Academia and the music industry don’t seem like particularly compatible institutions. The former moves glacially slowly, the second feeds on an internet-stoked buzz cycle. Academics prize well-thought out hypotheses while musicians are all about, um, everything but that. But in spite of their differences, there are a whole host of musicians with higher degrees. Check out our list after the jump.

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Typography geek Greg Solenström recently paired black and white photos of Brooklyn with Akzidenz Grotesk font and Jay-Z and Lil Wayne’s “Hello Brooklyn 2.0″ for a fan made tribute that we think could work as an official video. Check it out after the jump, plus nine more of our favorite fan videos for artists like Radiohead, MGMT, and Grizzly Bear.

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We thought no one left unscathed after Stereotyping People by Their Favorite Indie Bands: Part 1. Fortunately, we were very, very wrong. Last time, we called out Vampire Weekend fans for their ever-subtle Pete & Pete pickup lines, but this time we’ve taken the invective even farther. (Well, hello, Sleigh Bells fans!) Again, in collaboration with Jeff Luppino-Esposito and in tribute to Internet genius Lauren Leto and her “Stereotyping People by Their Favorite Authors,” we rebel against the misguided notion that stereotyping isn’t an awesome idea.

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It’s hard waiting for the next Girl Talk album. We find ourselves wondering: What studio magic will he do to Ke$ha, not to mention Justin Bieber? People: His last release even predated the Lady Gaga explosion! Every night (okay, not every night) we dream of what might happen when Gregg Gillis meets “Bad Romance.”

But for now, although he plans to make another album, we only have those fantasies. Well, and our favorite new time waster: a site that lets you stream Girl Talk’s most recent record, 2008′s Feed the Animals, as a clickable list of samples Gillis is using scrolls by in real time. Think of it as musical footnotes, and check it out here.

Books spotlighted by publishers as their key titles come with balls of hype trailing behind them. But it seems like we’ve been hearing about David Shields’ barely-200-page treatise Reality Hunger for ages, and it was only released this past Tuesday.

Maybe it’s because Zadie Smith used the book as a crutch for insecure introspection about her own writing. Maybe it’s because it’s already become required reading in university spheres, galleys passed from one student to the next like an illicit hit of crack cocaine. I know I’ve already had spirited discussions about Reality Hunger with friends and critical colleagues. It’s hard to resist the urge to argue with the text, especially when Shields states his intention “to write the ars poetica for a burgeoning group of interrelated (but unconnected) artists in a multitude of forms and media…who are breaking larger and larger chunks of ‘reality’ into their work” right there on page one.

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Despite the hurricane-grade rain that lashed San Francisco earlier in the week, Day 1 of the third annual Treasure Island Music Festival dawned sunny and warm. Dan Deacon, joined onstage by a raucous crew of musicians and eccentrically-costumed dancers, led a demented carnival of a show that concluded with lines of fans dancing through each others tented arms.

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Photo credit: Liz Stanley

Yesterday’s JellyNYC Pool Party with Girl Talk, Max Tundra, and Wiz Khalifa was epic. Crowds were still waiting on line to get into the Williamsburg Waterfront as Gregg Gillis wrapped up his set — which featured crowd sourced dancers so raucous that they broke the stage, causing a temporary delay in the set. (There was also a funny moment a few minutes in when his all-access badge hit the space bar on his laptop…) More images of the rain-filled fun after the jump. Read More »

Previously the term “wanderlust” evoked one image in our mind: mushrooms. And, Bjork’s amazing 3-D music video for the track “Wanderlust” directed by Encyclopedia Pictura… which absolutely involved mushrooms. But now it’s our favorite new music festival, too. According to its website, Wanderlust is a new kind of fest that marries yoga and rock n’ roll. Situated in Lake Tahoe in a lush part of Northern California, there were tons of opportunities for eating fruit, shopping for hippie accessories, and going on a hike or two in spite of the surprisingly sweltering weather. Read More »

Free has a bit of a buzz about it these days — free drinks, free downloads, free lunch. In fact, the concept is so hot that Wired Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson wrote a book about it (Free: The Future of a Radical Price), and then digitally gave it away. But of all the “freemiums” and “freepstakes” out there, here at Flavorpill we’ve yet to come across something that’s more buzzworthy than Virgin Mobile FreeFest.

Going down on August 30 on the grounds of Baltimore’s Merriweather Post Pavilion, the free festival features an onslaught of new, old and unexpected acts, including Franz Ferdinand, Weezer, Public Enemy and Blink 182. Better yet: It’s for a damn good cause — a $5 suggested donation goes toward preventing youth homelessness, a rampant and too often ignored problem that more and more kids in America face each day. And if you act fast and do some volunteer work, you can earn “Free I.P.” tickets to the show.

Flavorpill got with Virgin Mobile’s Ron Faris to see what the hot fuss was about; here’s what he told us. Read More »

We’re back with your daily reminder of cool events happening tonight across the Flavorpillaverse. If you’d rather have this information delivered straight to your inbox each Tuesday, sign up for our Flavorpill City Guides.

• If you’re in New York: Celebrate everyone’s favorite activity at the Museum of Sex’s annual benefit for Planned Parenthood, with an open bar and DJ Donna D’Cruz spinning all night long. (Congrats to Craig, the winner of our contest.)

• If you’re in Los Angeles: Experimental composer Philip Glass and his Ensemble will be playing a selection tonight to flesh out several film works by Glass, accompanied by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Master Chorale.

• If you’re in San Francisco: There will be a screening of Brett Gaylor’s newest documentary, RiP: A Remix Manifesto, which features Girl Talk, and examines the legal and creative implications of making remixes and mash-ups.

• If you’re in Chicago: Stellastarr* with Wild Light and the Postmarks will be performing a concert tonight during the tour for their new album, Civilized.