HOT: Iggy Strips Down for Art
Students at the New York Academy of Art got a cool
special-guest nude model to draw recently. Though it would probably be more newsworthy if he did something fully clothed, Rock legend Iggy Pop posed fully nude
for the class, and the resultant art
will be part of an exhibition this fall at
the Brooklyn Museum (and reportedly touring other galleries afterwards). The 68-year-old’s notorious “biggy” is not exactly a secret — it’s been gossiped about for decades (here's a couple of VERY NSFW gifs for a peek), he's written lyrics about it and he’s whipped it out often in concert (and used to wear see-thru pants in case it didn't make its way out of them) — but
now it won’t just be a part of Rock lore; it’ll be a piece of art history.
No (full) nudity here, but we'll use any excuse to show this great clip of Pop at the 1970 Cincinnati Pop Festival at Crosley Field:
WARM: Tidal Targeted
A big selling point for streaming service Tidal was its promise of a larger payout system to artists, writers and producers. So recent
headlines like “Tidal Sued for Allegedly Not Paying Artists” raised a lot of eyebrows. The suit filed by New York duo The American Dollar claimed that while Tidal might pay superstars
well, independent acts get screwed. The suit alleges Tidal did not obtain licenses to stream the duo’s (and other artists’) music and underpaid them. Tidal responded that it did have licenses and paid royalties to The American Dollar through a third party, adding
that the suit was “the perfect example of why America needs Tort reform.” The duo previously sued televangelist Joel Osteen for using its music improperly (the case was dismissed).
COLD: Sam and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Sam Smith won the Oscar for
Best Original Song recently, but his Academy Awards experience was a mess. Besides a bad (but not that bad) performance at the ceremony (he told the BBC it was “the worst moment of my life”), Smith also suggested during his acceptance speech that he was the first openly gay man to win an Oscar. As many were quick to point out, he was very
wrong (in his defense, he was simply misremembering the details of this interview with Sir Ian McKellen). Many openly gay men have won Oscars in various categories, and Smith is even among several to score Original Song honors — Elton John, for example, won in 1995 (the odds were stacked in his favor, as John was nominated for three songs from The Lion King that year). Later, when told about gay
lyricist Howard Ashman’s two Original Song Oscars, Smith jokingly suggested he should date Ashman … who died in 1991 from complications from AIDS . After finally realizing he should perhaps just stop talking about the whole matter, Smith took off for a lengthy vacation in the south of France (kidding — he just decided to take a break from social media , the modern way of disappearing from the public eye for a bit).
