Fifteen Favorite Animal Songs by Animal Bands
Today at 5 p.m. EST, I'll be popping into Etsy's incredibly cool Virtual Labs for an event called Shop Live. If you can snag one of the 150 spots in the room (registration is required, but so worth it) you can join me as I dish about Paste's picks for the very best animal-inspired goods on Etsy—mostly handmade stuff for ladies, guys and kids, but I'll throw in a few vintage picks, too. I'm so incredibly excited about the Etsy folks asking me to be a part of this, so I made of some of the best animal songs by... read more
20 More Musicians To Follow On Twitter
Since last we scanned the Twitterverse for our favorite musicians, Trent Reznor has given up the Twitter ghost, but plenty of other musicians have begun updating in his place. These are just some of my favorites. 1. Camera Obscura - camera_obscura_ This Scottish band has released one of my favorite albums this year. Best recent tweet: Just been to collect my bike. Sometimes, cycling in Glasgow is a lot like the escape scene at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark. K Runner-up: Amsterdam to glasgow. 90 mins spent in full view of a filthy urchin feasting gleefully on... read more
Five Songs With Deceptive French Titles
To make a sweeping generalization, certain Americans have never been huge fans of the French. Things worsened after 9/11, and faster than you could say "freedom fries," many people were boycotting anything that even seemed even slightly related to the country. But this didn't deter some bands—from France, Montreal or the U.S.—from showing a little (deserved) francophone pride in their music. Below are five songs with French titles and English lyrics to help you support anglo-franco friendliness:... read more
Fifteen Songs About The Body Parts I Might Sell Just To Own Specimen's Little Horn Speakers
Right this minute, I am listening to music on my laptop's built-in speakers. I cycled through endless pairs of $10 Target earbuds until Santa Claus brought me a half-decent pair of Bose headphones a few years back, my iPod dock of choice was purchased at a store called Linens & Things, and I don't know my treble from a hole in the ground. Needless to say, I am not an audiophile. So why am I so transfixed by the Little Horn Speakers unveiled this week by Chicago-based custom guitar and amp shop Specimen? Well, just look at them. They're gorgeous.... read more
21 Songs About Booze
Above: Prohibition, what a waste. Angelo Cammarata, 95, is the world's longest-running bartender. He's literally been serving since a few minutes after prohibition ended in 1933—he's even in the Guinness Book and Jim Beam's Bartender Hall of Fame for his longevity slinging suds. Of course, there's more to being a barkeep than pouring drinks. As this man has presided over his family business—no-frills neighborhood bar Cammarata's Cafe in West View, Pa.—for the better part of the last century and into the new millennium, he's also been a friend and counselor to his devoted regulars. Now, Cammarata plans to retire, and... read more
Halloween II Vs. Halloween II, and Other Remakes with Sequels
By now, glitzy horror remakes have become a fact of life, like bad weather and Michael Bay (who, it’s worth noting, is a producer on many of the most egregious ones). There is the occasional surprise, but for the most part, the remakes are cynical-but-harmless attempts to cash in on an old brand name one last time.Except, of course, when it’s not one last time. What happens when a remake of a movie that already has a sequel gets a sequel of its own? All kinds of things! For a particularly crazed example, consider Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, which opens... read more
My Top Five Top Chefs
Top Chef: Las Vegas is going to be the best season of all. We’ve got a brother-brother rivalry, one of the rudest contestants yet, and to top it all off, a crier. (By the way, who knew Sin City was such a culinary mecca?) It’s hard to determine the strongest chefs this early in the game, but I’ve already picked out my favorite contestants. ... read more
File-Sharing: An Ode to Our Favorite File Extensions
The Pirate Bay, everybody’s favorite free-download site, has just run afoul of the Swedish legal system. (And when it comes to the law, you do not want to cross the Swedes.) The site is still operational, or at least it was when we wrote this blog post, but the future of torrent-style downloads is at least a little bit imperiled. Which is a shame—.torrent is one of our favorite file extensions! ... read more
25 Indie Films to Catch This Fall
Sure, we can't wait for Where the Wild Things Are and The Road. But not all of the movies worth watching this fall will be hitting the megaplex. Here's our guide to 25 indie films to catch before Christmas.... read more
Ten Fantastic Songs Brought to You By Books
Anyone decrying the death of books has only to check out the music world to see that literature is still alive and kicking, even if the authors of said work aren’t. For example, just recently we spoke to Ben Gibbard and Jay Farrar about their collaborative album based solely on beat-poet and alt-culture icon Jack Kerouac’s novel Big Sur. While the duo’s record, the October-release One Quick Move or I’m Gone, is an ode to the written word, it’s hardly the first. Here are 10 fantastic songs brought to you by books: ... read more
Slow & Steady: The Very Best Sloth Stuff On Etsy
Hey, you know what are really terrifying? Giant ground sloths! If you've ever been to the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, perhaps you had the same reaction to the skeletons of these ancient beasts as I did, which was to promptly turn around and walk slowly out of the room—eyes glazed over in horror, trained straight down at your LA Gear sneakers—and then to have horrific flashbacks for the rest your life. I'm sure the researchers who, just last week, discovered the giant underwater cave filled with prehistoric human artifacts and also dismembered giant sloth skeletons were pleased as punch... read more
Easy Listening: A Playlist that Proves Metal isn't as Inaccessible as You Think
For many, "metal" might as well be a swear word. People wrinkle their noses at the term, and treat it like some wholly unapproachable genre fraught with Cookie Monster vocals, overwhelming guitar riffs, etc. "Yeah, yeah, I know metal," you might say. But with all due respect, you probably don't. And neither do I, really—I'm only in the early stages of an appreciation I can tell is going to take a while to fully develop. Metal is a complex beast, far too varied to be pigeonholed into a simple description. Its sub-genres, from doom to thrash to sludge to so... read more
Barney Frank, the First Amendment and Dumb America: Songs About Nazism and Communism—and a Brief Explanation of the Difference Between the Two
U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., held a town-hall meeting at a senior center in Dartmouth, Mass., this past Tuesday to discuss healthcare reform. During the meeting, a young woman stood up with a poster of President Barack Obama, upon which she'd painted a Hitler mustache, and said to Frank (in regard to Obama's endorsement of govt.-run healthcare) "Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy? As Obama has expressly supported this policy. ..."Watching this circus, I was dumbfounded—on one hand it was hilarious; on the the other, depressing. Politics aside, how in the world could an adult—even if we... read more
Top Ten Wedding Recessional Songs
Since you guys have had so many suggestions for our first-dance and father/daughter songs (keep 'em coming!), I’m enlisting your help once again—we're looking for the perfect recessional music for our wedding. The song should be upbeat and celebratory since it will play at the end of the ceremony, right after we’re pronounced husband and wife. Yippee! Here are my top ten, though I’m not in love with any of them. You can listen below. Which ones do you like? Got any better ideas? I’m happy to report that the Beatles are no longer excluded. ... read more
The New Ghostface Record Makes Us Sad
When we got word not long ago that a new Ghostface Killah record was coming, we got excited. This is the mad-genius rapper, after all, who gave us one of the last great New York hip-hop records (2000’s Supreme Clientele), plus the brain-busting masterstroke of 2006’s Fishscale. ... read more
Four New Fall 2009 TV Shows We Already Love
I'm not what you would call a casual watcher of television. I don't flip through channels, catching a random episode of a new show. If I'm going to start watching a series, I'm going to start from the beginning and either give up quickly or catch every single episode. This summer, I've been devouring The Wire and Mad Men, plus I still want to start Dexter and Breaking Bad. And I'm looking forward to Lost, The Office, Chuck and 30 Rock returning. But while we're working on our Fall TV issue coming out this October, I've watched several pilot episodes... read more
Let's Get Ready to Rumble: The Best WWF/WWE Entrance Songs
I can't say that I particularly follow the WWF (now known as the WWE) anymore. But a few weeks ago, I noticed former WWE Champion, Brock Lesnar was now a UFC Champion and I couldn't help but become nostalgic for fantastical time when sports entertainment didn't take itself so seriously. So I decided to take a trip down memory lane, yearning to reacquaint myself with the personas, the over the top storylines, and, of course, the musical moments that the affliction-clad world of UFC seems to lack. ... read more
Get Moving: Fourteen Songs By Which To Pack And Unpack
If you live in the Atlanta area and are wondering why it's 90 °F and ferociously thunderstorming all weekend, well, that's because I'm moving. Hooray! Hopefully my trusty helpers (read: parents and boyfriend) and I will make it through all the packing and unpacking without getting totally drenched and/or struck by lightning—and then I can commence to getting my new place in order with the musical assistance of this moving-day playlist.... read more
Johnny Depp, Russell Crowe, Keanu Reeves, Oh My! Ten Film Star Music Projects That are Way Worse Than Ryan Gosling's Dead Man's Bones
If you've been poking around lately on those music blogs they have on the interwebs, chances are you've heard a thing or two about the new ANTI- signing, Dead Man's Bones, which also happens to be the band of Half Nelson/The Notebook/bunch of other stuff movie star, Ryan Gosling. Now, the music of Dead Man's Bones doesn't move me in any particular way, good or bad; it's just kind of there. "Gothic folk," as they say, complete with a kinda-creepy children's choir. However, it does actually sound like music that would be released on ANTI-. Which is to... read more
Fear of Flying: The Most Inappropriate Songs for In-Flight Radio
A few weeks ago, I was invited to speak on some panels at Diversafest in Tulsa, Okla. On my flight back home to Atlanta, both my iPod and laptop were dead, so I decided to check out some in-flight radio. I surfed the dozen or so stations until—as we reached cruising altitude—I settled on one with a ’50/early-’60s golden-oldies format. After tunes from Dion & the Belmonts, The Platters and—if I remember correctly—The Shangri-Las, what should come on but Santo & Johnny’s classic 1959 instrumental “Sleepwalk.” Now, normally, I love “Sleepwalk”—it’s one of the most wistful, nostalgic, emotive pieces... read more
The 50 Best Movies on Netflix Instant
The 25 Best Movies of 2012 (So…
The 50 Best Movies of 2011
The 30 Best TV Shows on Netflix…
The 50 Best Movies of the Decade…
