This week, VH1 released their list of the 100 Greatest Songs of the ’00s, and as you might imagine, we disagree. Unsurprisingly, the list is heavily skewed towards the pop end of the spectrum, but even in that world, we were confused by a few of the tracks that made the top 100. Mystikal’s “Shake Ya Ass”? That terrible Evanescence song? Creed? Miley Cyrus but no Radiohead? Luckily, VH1′s top 10 is relatively respectable (we totally accept “Crazy in Love” as the best pop song of the decade, at least on this list), but that doesn’t mean we’re satisfied with it. To quell our snobbish balking (and present another view of the last decade), we decided to put together an alternative top 10 songs of the ’00s, limiting ourselves to tracks that didn’t even make VH1′s 100. Click through to see our picks, and feel free to let us know which songs we totally should have chosen in the comments.
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: A.A. Milne’s most bounciest character, Tigger.
Monday is the 4th of July, and among all the parades and flag-waving, it’s a chance to maybe think about what this country is and what its ideals represent. The American Dream — both the great shining vision and its dark underbelly — has been a powerful motif in literature over the years, dissected and discussed in works like The Great Gatsby, Death of a Salesman, The Grapes of Wrath, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,and many more. It’s also been a recurrent subject for songwriters, both as an ideal to which to aspire and a myth to be debunked. Here’s a mixtape that looks at both ends of the spectrum, and everywhere in between.
Sometimes, dear readers, an article comes around that is so irksome, so bothersome, so flat out wrong that we feel compelled to offer a correction. Such was the case this week when MTV Clutch released their “Indie Rock Guide to Rap,” a list that compared figures in the rap world to popular indie rock bands, presumably because there’s no way you might have both Wiz Khalifa and the Arcade Fire on your iPod. It confused us from the get-go, since rap is all about swagger, lyricism, and showmanship and indie rock centers around DIY lo-fi scuzz. But what really sent it over the edge was that many of the comparisons — we’re looking at you, Lady Gaga — aren’t even remotely indie. And so, without further ranting, our corrected version of rappers to indie rockers. Disagree? Leave your corrections in the comments.
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: Maurice Sendak’s ultimate wild child, Max.
Record label EMI published the results today of a charity auction it held earlier this month to raise money for tsunami relief funds in Japan. There was plenty of interesting material to be had, although it was, of course, all well out of our price range – but if you happened to have a spare $10k sitting around, you could have snapped up signed copies of David Bowie’s full back catalog, while $6,744 would have gotten you Billy Corgan’s handmade “Zero” t-shirt. The news got us thinking about other band paraphernalia we’d love to get our hands on – read on to see our selection, and let us know what you’d like on your mantelpiece. Read More »
We’re not ones to bitch and moan here, but we did read a feature published a few days back (we’re not going to say where) about the bands who have allegedly defined the musical landscape in the years after Nirvana. It was a silly concept to begin with -– Nirvana were important, sure, but it’s hard to see why they constituted some sort of cultural year zero –- and made worse by the fact that the list included such luminaries as, um, Coldplay, Muse, and Dave Matthews Band. And, it has to be said, not one band whose chief creative force is a black person or a woman. Anyway, the whole sorry business did get us thinking about artists who have been truly influential over the last decade or so. So here’s our riposte to that publication that shall remain nameless: ten artists who’ve shaped some of the most important and interesting musical trends that have emerged in recent years.
Today at Flavorpill, we were impressed by this sculpture in front of the New York Public Library, which was created from 25,000 classic Dr. Seuss books in honor of Read Across of America. We downloaded Animal Collective’s free mixtape, which they put together to mark the ATP they’re curating in May. We wished we lived in Sedgwick, Maine, the first town in the US to pass into law their right to produce and sell local foods of their choosing, without the oversight of state or federal regulation. We imagined what Ernest Hemingway’s reviews on Yelp might have sounded like (A sample: “I met a woman who said she had been to Pinkberry. ‘What the hell is that,’ I said, and she laughed but said nothing.”). We were surprised by how many non-Harry Potter films have more than four Harry Potter wizards in their respective casts. We discovered that two of the drunkest cities in America can be found in Hawaii — and the remaining member of the top three is Fargo, North Dakota. We watched Pixar animator Nick Pitera’s one-man Disney movie. And finally, we wondered why Woody Allen would get in a boxing ring with a kangaroo.
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: Ophelia, the saddest girl in Denmark.
There is something endlessly fascinating about seeing members of our favorite bands wearing the T-shirts of other acts. Sure, these wardrobe choices may sometimes be ironic. But for the most part, musicians seem to wave other musicians’ flags for exactly the same reasons we do: to proclaim our undying fandom. And it’s always exciting to see that someone whose music we’re into shares some facet of our musical taste. After the jump, we’ve collected 20 great photos of our favorite icons — Joan Jett, Kurt Cobain, Thurston Moore, Jay-Z — wearing other bands’ T-shirts.
