Our Awesome List of Lists!
Halloween Butcher Rock Playlist
It's not all skinny pants and transcendent genre-defying dance pop around here (as much as it may seem so). In honor of the devil's holiday, Saw IV and our own pending dental surgery, we selected a Halloween-heavy playlist that puts the lotion in the basket.
The 100 Greatest Rock & Roll Movies of All Time
Do you feel the Saturday Night Fever? Are you ready for a trip to 8 Mile? Will you be playing “Stonehenge” tomorrow? If the answers are “Yes,” “Yea,” and “No freaking way,” then you are ready for this.
The 40 Worst Lyricists In Rock
They rhyme girl with world, apricot with gavotte—and that’s when they rhyme at all. Meet pop’s metaphor-twisting, mysticism-spouting, Hallmark-card–quoting bards of banality.
Weird Band Alert!
Screaming puppets, aristocratic rap saviors, and a stage-soiling Elvis impersonator. We salute some of the weirdest submissions to grace our inbox — the cream of the crap, if you will.
The 10 Most Overpraised Records Ever
Rock critics react to new releases by Sting and Styx the way the lions of the Serengeti react to inattentive gazelles. And yet no profession has a wider blind spot when it comes to their evaluation of certain acts, often of the living-legend variety. So what are the artists and records that make critics trip over their zeitgeists and their melodic poets of the apocalypse and the rest of their fancy smart-head talk? Here are the 10 most alternately overpraised and critic-proof records in rock history.
Summer Festivals on Blender.com
Still resistant to the insidious tentacles of the Internet, the summer festival packs actual peer-to-peer experience into sweaty campsites, bandshells and parking lots everywhere. Paint yer chests and raise yer lighters: here are the photos, video and interviews from the best we've been to.
Worst Jobs in Rock and Roll
Think your job blows? Meet the poor folks who represent Pete Doherty in court, style Britney's ever-changing hair and take the fall for Paris Hilton's misdeeds.
The Powergeek 25
Meet the online music elite! Starring Steve Jobs, MySpace Tom, Pete Wentz, Perez Hilton and "Oinkylicious" Alan.
Our Favorite Musicians' Favorite Bad Albums
We recently caught up with some of our favorite bands, producers and DJs to find out what awesomely bad albums make their hearts go tick and their feet go tap.
100 Days That Changed Music
Blender presents the most earthshakingly important days in music, ever.
The Best Simpsons Band Cameos Ever!
Springfield rocks! With 18 friggin' seasons to choose from, here are our choices for the show’s finest musical moments (apologies to Blink-182, the Who and U2).
Wackiest Covers on the Web
We've assembled our favorite Web versions of pop hits. Oh, Zanger Bob, you'd have been on this list — if we only knew what you were zanging about.
Dubious Lyrics From Nonsensical Songs
This just in: Most songs make no damn sense. Disagree? Allow us to convince you otherwise with our genre-by-genre look at some of music’s most specious lyrical assertions.
Las Vegas's Pop Star Impersonators
In Sin City, the celebrity impersonator is as much a staple as the nickel slot. Here, five headliners share their routines, and their dreams beyond the Strip.
20 Most Embarrassing Pop Star Video Moments
Anyone can have a drunken argument, strip in public, or get divorced via text message … but only rock stars make a habit of it while there's a camera around.
Beware the Monsters of (Soft) Rock!
Let us whisk you away on a deep-piled shag carpet ride through rock & roll's biggest oxymoron.
Songs You Didn't Know Were Covers
Most cover songs practically announce themselves — we're looking at you, Diddy — but many have managed to hide their dirty little secret. Spoiler alert!
Closing Pitchers' Most Memorable Entrance Music
To close major league ball games, you need cojones — and a killer theme song. We've compiled some of the best curtain callers in recent MLB history.
The 50 Craziest Pop Stars Ever!
Let's just say the world would be a far less colorful place without drug-addled, tantrum-throwing, Thorazine-gulping music maestros … and Britney.
Attack of the Retro Rock T-Shirts
Erica Easley, T-shirt collector and coauthor of Rock Tease: The Golden Years of Rock T-Shirts, divines the history of rock by deciphering clues left at the merch table.
Rock Stars Who've Caught on Fire Onstage
Surprisingly enough, massive pyrotechnic displays of rock majesty don’t always go exactly as planned. Here are 10 artists who learned this the hard way.
Country Music's Hardest Criminals
L.A. is an ungodly shrine to trash and excess. Dozens of great talents have gone to New York to die. But Nashville is the place where all the really bad stuff happens. Welcome to the Hee-Haw Babylon...
Rock's Worst Drivers
"Baby, you can drive my car," said the Beatles — wisely. With singer-actress Brandy facing a potential misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter charge for a crash on San Diego's 405 Freeway, it's time to revisit those prophetic lyrics, for whenever rock stars get behind a wheel, results can range from the insanely dangerous to the tragically terminal.
The Hottest Women in Music!
For years, they've been ruling iPods, TV shows and silver screens. And for years we've been following them around, asking creepy questions and posting naughty photos on the Internet. The things we do for you people …
Remedial Electronica 101
Eminem wasn't totally right — people do listen to techno. And electronica. Welcome to the most misunderstood musical genre since polka.
The 2006 Noisemaker Awards
We had some good times this year, didn’t we? We laughed, we cried, we looked at silly things on the internet … relive it all in our annual readers’ poll, featuring the year’s most glorious and shameful stars.
100 Greatest Songs of 2006
Prepare your iPods and ready your Zunes: from hip-hop bragfests to pop odes to coed promiscuity, these are the songs you need to make your year-end playlist complete.
Best Music DVDs of 2006
We pick the best music DVDs 2006 had to offer.
2006 Reasons to Love This Year's Movies
How will we remember the year’s most outstanding and outrageous flicks? Let us count the ways.
25 Reasons to Love ’07
Down in the dumps about having to say good-bye to 2006? Stumped about what “Auld Lang Syne” means? Perk up with these compelling arguments against offing yourself in the new year.
The 50 Greatest CDs of 2006
Whip-smart crack rappers: 4. Stratosphere-targeting emo grads: 2. Divas: 4 (if you count Justin). And 40 other reasons ’06 rocked …
Who Killed Hip Hop?
You won't believe who's holding the smoking mic.
The Best Bling Ever!
Reggie Ossé and Gabriel Tolliver, authors of Bling: The Hip-Hop Jewelry Book, pick 10 watershed moments in the history of bling.
Most Excellent Teen Movie Soundtracks
No teen movie moment is complete without the perfect song to burn a mind-numbing summer job, panty-free pep rally or high school heartbreak into a generation's subconcious for eternity. Here's our list of teen movie soundtracks that made the honor roll. Study up — there may be a quiz.
The Worst Rock Star Plane Crashes
What is it about famous musicians that makes them believe it’d be a swell idea to charter a small, unreliable aircraft through inclement weather? Music history is quite literally littered with the tragic wreckage of such ill-fated journeys. Blender.com examines the 10 worst rock & roll air disasters and the sometimes dubious decisions that led to them.
Rockstar Holiday Wish Lists
Just because they already have everything doesn't mean they don't want more. We asked rockstars what they're hoping to receive this season, and what beverages they'll be concocting in an effort to promote holiday cheer.
The Book of Awesomely Stupid Records
Why settle for a single-neck guitar when five will do? Why sleep when you can do coke for 18 days? We salute rock's overachievers.
The Most Disastrous Albums of All Time
No one likes to remind others of their greatest failures. Well, except us. That's why Blender has uncovered the stories behind the most career-crippling albums of all time — with expert opinions provided by the folks who made 'em!
Give Pop a Chance
Attention, Kofi Annan! Still struggling to bring peace to the world’s trouble spots? You’ve overlooked one potential solution: pop music! Congo already has its answer to the Wu-Tang Clan; Lebanon has its own jailbait teen-pop sensation; and there’s even a Palestinian Nick Lachey. With musicians as outrageous, trashy and decadent as these, can western-style democracy really be far behind?
History of Drugs
From joint-smoking jazzbos to heroin-injecting grungers, the relationship between drugs and rock has, for good or ill, been one of music’s most important. Which is why Blender decided to chronologically catalogue just how long and strange this particular trip has been …
Don't Quit Your Day Job
From nine to five, they’re billionaire businessmen or leaders of the free world. By night, they record with punk bands. Welcome to the world of unlikely rockers…
MOST GRUESOME LYRICS … EVER
In some circles, it's Halloween all year round. We've compiled a list of bands that traded in pop songs about cars, broken hearts and the VIP room for tirades about dismemberment, necrophilia and pus.
The Filthiest Lyrics of All Time!
While swearing may not be clever, the joys of the four-letter word have exerted a strange pull on pop stars for decades. But which f@&#in’ song rates as the filthiest? Blender recruited a panel of experts to find out.
The Greatest Make-Out Songs of All Time
Striking out with the opposite sex? Having trouble getting your freak on? Kick off your Skechers and curl up on this leopard-skin rug, because Blender is about to fire up a Duraflame, uncork the Alizé and throw on the 20 greatest seduction songs of all time. Satisfaction guaranteed.
10 Songs You Were Probably Conceived To
Baby-makin' music is all well and good — unless the baby is you.
Rock's Most Awesomely Differently Abled
They may act as though they’re impervious to human fallibilities, but pop stars still endure — and overcome — harrowing physical afflictions. This handy A–Z — all right, A–T — guide to musicians’ maladies reaffirms the adage, “that which does not kill you only increases your royalties”.
Ten Classic Breakup Albums
Ten classic albums largely inspired by, unhealthily obsessed with or likely causes of heartbreak.
Famous Firsts
In the game of life, no one remembers the second bluegrass icon killed by a tractor. Blender salutes the songs, stars — and cannibals — who got there first.
Beerfest Rates the Best Drinking Songs … Ever!
Beerfest costar Paul Soter cruised his iPod and assembled his favorite soundtrack for a hangover.
The Top Ten Greatest Heavy Metal Album Covers of All Time
The codirectors of the documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey sat in as guest editors for Blender.com to school us on the art history of metal.
The Blender 100 for 2006
From men in ruffled shirts to women in no shirts at all, Blender presents its annual survey of the latest and greatest in music and more.
500 CDs You Must Own Before You Die!
Your guide to the finest CD collection available to humanity. Use it well.
The 500 Greatest Songs Since You Were Born
Join us as we take a look back into the recent history of rock.
The 50 Worst Things Ever to Happen to Music
Scott Stapp. Pop-opera. The braided goatee. These are just a few of the things even the most open-minded among us cannot abide.
Run for Your Life! It’s the 50 Worst Songs Ever!
Some have crap-tastic melodies. Others are wretchedly performed. And quite a few don’t make any sense whatsoever. Blender removes its earplugs to present the 50 tunes we love to hate.
The A — Z of Rock & Roll Sex Scandals
What beloved band enjoyed molesting their male roadies? What other pop stars prefer the company of children? Find out all this and more in our comprehensive guide to the seamiest moments in music history.
The 25 Biggest Wusses … Ever!
From soft-rock mewlers to preachy vegans to just plain wedgie-deservers, Blender salutes the most awesomely wimpy musicians of all time.
Worst Onstage Meltdowns
From Fiona Apple’s nervous breakdown to U2’s malfunctioning giant lemon, no musician is immune to the catastrophe of the onstage meltdown. Blender presents a run-down of absurd sets, drunken lead singers and horribly exposed miming … Sorry, no refunds!
Rock's Nastiest Divorces
Heart-wrenching concept albums, onstage assaults and alimony paid in truckloads of nickels — just three reasons why the only thing harder than being married to a musician is trying to leave one …
The 50 Worst Artists in Music History
Extended drum solos. Prog-rock concept albums. Kenny G. We endured all these — and much worse! — to bring you Blender’s list of the 50 most talentless music acts of all time. Just please don’t ask us to do it again. Ever …
The 50 Most Awesomely Dead Rock Stars
For many musicians, death is not a final reckoning — it’s the best career move they ever made. So which immortal souls are raising the most hell in 2006? From Joey Ramone to the Notorious B.I.G. to Johnny Cash, the dearly departed are just dying to get on Blender’s first annual corpsetastic power list!
50 Dumbest Rock-Star Extravagances
“My hat flies first class!” … At least it does if you’re the lead singer of U2. But bono’s splurging is just the tip of the rock-spending iceberg. In fact, an iceberg is about the only stupid thing never bought by a profligate star, as Blender’s list of the 50 dumbest rock-star purchases definitively proves.
The 50 Greatest CDs of 2005
From Mariah to the Mars Volta to M.I.A., 2005 was a fantastic year for music — and that’s just the “M”s! But only the very finest releases made it onto Blender’s alphabet-spanning top 50.
50 Greatest CDs of 2004
The year’s most splendiferous half-century of musical collections, ranked for your pleasure. Plus: secrets of the stars who made them!
