We’re not sure exactly what’s behind the recent nail art explosion, but as long as it continues to produce amazing pop-culture tributes on a tiny, personal scale, it has our attention. Last week, we brought you the blood-flecked fingertips of a Dexter groupie and some Arrested Development Mr. Banana Grabber press-ons in our roundup of amazing TV-inspired nails. Before that, we went highbrow with literary nail art paying tribute to everyone from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Harry Potter. Now, nail art superfans, are you ready to rock ‘n’ roll? Today’s haul of musician-inspired nail art includes a dazzling riff on David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane, a set of crazy Nicki Minaj claws, and even a perfectly executed Daniel Johnston manicure.
Tumblr is apparently the best thing that’s happened to album covers since Andy Warhol. Last week, we were fascinated and depressed by a blog that Photoshops dead musicians out of classic record sleeves; today, we’re giggling through Clipart Covers, a Tumblr that recreates album covers using clip art and Comic Sans. Enjoy amusingly remixed art for everyone from Neutral Milk Hotel to NWA after the jump, and follow Clipart Covers to see more wonderful remakes and request some of your own.
In case you haven’t heard, today is National Punch a Hipster Day. According to Facebook, almost 10,000 people attending — which sounds like bad news for 20-somethings on bikes wearing feather headdresses. Since we don’t condone violence and hope to dissuade you from wandering through Williamsburg or Silver Lake brandishing brass knuckles, we thought we’d draw your attention to ten famous hipsters who might make better targets. You know, if you have to punch anyone. Which you don’t. OK?
The best tattoos have a deeply personal meaning for the person whose body they adorn. So it makes sense that music fans would want to decorate their skin with lyrics to their best-loved songs — or the art from their favorite album. After the jump, we round up 20 fantastic tattoos inspired by equally wonderful album covers, from Bob Dylan and The Smiths to PJ Harvey and Kanye West.
Combining your appreciation of different media can be tricky: You probably shouldn’t be watching a movie on your iPhone as you stroll through an art gallery, and you wouldn’t want to spend a night furtively reading a buzzy new novel at a play. But there are two art forms that go perfectly together: literature and music. For a bibliophile, there are few better ways to spend an afternoon than with one’s head stuck in a book — and the best way to enhance that escapist experience is to pair your tome of choice with an album that complements it. After the jump, we’ve teamed ten great books and records that are delightfully simpatico, whether through theme, mood, or atmosphere. Add your pairings in the comments, and if we get enough good suggestions, we’ll collect them in a follow-up post.
Queens of the Stone Age are re-releasing their self-titled debut album at the moment, 13 years after it introduced the new project for ex-Kyuss guitarist Josh Homme and ex-Dwarves bassist Nick Oliveri to the world. Since then, of course, QOTSA have gone on to global domination, even after Oliveri left in mysterious circumstances in 2004. The whole re-release has got us thinking about just how good QOTSA were when the Homme/Oliveri partnership was at its peak, and as a result, also about bands that haven’t been the same once the creative partnership that drove them came to its inevitable end. The history of rock’n’roll is littered with the fragments of such partnerships. Here are ten of our picks.
The way the music press has been flipping over Rihanna’s risqué new clip for “S&M,” you’d think she was the first musician ever to use bondage or sadomasochistic imagery in a music video. Of course, she’s far from it. Even before MTV, artists used whips and chains to spice up their act. After the jump, we take you from the Velvet Underground to Ri Ri in a brief history of BDSM in music videos.
It is often a bad idea to get song lyrics tattooed on your body. Really, who wants to be a 40-something mother of three with, say, a Dashboard Confessional tramp stamp that dates back to high school? Our friends at Buzzfeed have rounded up 22 truly awful lyric tattoos, from a misspelled Goo Goo Dolls line to what appears to be a toilet paper roll bearing the words of Staind. As music fans, we knew there had to be at least a few decent song lyric tattoos out there. After the jump, 13 that we can get behind.
Oh, and people? Lay off of “Love will tear us apart” and “There is a light that will never go out” for a while, OK?
A great full-album cover doesn’t just tip its hat, instead, it manipulates the source material’s base components to create new context. That’s not to say that the originals automatically reap respect and reverence — as some of their best reincarnations kick the shit out of them in the schoolyard. Our 10 favorites pick the prototype to pieces and reassemble it, resulting in an equally important work of art.
Lou Reed is a stark enigma that just keeps going, ever-changing. As a younger angst-driven star in 1974, he evaded reporters’ questions with unabashed answers and stated nonchalantly that what was written about him was untrue. When a reporter asked him who he attributed the lies to, Reed responded, “journalists.” Cue laughter. He has been described as bohemian, old, cool, realistic, taciturn, a grouch. Yet through it all Reed has maintained the stamina as a prolific underground icon. As Reed once said, only he knows himself better than anyone.
Now in his sixties, Reed continues to reinvent himself as an art photographer with Romanticism, which features architecture and landscape images from his travels. The book is a departure from New York and Emotion in Action, his previous photograph collections of cityscapes. After the jump, peep images from the new book, along with ten interesting facts about Reed.
