I love old, mostly-nude album covers. Sadly, I don't own many of my own, so I have to rely on other obsessive collectors, like this guy and his naughty belly-dancing album covers:

Be very careful what you listen to: the iPod headphones have been linked to deactivated defibrillators, which, of course, pose a heart-related problem for whomever has one. The headline, of course, picks on the most successful culprit, but the article says all MP3 players could put off enough electromagnetic radiation to fuck up your junk. Since it's radiation based on what you're listening to, I wonder if there's any direct relation to the music. Maybe Barry Manilow is far more deadly than anyone realises.

Holy crap, women's panties are quivering with excitement: Tom Jones, venerable swoon-inducing force, has a new album out, and his first single is hitting the airwaves. The song is called "If He Should Ever Leave You", and you can listen to it here. Women with heart problems, diabetes, and women who may be or are intending to become pregnant should consult a physician first.

I've always been partial to Fark, so I believe I can trust them when they do a poll for the greatest album ever. One of the most glaring aspect is proof that Farkers are old: most of the recommendations are at least 30 years old, and skew towards prog rock and classic metal...although I have to admit that the records listed from the page 15-20 years are all dead on. FatBoy Slim's You've Come a Long Way, Baby... FTW, was rather disappointed at the lack of New Wave selections (what, no Devo?), and I was happily reminded of albums that I hadn't seen or heard in a while, like Jane's Addiction's ! Nothing's Shocking. May be time to fire up Limewire again...

Nieman Marcus has got the shit: every top 100 single from 1955 through 1990. Their price: $275,000. First of all, it appears that they're the actual, original pressings, which kicks ass. Secondly, with over 18,000 disks, you'll probably need around 180 classic Wurlitzer jukeboxes to hold them all. Surprisingly, you cannot buy an authentic 45-playing Wurlitzer jukebox from Nieman Marcus.

Beating out Beatleses and Roling Stoneses, Chubby Checker's The Twist is the number-oneiest of number one songs ever . When you see that Smooth by Rob Thomas and Santana is nudging shoulders with the Macarena in the top five, you might want to send those numbers back to the statisticians who came up with the freaky list. Nothing against Chubby Checkers, I mean, he rocks, but that list is about as random as a 20-something hipster's MP3 player on shuffle.

It happens more than I care to admit I've heard on the radio. Snot-nosed kid doing 'indie' journalism talks his way into a back-stage pass to do an "interview", and pisses his way through it. My favorites are the musicians that don't put up with the crap -- and Henry Rollins is not one to take crap from such a kid:The video was posted by, and produced by, a high school TV program. via.

I'd completely forgotten they existed, but apparently they're still around, and now back with the same lineup as when I first heard'em in 1989 over the PA in the Lake Street Ragstock and said, "what the hell is this" to the punk-wannabe dude working the counter. Anyhow: Bad Brains, back with original lineup, in concert on Election Night. Woot.

Yngwie Malmsteen, god of the flying heavy metal guitar fingers, has a new album coming out in October. It'll be released in the middle of his U.S. Tour. I bet I can kick his ass at Guitar Hero, though.

Funky R&B king Isaac Hayes has passed away at age 65. Where most 70s soul funk sounds dated and kitschy today, Hayes' stuff stays real all these years later. Found unconscious near a treadmill, he was rushed to the hospital and declared dead shortly after.

Turntable sales are up a third over the past year, CDs are down a sixth over that same time: a short, generic article from the Washington Times on the vinyl resurgence.

Audiowood has some excellent real-wood turntables for the discering audiophile. If you've had to pull apart a turntable to fix it (or at least change a belt) you know that they pretty much all work the same inside, and they're inserted into different housings depending on need. Audiowood uses solid fine wood to create beautiful turntable housings that look like they belong in a hunter's shack or in the game room of some lodge. They don't use a crappy BSR or made-in-China-for-Walmart dropins, though; the turntable and tonearm are quality machinery, and when combined with a dense, heavy mounting material I'm sure they sound great. They don't display prices, which, of course, means a working stiff like me probably can't afford them...but a guy can wish, you know.

If it's one thing that I hate about portable media, it's the crappy headphones. Ear buds suck so bad, no matter how much you pay for them. Here we've got the best of both worlds: nice ear-cup headphones, with a built-in media player. The SkullCandy Double Agent looks so good. It's got an internal rechargeable battery, a USB cord to behave like portable storage, and if you still have analog electronics, a cord for plugging in to old-school audio equipment. These look more compact and simpler than SkullCandy's other MP3-player-headset, and the Double Agent takes SD cards. Studica shows them available, but the king, Amazon, says they're still not in yet, and SkullCandy's own website doesn't even have them. The article above says they're available June 1st -- but that's come and gone, kids. Still, SkullCandy's headphones (even the buds) are always high on people's lists of quality equipment, so being patient will probably be worth it.

produces this entry in the Pro-Ject line of audio equipment: The Genie 2. It's what it looks like what you'd have if you trimmed everything off a record player except for the basic necessary things to get sound off the vinyl. Then, they used the highest quality parts for those remaining pieces. The high-torque motor is decoupled from the turntable's base, it uses a high-quality (but relatively low-cost) Ortofon OM 3E, and the tonearm, bearings, and platter are all finely tuned and balanced. It's high-end audio with a middling pricepoint.via

If you spend too much time just playing with the knobs, you're gonna miss Car Talk, I can guarantee it. The boobs themselves are rather small and stylized, which, I suppose, is OK for a radio, and is probably intentional as a way to dissuade people from cradling them too much...I mean, for crying out loud, it's a radio, not some sort of sex toy. Of course, the UK gets all the fun stuff.via

...not that she has much to show. I guess gettin' wasted and plastering on the makeup makes up for it, right? This photo was from an honorable source -- a breast cancer awareness concert -- and photographed by Easy Living magazine.(via)

The Tape Project is going retro by releasing music on 1/4" reel-to-reel tapes, taken from the original tape masters from the studio sessions. The theory is almost even more over-the-top than the lovers of vinyl's obsession: because the original recordings were done on tape, it's one less change in media, thus it should be much more true to the original. I dare you to call up this place and ask if they can just copy the tape to MP3 and upload it to you. The profanity will be epic.

I did work in a studio for a time, and from the outside this looks like all the reels we used for stereo mixes of stuff (wider tape was used for the original multichannel recordings; they can't just copy the original tape). I'm surprised they can still find a good supplier of audiophile-quality 1/4" audio tape, but it must still be around. The recordings are distributed under a very-spendy subscription service, so it's not like they need that much tape to fulfill orders. While the reel they ship it on will fit on most studio-grade players, they recommend something even a bit higher quality than that; the studio recorders (largely) don't mess with the sound by equalizing for playback, and depending on how old it is it might not be calibrated for modern tape bias; you need a special player to truly get awesome quality from these tapes. (via)

Gadget Gary of Sound & Vision magazine got to try out this slick little machine: the Audio-Technica AT-LP2D-USB. It's a record player (remember those?) with its own analog-to-digital converter and a USB connection to the computer. Plug it in, and you can record right from an album to an MP3. In the old days (i.e. 2003), you had to go through the sound card -- additional connections mean additional noise -- so having everything onboard and away from the electrical noise of the PC is hopefully an improvement. The turntable doesn't do 78s, and since my Gracie has all kinds of kinky old 10" records, I'll have to stick with my 1970s turntable for recording. Still, we've got 45s, and it's relatively cheap (about the price of a nice non-USB turntable), so I might have to put it on my Xmas list. I'd have prefered if Gadget Gary talked more about the audio quality than the software it came with, but I'll bet he'd definitely complain if it sucked.One caveat: Audio-Technica makes two versions of this machine -- one with USB, above, and one without...which is pretty much an average record player. Go with the USB variant.

I like Fatboy Slim and all, but I had high hopes for the song "slash dot slash." I mean, it's internet-themed, right? The title sounds like it...but the song is just so damn annoying. The beat is pretty good; fast, funky, but the lyrics (if they can be called that) are lacking in appeal. What does it need? It needs...something...

AHA - exactly what it needed: jiggling retro boobies.

Now, there's the Toxic video with the stewardess thing and the other stuff and the...well, I don't think I've ever watched the whole thing; but I do remember a nearly naked Britney! Here's the whole song, with just nearly-naked Britney. Oh, and it's got all the words. I hope they're not a distration.