Mixed Media :: Paste

Listening to My Life: Lost in the Shuffle

By Maura Johnston on 10:00 AM on March 10, 2010

For most of my music-consuming life, my collection has had an imposing physical component. I crammed huge racks of CDs into tiny dorm rooms and slightly less-cramped apartments. I scoured furniture stores for storage units that had shelves more than 12 inches deep. And I agonized over what to cull when I needed space for less essential items, like clothing or food. Visiting friends would always comment on the sheer bulk of music in my living space, as though they’d stopped by just to gawk at the alphabetically and chronologically organized spectacle.... read more

Randy Newman Burns On

By Nick Marino on 6:00 AM on March 5, 2010

In honor of Newman's 18th and 19th Academy Award nominations... read more

The Super-Impossible Brain-Busting Trip-Hop Quiz

By Nick Marino on 2:00 PM on March 3, 2010

In 2008, Portishead—one of pop music’s great sleeping giants—awoke from hibernation to deliver its first studio album in 11 years. Then late last year, snarling rapper Tricky reissued his 1995 classic Maxinquaye. February’s release of Heligoland, Massive Attack’s first new album in seven years, completes the unlikely resurgence of trip-hop—a genre that blew up in the early ’90s and almost instantly vanished, only to inch its way back into the public consciousness nearly 20 years later. Centered in the British harbor town of Bristol and revolving around these three artists, trip-hop was known for cinematic soundscapes, paranoid moods, scratchy rapping... read more

Kate Nash: In the Studio

By Justin Jacobs on 7:30 AM on January 13, 2010

"I wanted to be inspired by women," Nash says. "I wanted to mix The Supremes and Bikini Kill..." read more

Best of What's Next: Carrie Preston: Blood, Sweat and Twang

By Josh Jackson on 10:30 AM on November 23, 2009

Hometown: Macon, Ga. Film/Show: That Evening Sun, True Blood For Fans Of: Amy Adams, William Gay, vampires Hollywood is littered with young starlets who come out of nowhere, land a big role and suddenly get their images splayed across gossip pages and men’s magazines. But Carrie Preston’s ascent has been slow and steady. The 42-year-old has made the most of every role—first bit parts in films like Transamerica and The Stepford Wives, then guest spots on TV shows like Arrested Development and Sex and the City and, more recently, as Arlene Fowler on HBO’s vampire drama True Blood.... read more

The Master's Sputum: Unfinished Nabokov Novel Now Open to Examination

By Arthur Phillips on 10:30 AM on November 20, 2009

In 1962, prodded by an interviewer to share a glimpse of a first draft, novelist Vladimir Nabokov replied, “Only ambitious non-entities and hearty mediocrities exhibit their rough drafts. It is like passing around samples of one’s sputum.” Now, more than 30 years after his death, we have an opportunity—against Nabokov’s expressed wishes—to examine such a sample.... read more

Go Your Own Way: Norah Jones and The Swell Season Recover From Broken Hearts

By Kristina Feliciano and Kate Kiefer on 6:00 PM on November 18, 2009

Is The Fall a breakup record? “I think in a lot of ways it is, and in a lot of ways it isn’t,” says Norah Jones of the follow-up to 2007’s Not Too Late. Her split that year with longtime boyfriend Lee Alexander made the gossip pages, despite her silence on the subject. She has no intention of sharing her thoughts on the matter today, either, though she’s generous with the fries accompanying her hefty veggie burger at the East Village restaurant where we’ve met. “Will you have some?” she asks. “I won’t eat them all.”... read more

The Best TV Theme Music

By Josh Jackson on 12:30 PM on November 12, 2009

The little ditties that open TV shows keep growing littler and dittier, almost disappearing into Lost’s single sustained chord. The assumption may be that we’re just going to fast-forward through them anyway, but part of the charm of shows like Cheers, M*A*S*H and Sanford and Son was the musical intro. Fortunately, not everyone has given up on the theme song. Here are 10 current shows with tunes that make us put down the remote.... read more

Where Have All The Weird Girls Gone? Gone to the Big Screen, (Nearly) Every One

By Rachael Maddux on 2:30 PM on November 4, 2009

Her clothes aren’t right. Her old man doesn’t understand her. And her love life? Nonexistent to abysmal. She’s too cool for the nerds, too square for the cool kids. She’s the alterna-girl, one of television’s most beloved archetypes—and she’s in trouble.... read more