As major labels seek to game the system, a battle over perception overwhelms independents and pressing plants The fire and spirit of independent music and DIY culture was forged on the culture of the major label feeder system — music that was made with an alternative audience in mind (before the…

A Dumb Job How is it possible that the inane institution of the anchorman has endured for more than 60 years? Photograph by CBS/Landov Some two months into Brian Williams’s six-month banishment from NBC for making stuff up, it’s not known whether he will ever return to the anchor chair at Nightly…

Chris Messina, left, and Rashida Jones star in the 2010 film, Monogamy. Oscilloscope Pictures 'Can love ever be plural?" asked the prominent, nine-language-speaking sex therapist Esther Perel at this month's TED Talk in Vancouver. Perel, who is also the author of Mating in Captivity, the…

‘Lumière! Inventing Cinema’ Institut Lumière PARIS — Back before Instagram and selfies, before home movies and Kodachrome — and long before the obsessive documentation and online sharing of every moment of our waking lives — there were two brothers from Lyon whose innovations opened the door to the…

Each year, the U.S. government tells Americans how much money the country spends on stuff, like houses, cars, and alcohol. Organizing this information by income, Josh Zumbrun at The Wall Street Journal produces this nice chart of spending on food, health care, and other categories. Share of Spending…

Backlash against Kanye’s headline slot reveals disturbing cultural subtext and offensive vitriol A few weeks back , Emily Eavis — co-organizer of Glastonbury, Britain’s largest music festival — announced that Chicago rapper, producer and singer Kanye West would headline the Pyramid Stage on the…

Frances Bean Cobain speaks publicly for the first time about her father in David Fricke's new cover story. David LaChapelle One summer a few years ago, Frances Bean Cobain worked as an intern in the New York offices of Rolling Stone . Frances – the daughter of Nirvana singer-guitarist Kurt Cobain…

John Darnielle has made his creative mark by exploring obsessions, extremities, intense emotional moments, and their aftermaths. Over nearly a quarter-century, his band the Mountain Goats have moved from solo-guitar-and-voice home tapes to elegant full-band albums featuring long-established cohorts…

Jump to As part of Polygon’s cover story on the history of developer Looking Glass , we’re looking at various projects and companies that spawned in Looking Glass’ wake. Here, we explore Gone Home developer The Fullbright Company. In 2013, The Fullbright Company released Gone Home . It’s set in a…

Photo: Maya Robinson and Photos by Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros and Twentieth Century Fox This post originally ran on April 8, 2015. We figured it was worth resurfacing before this weekend's release of Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation. When the trailer for the new Mission: Impossible film…

By Kabir Chibber April 5, 2015 Topics Russia Europe Print A photo of a sunset in Norway, near the town of Tromse, where the submarine base is located. By Kabir Chibber Quartz April 5, 2015 The Cold War-era facility now hosts Russian vessels linked to energy giant, Gazprom. During the Cold War ,…

When I was about 10 years old in the mid-1980s, I fell for The Monkees with a passion bordering on the pathological. I didn’t just compulsively re-watch reruns of their television show and listen to their songs: I was obsessed. I wanted to be them. At the risk of exposing the full extent of my…

Over the past decade and change, Don Hertzfeldt has quietly, tirelessly asserted himself as America’s most insatiably imaginative animator. Ever since his breakout effort, 2000’s “Rejected,” earned him a Best Animated Short Film Oscar nomination, Hertzfeldt has been quietly producing breathtaking…

Via Getty/Facebook/Twitter On March 30th, Trevor Noah was named successor to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show . On March 31, Noah found himself under fire for tweets he called " jokes that didn't land. " The situation underscored a facet of modern life most comedians are still struggling with - the…

Red Sox ownership on Tuesday revealed in a Globe exclusive that Fenway Park is an intolerable financial drain and it could be time to move the Olde Towne Team, be it to another area of the city, perhaps the suburbs, or to elsewhere in the country. “This is not a threat,’’ said the ownership group,…

Introduction: Cinemas of Excess Martin Scorsese’s recent film The Wolf of Wall Street is a raucous black comedy about corruption in late capitalism. As many commentators have already noted, 2013 saw a string of films dealing with the materialism and excesses of American society. [1] [2] [3] At the…

The reality of virtual-reality porn is overhyped and unsexy. So you’re stuck having sex with humans for a little while longer. By Ryan Bradley Illustrations by Miguel Jiron It’s a strap-on, that headset. No two ways around it. A blindfold, too. With headphones, if you really want to do this right.…

Special Topics In Gameology explores a specific corner of the gaming world in a miniseries of articles. The current theme is bodies , in which we’ll examine games’ representation of the physical form. During The Binding Of Isaac ’s introduction, God speaks to Isaac’s mother three times. With each…

Special Topics In Gameology explores a specific corner of the gaming world in a miniseries of articles. The current theme is bodies , in which we examine games’ representation of the physical form. Previously in the Bodies series: Fairies dancing on the screen: 4 classic video game sprites, reviewed…

In a real way, Battlefield Hardline is nothing new. It’s just one more story about police. As a culture, we tell lots of stories about law enforcement. We report on heroic sacrifices and institutional failure. We watch movies and TV shows where detectives battle personal demons and political…

Illustration by Joe Frontirre Universal Music Group is set to release a 20th anniversary vinyl edition of the motion picture soundtrack to the 1995 Alicia Silverstone comedy Clueless . This is a pretty strange move aesthetically given that in the mid-90s Beverly Hills world that Clueless inhabits,…

Michelle Rodriguez and Vin Diesel in Furious 7 . © 2014 - Universal Pictures The Fast and the Furious is the perfect franchise for our post-recession moment. © 2014 Universal Pictures With the release of Furious 7 Friday, the Fast and the Furious series reaches its apparent conclusion, so let’s…

Photo: Photos by Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate, Tristar Pictures Furious 7 , the early front-runner for Best Picture , was just over halfway done with its primary shoot when Paul Walker died in a car crash in November 2013. Replacing Walker, one of the two major faces of the franchise (along with…

Scorsese and De Niro on the set of Taxi Driver . Photo: Steve Schapiro Last week, for its annual “Yesteryear” issue, New York Magazine published " New York After Midnight ," a celebration of the city after dark from a variety of writers and cultural figures. In honor of that, we went to the man who…

Amazon’s new Dash Button , which will allow shoppers to reorder frequently used domestic products like laundry detergent or paper towels with the click of a real-life button, is not a joke. Many people assumed it was, mostly because the announcement came the day before April Fool’s, but also because…

High-resolution music has been in the news over the past few days. Neil Young’s Pono, recently announced, is a new music player designed to play high-resolution music files.[1] Pono will also have a music store; users will be able to buy high-resolution music files and sync them to the Pono Player,…

In the early 1990s, debates were raging in playgrounds across the land about which was better: the Super Nintendo or the Sega Genesis . I was in Nintendo's corner, defending their legendary 16-bit console to a group of friends who had sworn their allegiance to Sega. I didn't know exactly why it was…

Best Stuff Best Stuff The 16 Best New Menswear Items to Buy This Week GQ ’s editors pick the freshest menswear, sneakers, watches and more worth your disposable income. 17 Photos 7 hours ago View More Don't Miss! Style Style A Very Good Case for Wearing Your Effed-Up White Sneakers with Everything…

Working for Columbia House had its benefits I was recruited by CBS Records out of grad school to move to New York City and become a marketing planner for them. Not in a fancy, cool division, but in a backwater subsidiary named Columbia House which had a racket where by enrolling you could get a…

点击 此处 阅读中文版 I've broken this story up into three chapters. It should never have gone this far, but the internet works in mysterious ways. None of this should have ever happened. It makes absolutely no sense at all. It's truly crazy. Chris Ritter for BuzzFeed LONG, LONG AGO (January 2014 lol)... Bro…

It’s often said that WrestleMania is the Super Bowl of pro wrestling, the end of the wrestling year. Just as much as ’ Mania marks the close of one season, it’s the beginning of the next. And so at Sunday’s pay-per-view and on Monday’s Raw , we saw WWE lurch into its new season. The three top titles…

This week, Jay Z debuted Tidal , a streaming music service whose makers say it offers better sound quality and something called a “curated editorial” experience. Which, we guess, means people are picking music for you. You know, kinda like the radio. That whole package will cost you $20 a month,…

Jump to Robert Kirkman, if not yet a household name, probably should be. He is the writer behind the long-running, award-winning comic book The Walking Dead , and one of the people who helped shepherd that comic into what has become the most watched basic cable television show in history. And like…

Universal There was a time when I had seen but one and a half movies in the Fast & Furious franchise . I had always been skeptical of the films' powers, perhaps because I had only seen 2 Fast 2 Furious (easily the worst installment) and Fast Five — without sound, while on a plane (still pretty…

Fat Men, Little Coats: The Oral History of Tommy Boy “To this day, people stop me on the street and say they love Tommy Boy. It’s the ultimate movie for fifteen-year-old boys. And if you compare Tommy Boy to what they’re making today for fifteen-year-old boys, it’s the fucking Magnificent…