We recently heard a rumor that Lana Del Rey and Marilyn Manson are dating. Gasp! Whether or not it’s true, we’ve decided to take the opportunity to look back at the weirdest and most unlikely couples in the music industry. Though we know our understanding of celebrities is limited — we see them as figures crafted by marketing teams and stylists, and their appearances might not totally match their true natures — they do seem to have a knack for twisting themselves into seemingly bizarre romantic pairings, whether for media attention, true love, or just boredom, we’ll never know. Click through to see ten of the most unlikely celebrity couples with at least one musical member, at let us know if we’ve missed the one that shocks you most in the comments.
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Barcelona-based illustrator Berto Martínez creates beautiful portraiture, and his “celebrity” gallery recently caught our eye. His subjects range from film stars and musicians to well-know writers. Martínez often combines several different figures in his compositions. The organic collages fit nicely together, providing a creative snapshot of pop culture moments in time. We were glad to see Michael J. Fox hanging out with Mark-Paul Gosselaar and friends. Visit Martínez’s illustrations of famous figures like Amy Winehouse and Quentin Tarantino past the break.
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We’ve all seen the trick where you hold a book or album cover with a famous face on it in front of your own, but this bizarre project from Swiss-American visual artist and composer Christian Marclay, which we spotted over at Design You Trust, takes the concept of physical trompe l’oeil collage a bit further. Marclay mixes together album cover art to create weird, assembled figures and stitches them together with string, creating a true Frankenstein’s monster out of each. Some are stranger than others (Bowie in a tube top and thigh high tights isn’t that off, after all, and we’ve always known that Michael had some killer legs on him), but they all achieve a weird sort of beauty in all the madness. Now all we’d like is to hear a sonic medley of the albums used to create each figure.
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Just about every major movie that comes out these days — and not just the family fare — ends up producing some kind of commemorative doll. Same with any platinum-selling pop star. But have you ever noticed how little these Barbie-like creations tend to resemble their subjects? Well, so has Noel Cruz, an artist who repaints the dolls so that they uncannily recreate the faces of celebrities and their characters. See a perfectly preserved mid-’80s Madonna, Angelina Jolie at her steamiest, and even Harry Potter, after the jump. Then, make sure you visit Cruz’s website to check out more of his work.
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Readers with a fondness for gaming may remember the pandemonium that ensued when Sony’s PlayStation Network was hacked last April. Some 50,000 files were taken from Sony’s internal servers, including the personal information of PSN subscribers and (possibly) their credit card details. Now it’s emerged that something else was stolen from Sony’s servers around the same time: a bunch of unreleased tracks by Michael Jackson. As was the case with their initial disclosure of the security breach, Sony hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with information about the theft — they’ve only confirmed that “a number of tracks” were stolen — but it’s yet another blow to the company, whose security policies have been under scrutiny since the initial breach (especially as it turned out they were storing users’ passwords as plain text.) It’s better news for Michael Jackson fans who’ve been waiting for Sony to deign to release the tracks it’s sitting on — if the decidedly questionable material on posthumous cash-in compilation Michael wasn’t enough for you, then you might be getting more unreleased MJ soon, whether Sony likes it or not. [via Ars Technica]
Ah, the music industry. It’s its own worst enemy, really, isn’t it? Not a week after cuddlesome RIAA overlord Cary Sherman further endeared himself to the general public with a gloriously paranoid SOPA-related ejection of the toys from his corporate pram, Sony’s UK arm reminded everyone of just what loveable folk major labels are by responding to Whitney Houston’s death by jacking up the price of her albums. Nice one, Sony UK. It took two days for the company to bow to general public contempt and reverse the price increase, issuing a statement to Billboard that blamed the issue on “an internal mistake.” Whatever happened, the whole sorry affair is far from the music industry’s most shameless posthumous cash-in. Browse a brief hall of infamy after the jump.
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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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Wilco’s new video for “Dawned on Me” combines some of the things dearest to our hearts: Jeff Tweedy and old black-and-white Popeye shorts. It’s a clip that’s both fun and visually interesting, not to mention the first hand-drawn Popeye cartoon that’s appeared in the last 30-something years. But Wilco is far from the first band to hit upon the idea of including animation in their music videos. Cartoons in videos stretch back from the days of a-ha’s “Take On Me” through Björk and Radiohead. After the jump, check out ten of the best animated music videos we’ve ever seen — tell us about your personal favorites in the comments.
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Politicians and celebrities are the most photographed people in the world, so it figures that somewhere there would exist pictures of both politicians and celebrities together. Some of these chance encounters are less glamorous or remarkable than they are downright weird. After the jump, in honor of the 2012 campaign season, we’ll take a look at some meet-ups between famous figures that are guaranteed to make you do a double take.
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Today at Flavorpill, we were surprised to find out that fake boy band 2gether of “U + Me = Us (Calculus)” fame would be reuniting for an MTV movie. We thought this indecipherable post by Nick Douglas about our audience in his What Your Favorite Blog Says About You write-up was a letdown. We were beyond excited to find out that David Cronenberg has been writing a novel. We got spooky with this video of a giant air-powered spider. We were curious about this Jim Jarmusch produced movie starring Chloe Sevigny and Mark Webber, written by the Go The F*ck to Sleep guy. We loved Trailers From Hell’s Cary Grant playlist. We got some tips about stocking our pantry. We learned that Michael Jackson was a Benny Hill fan. We discovered this bizarre-o AlphaNail video, thanks to Art Fag City. We wanted to buy one of these Stephen Colbert action figures. We thoroughly enjoyed this Jim Henson robot video. And finally, we debunked 10 popular myths and misconceptions along with C.G.P. Grey. The part about the spiders won’t help us sleep tonight.
