There’s a new Stephin Merritt compilation out this week — it’s called Obscurities, and its contents are just that, a selection of non-album tracks and outtakes from the early years of the Magnetic Fields main man’s career. It’s interesting listening, and it also got us thinking that these sorts of collections are becoming rarer these days — B-sides are, of course, a dying breed for the simple reason that people don’t release 45s or CD singles any more, and in this age of file-sharing and album leaks, most tracks end up seeing the light of day one way or another. It’s a shame, because getting unreleased tracks used to be a reason to buy a single, and some bands used to specialize in putting out fantastic B-sides. Anyway, here’s our selection of B-sides/rarities/outtakes/otherwise unreleased-track compilations that actually deserve your attention. What did we miss?

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This week saw the release of the music video for “Otis,” Kanye West and Jay-Z’s Otis Redding-sampling single from their new album Watch the Throne, and all their jocular tomfoolery got us to thinking about the other gents we know who have teamed up to bring us great duets, bro-on-bro style. Because after all, no girl will ever love you as well as your homeboy, right? Right. From the wonderfully cheesy to the just plain wonderful, we’ve collected some of our favorite all-man duets in music history here (you can also check out our feature on classic lady-on-lady musical collaborations, if we’ve gotten you in the mood). Click through to take a listen to our picks, and let us know which of your favorites we’ve missed after the jump!

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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: Cruella de Vil, of Dodie Smith’s The Hundred and One Dalmatians.

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One of the most depressing things about the whole sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll mythology is how persistent and pervasive it remains in 2011. We don’t buy into hands-over-ears “Just say no” sanctimony here, but equally, there’s something sad about the fact that musicians still buy into Baudelarian mythology about drugs driving creativity. Equally, however, there’s the  uncomfortable fact that plenty of musicians have a) made great music while on drugs and b) made mediocre music after going clean. Here at Flavorpill, we have a theory about this — that musicians’ drug-taking coincides with the early stages of their career, and they often get clean at about the same stage they run out of ideas. But clearly, this isn’t always the case — so join us after the jump as we put this theory to the test by looking at ten artists who’ve been very, very bad, then eventually got clean, and evaluate their work before and after the change. The results are… interesting.

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This week over at HTML Giant, David Fishkind writes about his summer job as a farm hand and how he began listening to Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy on his iPod in order to deal with the monotony that comes with moving piles of dirt around. Richard Poe (aka Gul Evek in Star Trek: The Next Generation) reads from McCarthy’s novel, Fishkind writes, “slowly in an ambiguous old man accent, altering his voice slightly for different characters. He made The Kid sound inquisitive and defensive and The Judge powerful and funny.” He continues, “Blood Meridian put a lot of things in context for me. When I felt fatigued, at least I’d gotten seven hours of sleep instead of riding a horse through the night to avoid bloodthirsty Apaches.”

Do you ever listen to audiobooks at work, readers? I used to listen to David Sedaris read from his novels, but I could never get any work done, and my constant laughter embarrassed me. Same for Ben Karlin’s essay collection, Things I’ve Learned From Women Who’ve Dumped Me, (e.g., Lesson #43: Don’t Enter a Karaoke Contest Near Smith College: You Will Lose to Lesbians). I’ve also tried Nick Cave reading The Death of Bunny Munroe, which took all the lasciviousness out of it and added some strange element I can’t quite put our finger on. And there’s always the other famous Sedaris, Amy, whose clear, homey delivery on I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence will always alarm me. What about you, dear reader? What audiobooks do you love? Who was the narrator, and how did the voice or tone alter your appreciation of the work?

1. Today in Sarah Palin news: The state of Alaska will release 24,000 pages of its former governor’s emails to members of the press who have requested them (note: they’ll have to pay the shipping fees for the five boxes, which weigh 55 pounds apiece). Last night in Sarah Palin news: She took a break from her patriotic bus tour to sit down for a slice of pizza with Donald Trump.

2. Thurston Moore told NME last night that Sonic Youth will be getting together later this year to record new material. As for their recent time off? “We made the decision to have a good solid year of not doing too much as a band,” he explains. “We just wanted to regenerate.”

3. Former sitcom writer Ken Levine (Cheers, M.A.S.H., Frasier) has come out against Roseanne Barr’s recent piece in New York magazine, saying that she “treated people like shit” and was “endlessly combative.” Barr says that he just loathes women. Meanwhile, Laurie Gelman, the first female writer-producer to work on Roseanne, is on Team Levine, and claims that Barr’s actually the sexist one. Barr says Gelman is just mad because she isn’t funny. Who to believe? [via Vulture]

4. Jesse Eisenberg may be reuniting with his The Squid and The Whale director Noah Baumbach; the film, which will also star Naomi Watts, tells the story of “a 40-ish childless couple that begins feeling alienated from their friends as those friends start to procreate, and strike up an unlikely friendship with a younger couple.” [via LAT]

5. This first look at the puppet from Guillermo Del Toro and The Jim Henson Company’s upcoming Pinocchio movie is definitely the creepiest thing you’ll see all day — especially when you remember that Nick Cave is doing the film’s soundtrack.

Bonus link: A Chanel bag made out of hand-stitched sheets of beef jerky

If you’re like us, you’re sick to death of hearing about Charlie Sheen and his appetite for seven-gram rocks. And anyway, while Hollywood has had its fair share of drug-fueled idiocy over the years – remember Gary Busey snorting cocaine off his dog? – the world of music is still the home of the world’s greatest narcotic-powered nutjobs (as Sammy Hagar’s recent insistence that he’d been abducted by aliens reminded us). Rock ‘n’ roll and drugs have long been associated with one another, and some of the tawdriest moments of the last few decades have come when the two have combined to disastrous effect. Here, then, is a catalog of 10 of the most memorable moments of drug-related lunacy in rock. Some are hilarious, some are tragic, and none should be tried at home.

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There’s been a bit of a Radiohead theme here this week, and the talk of Thom Yorke’s solo projects got us thinking about how much better the band turned out to be than anyone could possibly have ever expected on the evidence of their debut album. The shift between Pablo Honey and The Bends is one of music’s greatest leaps forward, and the success of the latter represented vindication for a band who’d staked everything on determinedly not making anything that sounded like another “Creep.” There’s always an element of risk in such creative left turns, clearly – no one wants to end up looking like Style Council-era Paul Weller, or making an album as indescribably dreadful as Chris Cornell’s Scream – but when such reinventions come off well, they make for some of music’s most memorable moments. Here’s 12 of the best.

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Collaborations are a risky business. For every “Where the Wild Roses Grow” or “Candy,” there’s 100 abominations like “Dancing in the Streets.” It’s easy enough to make lists of musical collaborations that stink up the stereo, but occasionally, just occasionally, there’s an pairing that works against all odds. With Nick Cave & UNKLE’s “Money and Run” getting released this week, here’s a mixtape of cross-genre or otherwise unlikely combinations that produced unexpected gold.

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Championed by Nick Cave and Brian Eno and drawing noirish comparisons to early PJ Harvey, British siren Anna Calvi takes a widescreen approach on her stunning debut album.

Calvi, who is half English and half Italian, eschews the de rigeur retro blues of modern English pop in favor of a more cinematic palette. She covered Edith Piaf’s “Jezebel” as her debut single, cites Morricone among her influences, plays stirring flamenco guitar, and revels in the visual aesthetics of Quentin Tarantino and David Lynch.

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