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.

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In her CD Covers Tribute series, Amsterdam-based illustrator Elena Lloveria pays homage to famous bands by recreating record cover art with a twee twist. The seven-piece collection commemorates beloved covers such as The Beatles’ A Hard Days Night, Michael Jackson’s Bad, and Bjork’s Homogenic, depicting the musicians as doe-eyed anime characters with oversize heads. While Lloveria’s chibi-inspired style complements some of the artists in the series, Marilyn Manson and Prince look creepier than ever after their kawaii makeovers. Check out the covers, and decide whether you’re charmed or repulsed, after the cut.

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Consistency is the watchword in the world of music criticism. We as listeners love it when a band is at its best, but we aren’t truly happy until the musicians prove their worth again and again and again. And then maybe just once more still, after the lead singer emerges from a nasty coke habit and the band hasn’t been in the same room for three years. Of course, we forgive our favorite bands for the blemishes in their legacies every single day, because the statistics majors inside all of us understand that consistency is no small feat. But what of the bands whose discographies are marked by the exact opposite — those alternating, dramatic peaks and valleys in album and even song quality? Why, we’re glad you asked! We’ve compiled eight musical wildcards that have kept us on our toes with each note they’ve produced they put out after the jump. Be sure to join us in some collective head-scratching by giving us your own suggested additions to the list in the comments.

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Remember those side-by-side concerts that we told you that Weezer and the Flaming Lips were doing? Well, the first one took place last night at New Jersey’s PNC Bank Arts Center, and as River Cuomo tweeted, “Rolling in the bubble was a dream come true for me.” Thanks to a tip from Vulture, we’ve got footage of both bands playing “She Don’t Use Jelly,” with Cuomo taking the lead vocals. Click through to watch it now, but be warned: you might find yourself wishing you’d bought tickets to see them play tonight at Jones Beach.

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Today at Flavorpill, we were freaked out by this owl imprint which was supposedly left behind after the bird crashed into a window in the UK. We watched Mario climb a vine for an insanely long amount of time — but not the full 10 hours. We found out a few reasons why even in the digital age, people still flock to Times Square when big news stories break. We were surprised to read that Roseanne Barr hates movies but loves Nancy Grace. We wondered if we should believe Bruce Campbell’s tweeted reports that Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead remake is really happening. We were intrigued by the news that Weezer will be hosting a cruise to Cozumel this winter. We mourned some of the lost projects and unproduced screenplays of Terrence Malick. We looked at the internet’s impact on the ’90s rave scene in America. And finally, this fascinating infographic displaying the most frequent names of film leads in top grossing movies left us feeling kind of depressed. Unless you’re a James or a John, you’re kind of screwed.

1. The Flaming Lips and Weezer are planning to play two New York City-area shows together — as in side by side, trading off songs back and forth for the entire length of each concert. We don’t know about you you, but we’d love to see this trend catch on. [via Brooklyn Vegan]

2. The popular 2007 documentary King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is going to be remade as a mockumentary. Director Seth Gordon explains: “I’ve done some work on Modern Family and The Office and have worked in this doc style, and so that inspired me to say, instead of doing a traditional narrative feature script, what if we did the remake in the doc style? What doors would that open? What opportunities? What additional story could we tell? And that’s essentially the approach we took.” [via The Playlist]

3. “Mr. Koolhaas has created an eloquent architectural statement about China’s headlong race into the future and, more generally, life in the developed world at the beginning of the 21st century. It captures our era much as the great works of the early Modernists did theirs.” – The New York Times looks at the headquarters of China Central Television designed by Rem Koolhaas

4. Is the first teaser poster for The Dark Knight Rises everything that you’d hope it would be? While we know that we’re looking at the destruction of Gotham City, all we can see is a different Christopher Nolan flick — Inception. [via Slashfilm]

5. What do you think of TNT’s first look teaser for its Dallas reboot? We find it interesting that the primetime soap, which is scheduled to premiere next summer, includes several of the actors from the original series, but given how poorly Melrose Place did on The CW, that’s probably not enough to keep it afloat. [via TVLine]

Bonus link: 15 Cartoon And TV Characters Voiced By The Opposite Sex

If you’ve ever wondered what your favorite literary characters might be listening to while they save the world/contemplate existence/get into trouble, or hallucinated a soundtrack to go along with your favorite novels, well, us too. But wonder no more! Here, we sneak a look at the hypothetical iPods of some of literature’s most interesting characters. What would be on the personal playlists of Holden Caulfield or Elizabeth Bennett, Huck Finn or Harry Potter, Tintin or Humbert Humbert? Something revealing, we bet. Or at least something danceable. Read on for a cozy reading soundtrack, character study, or yet another way to emulate your favorite literary hero. This week: Philip Roth’s lusty bachelor, Alexander Portnoy.

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We rejoiced at the news, earlier this week, that VH1 is bringing back Pop-Up Video, which we’ve missed ever since it went off the air in 2002. In addition to the pop and rock videos the original provided fascinating factoids about, the new version of the show will feature hip-hop videos for the first time. After the jump, check out our list of wonderful, bizarre, and downright baffling post-Pop-Up- Video-era music videos that we hope to see the show explain — and be sure to leave your own suggestions in the comments.

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Word on the internet this week is that a leaked version of David Bowie’s lost 2001 record Toy has slipped out into the wild and is now doing the round on file-sharing sites. Toy is one of many albums over the course of musical history that for one reason or another got delayed, shelved or otherwise waylaid. There’s often a mythology that grows up around such albums, and although the story can sometimes outweigh the actual music – after all, often albums get canned for a reason — there are some that warrant the attention they attract. Here’s our pick of 10 of music’s best lost records — or the ones that sound like they would be the best, if only we could hear them…

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The term “concept album” is generally a pejorative one these days, conjuring up images of earnest ’70s prog bands and songs about Tolkien. This isn’t entirely fair — there have certainly been some dreadful concept albums made over the years, but there have also been some perfectly good ones. Either way, here at Flavorpill HQ, we got to thinking that concept albums are usually united by one other feature: they’re pretty geeky. It takes a certain sort of band to visualize a grand narrative arc and/or sonic theme running through an entire record, and it’s not the type who’ll knock out three-chord ditties about fancying the girl next door. So it was that we got to thinking about the geekiest concept albums ever, ten of which we’ve compiled here. Some of these are pretty awesome, and some of them are… well, pretty awful, to be honest. But they’re all united by an unrepentant intellectualism that you can only admire.

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