she’s released three full-length records, toured with Foo Fighters and The Mountain Goats, and snagged a Golden Globe nomination for her work on the Into the Wild score.

Before heading out to Bonnaroo and the Wanderlust Music & Yoga Festival, King sat down with Flavorpill to chat about Timbaland, the Mountain Goats,  Tupac mash-ups, the evils of guitar lessons, and channeling the inner Morrissey. … Read More