[Editor's note: For the next two Fridays, Flavorwire will be counting down our 20 most popular features of 2010. This post, which originally ran on January 19, 2010, comes in at position number 16.] Inspired by Lauren Leto’s “Stereotyping People By Their Favorite Author,” we realized the incredible potential for a mercilessly judgmental list of indie band stereotypes. It is a common fact that Cormac McCarthy readers are men who don’t eat cream cheese, but what about those who listen to The XX on repeat and The Flaming Lips on hallucinogens? They need labels, too. After the jump, in collaboration with contributor Jeff Luppino-Esposito, we lay down the reckless assumptions.
Noa Emberson is a graphic designer based out of Honolulu. He recently took on a self-initiated project commemorating twenty five of his favorite indie albums with beautifully-crafted and informative posters. Lucky for us, his design aesthetic is just as sharp as his taste in music. Click through to view a few of our favorites.
Musicians are by no means monogamous. Often their loyalty is not to the single entity of a band, but rather to the grander scheme of the things, the music itself. Take Gorillaz (by way of Blur) frontman Damon Albarn, who just announced that he’s going solo again on the side under the guise of Prince Barry. Or Thom Yorke branching out from Radiohead with his once anonymous band who we now know as Atoms for Peace. After the jump, we’ve compiled a playlist of our favorite tracks from some recent indie side projects. As always, leave a comment and let us know who we left out.
A new year brings newly flipped leaves, new beginnings. However, this is a new decade. Does that mean ten different flipped leaves then? Ten spiritual rebirths? Or maybe that kind of thinking is just too long-term and you prefer living in the present, like us. And just like any other voracious early adopters, you need to satisfy your indie fix now. That’s what we thought, ergo, your latest Flavorpill Mixtape. Here’s to having your own private listening party with 10 new releases and many a reincarnation to help spur your own “winter awakening.”
To celebrate its 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. Inexplicably, amongst these celebrity lists is one put together by the Vatican.
The holy city state explains that their playlist is: “A perfect mix of classical, world and contemporary music. The genres are very different form each other, but all these artists share the aim to reach the heart of good minded people.” Sounds nice, but this can’t really be what’s playing in the Popemobile.
With Wes Anderson’s film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox coming out this weekend, every Zissou-loving, B.F.G.-worshiping and Bill Murray-enthusiast cinema go-er is salivating with anticipation. Anderson, a master of whimsical dark comedy, chose to adapt the beloved children’s story into his first-ever animated feature film.
The medium? Stop motion. A meticulous animation technique that links hundreds of individual photos to create an illusion of movement, stop motion has been around for decades and continues to mesmerize viewers. In the past few years, the music industry has grown hip to this classic technique and has begun employing it in many a music video. Some of our favorites are after the jump.
Total bedlam with a good soundtrack, that’s Lollapalooza. The last time I was in Chicago’s Grant Park with this many people — estimates show 200,000 bought tickets — we’d all just voted out a malevolent Washington administration that was past its expiration date. This time the masses and I were there to see as many different bands as humanly possible during a three-day free-for-all. People may not have been crying tears of joy, but spirits were definitely high. It would be nice to think that the world is a gentler place now than it was last November, but it’s not exactly true. Instead, the Midwest’s main music festival just seemed to prove that we’re pretty good at ignoring hard times. As Perry Farrell himself said, Lollapalooza is recession proof. Read More »
We just got an email that The Dodos‘ new album Time To Die — which leaked earlier this month — is available digitally (and legally!) today at Amazon MP3 for just $2.99. The physical album is still due out on September 15th; the digital version hits other retailers next week. If you prefer to listen to the music before you throw down three bones, you can head over to TimeToDie.net for a high quality stream first. Read More »
Free MP3s are great, but they’re even better when they’re for new tracks from some of the bigger names in indie music. We also like to keep things fresh over here at Flavorpill, so we’ve also included a crop of new faces for your listening pleasure, too. Chances are you’ll probably end up liking them just as much — if not more. Click through for downloads from our last Viva Radio playlist, and be sure to check back and listen to the show itself. We update every week. Read More »
for just $2.99. The physical album is still due out on September 15th; the digital version hits other retailers next week. If you prefer to listen to the music before you throw down three bones, you can head over to 
