All posts tagged: iconic

The Most Iconic Electronic Music Sample of Every Year (1990-2024)

The Most Iconic Electronic Music Sample of Every Year (1990-2024)

Published by José

Hear a sec­ond or two of Ver­non Burch’s “Get Up,” and you’re back in 1990; of “Bal­ance and Rehearsal” from the JBL sound-test album Ses­sion, and you’re back in 1999; of Eddie Johns’ “More Spell on You,” and you’re back in 2001. What, you don’t know any of those songs? Per­haps you’re more famil­iar with them in a dif­fer­ent form: chopped up, pitched up or down, and looped over and over again in the songs  “Groove Is in the Heart” by Deee-Lite, “Praise You” by Fat­boy Slim, and “One More Time” by Daft Punk. None of those hits would be con­ceiv­able with­out the clips they incor­po­rate from old­er record­ings, those named here and a vari­ety of oth­ers besides. Three and a half decades ago, few ordi­nary lis­ten­ers would have under­stood how a song could be con­struct­ed out of oth­er songs; today, most of us know it as the tech­nol­o­gy and art of sam­pling. We tend to asso­ciate it with hip-hop, and indeed, last year we fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture Track­lib’s video on the most …

A Behind-the-Scenes Tour of Saturday Night Live’s Iconic Studio

A Behind-the-Scenes Tour of Saturday Night Live’s Iconic Studio

Published by José

To help cel­e­brate SNL’s 50th anniver­sary, Archi­tec­tur­al Digest has released a new video fea­tur­ing Hei­di Gard­ner, Chloe Fine­man, and Ego Nwodim giv­ing a tour of the Sat­ur­day Night Live set. The show has been broad­cast­ing live from Stu­dio 8H, locat­ed at 30 Rock­e­feller, since SNL first pre­miered in 1975. In this 22-minute tour, you’ll vis­it Stu­dio 8H itself, the Make­up Lab, the wardrobe and hair sta­tions, the dress­ing rooms, and the NBC Page Desk, all while meet­ing some of the crew that makes the show run behind the scenes. Enjoy! If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day. If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks! Relat­ed …

Everything You Need to Know About Saturday Night Live: A Deep Dive into Every Season of the Iconic Comedy Show

Everything You Need to Know About Saturday Night Live: A Deep Dive into Every Season of the Iconic Comedy Show

Published by José

Sat­ur­day Night Live began its 50th sea­son last fall, around the same time as the pre­miere of Jason Reit­man’s film Sat­ur­day Night, which dra­ma­tizes the pro­gram’s 1975 debut. All of this has put fans into some­thing of a ret­ro­spec­tive mood, espe­cial­ly if they hap­pen to have been tun­ing in since the very begin­ning. For oth­ers, SNL is a show they haven’t been watch­ing all that long, used to watch, or watched at one time and have start­ed watch­ing again. With its ever-chang­ing cast, writ­ers, sketch con­cepts, and over­all comedic sen­si­bil­i­ty, it’s nev­er remained the same for too long at a stretch, and though many view­ers have their favorite sea­sons, few grasp the full sweep of its his­to­ry as a tele­vi­sion insti­tu­tion. Now, any­one can get a sense of SNL in its entire­ty with Every­thing You NEED to Know About Sat­ur­day Night Live, a YouTube series that, true to its title, recounts the show’s most notable per­form­ers, char­ac­ters, inno­va­tions, trou­bles, and moments planned or oth­er­wise (often the lat­ter, giv­en the nature of the broad­cast). Each sea­son …

The Story Behind the Making of the Iconic Surrealist Photograph, Dalí Atomicus (1948)

The Story Behind the Making of the Iconic Surrealist Photograph, Dalí Atomicus (1948)

Published by José

With his cane, his famous waxed mus­tache, and his habit of tak­ing unusu­al ani­mals for walks, Sal­vador Dalí would appear to have cul­ti­vat­ed his own pho­tographa­bil­i­ty. But tak­ing a pic­ture of the man who stood as a liv­ing def­i­n­i­tion of pop­u­lar sur­re­al­ism was­n’t a task to be approached casu­al­ly — espe­cial­ly not for Philippe Hals­man, who did it more than any­one else. Orig­i­nal­ly from what’s now Latvia, he led a tur­bu­lent life that even­tu­al­ly (after a cou­ple of inter­ven­tions by none oth­er than Albert Ein­stein, of whom Hals­man lat­er made a famous por­trait) brought him to the Unit­ed States. It was in New York, in 1941, that he met Dalí, hav­ing been assigned to pho­to­graph one of his exhi­bi­tions in the city. Hals­man had more oppor­tu­ni­ties to pho­to­graph Dalí, and these jobs turned into decades of col­lab­o­ra­tion. Its many fruits include a book con­tain­ing 36 views of the artist’s mus­tache alone, but also the more ambi­tious — and much more sur­re­al — image Dalí Atom­i­cus, from 1948. Inspired by the work-in-progress that would become Leda …

The BBC Creates Step-by-Step Instructions for Knitting the Iconic Dr. Who Scarf: A Document from the Early 1980s

The BBC Creates Step-by-Step Instructions for Knitting the Iconic Dr. Who Scarf: A Document from the Early 1980s

Published by José

When Jon Per­twee rein­car­nat­ed into Tom Bak­er in 1974, the Fourth Doc­tor of the pop­u­lar sci-fi show Doc­tor Who ditched the fop­pish look of vel­vet jack­ets and frilly shirts, and went for the “Roman­tic adven­tur­er” style, with flop­py felt hat, long over­coats and, most icon­i­cal­ly, his mul­ti­col­ored scarf. Fan leg­end has it that cos­tume design­er James Ache­son picked up a load of mul­ti-col­or wool and asked knit­ter Bego­nia Pope to cre­ate a scarf, and Pope, per­haps mis­hear­ing, used *all* the wool, result­ing in a scarf that ran 12 feet long. The mis­take was per­fect, and sud­den­ly many UK grand­moth­ers were being asked by their grand­chil­dren to recre­ate their hero’s look. The above memo isn’t dat­ed, but comes from some­time in the ear­ly ‘80s when the BBC sent detailed instruc­tions to a fan’s moth­er on mak­ing the scarf. (Click here, then click again, to view the doc­u­ment in a larg­er for­mat.) The col­ors include camel, rust, bronze, mus­tard, grey, green and pur­ple and should be knit­ted with size four nee­dles (that’s #9 US size). The requests must …

Iconic Chelsea nightclub that hosted Prince Harry set to reopen

Iconic Chelsea nightclub that hosted Prince Harry set to reopen

Published by skeptic

“151 or ‘Bargs?” The timeless debate that ruled the conversations of Schöffel-wearing 18-year-old Chelsea locals back in 2016. Deemed a clubbing oasis in the heart of South West London by royals and socialites alike, iconic Chelsea nightclub 151 is set to reopen in the new year. Famed for welcoming the likes of Prince Harry through its crimson doors back in the day (being the Noughties), the prestigious hub closed after the Cadogan Estates refused to renew the lease following the pandemic. However, the club is set to come bouncing back under the helm of Guy Ritchie’s best man Piers Adam, who is hoping to relaunch the venue in February 2025. © GettyPrince Harry clubbing in 2011 Enticing Chelsea’s glamorous set was the club’s forte. George Michael was famously turned away from the club, while familiar faces such as Prince Edward, Prince William, James Hewitt and socialite Tara Palmer-Tomkinson were spotted living it up under its roof. 151’s guestlist expanded to stars such as Bob Geldof, who selected the club to host his 50th birthday. Prince …

The Most Iconic Hip-Hop Sample of Every Year (1973-2023)

The Most Iconic Hip-Hop Sample of Every Year (1973-2023)

Published by José

Hip-hop was once a sub­cul­ture, but by now it’s long since been one of the unques­tion­ably dom­i­nant forms of pop­u­lar music — not just in Amer­i­ca, and not just among young peo­ple. There are, of course, still a fair few hip-hop hold­outs, but even they’ve come to know a thing or two about it through cul­tur­al osmo­sis alone. They’re aware, for exam­ple — whether or not they approve of it — that rap­pers usu­al­ly per­form over music con­struct­ed through sam­pling: that is, stitched togeth­er out of pieces of oth­er songs. If you’re not sure how it works, you can see the process clear­ly visu­al­ized in the video above from sam­ple provider Track­lib. Offer­ing a break­down of sam­pling as it’s hap­pened through “fifty years of hip-hop,” the video begins even before the genre real­ly took shape, in 1973. It was then that DJ Kool Herc devel­oped what he called “the ‘Mer­ry-Go-Round’ Tech­nique,” an ear­ly exam­ple of which involved using dual turnta­bles to switch back and forth between the instru­men­tal breaks of James Brown’s “Give It Up …

An Introduction to the Astonishing Book of Kells, the Iconic Illuminated Manuscript

An Introduction to the Astonishing Book of Kells, the Iconic Illuminated Manuscript

Published by José

What­ev­er set of reli­gious or cul­tur­al tra­di­tions you come from, you’ve prob­a­bly seen a Celtic cross before. Unlike a con­ven­tion­al cross, it has a cir­cu­lar ring, or “nim­bus,” where its arms and stem inter­sect. The sole addi­tion of that ele­ment gives it a high­ly dis­tinc­tive look, and indeed makes it one of the rep­re­sen­ta­tive exam­ples of Insu­lar iconog­ra­phy — that is, iconog­ra­phy cre­at­ed with­in Great Britain and Ire­land in the time after the Roman Empire. Per­haps the most artis­ti­cal­ly impres­sive Celtic cross in exis­tence is found on one of the pages of the ninth-cen­tu­ry Book of Kells (view online here), which itself stands as the most cel­e­brat­ed of all Insu­lar illu­mi­nat­ed man­u­scripts. On what’s called the “car­pet page” of the Book of Kells, explains Smarthis­to­ry’s Steven Zuck­er in the video above, “we see a cross so elab­o­rate that it almost ceas­es to be a cross.” It has “two cross­beams, and these del­i­cate cir­cles with intri­cate inter­lac­ing in each of them, but the cir­cles are so large that they almost over­whelm the cross itself.” That’s hard­ly …

How Man Ray Reinvented Himself & Created One of the Most Iconic Works of Surrealist Photography

How Man Ray Reinvented Himself & Created One of the Most Iconic Works of Surrealist Photography

Published by José

It would sur­prise none of us to encounter a young artist look­ing to cast off his past and make his mark on the cul­ture in a place like Williams­burg. But in the case of Man Ray, Williams­burg was his past. One must remem­ber that the Brook­lyn of today bears lit­tle resem­blance to the Brook­lyn of the ear­ly twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry in which the famed avant-gardist grew up. Back then, he was known as Emmanuel Rad­nitzky, the son of immi­grant gar­ment work­ers. It was after he took up the art life in Man­hat­tan that he met the gal­lerist Alfred Stieglitz, form­ing an asso­ci­a­tion that would begin his trans­for­ma­tion from aspir­ing painter into form-chang­ing pho­tog­ra­ph­er. Inspired by Mar­cel Ducham­p’s Nude Descend­ing a Stair­case, No. 2 after see­ing it at the epoch-mak­ing 1913 Armory Show, Ray befriend­ed the artist him­self. Despite its con­sid­er­able lan­guage bar­ri­er, this rela­tion­ship gave him a way into the lib­er­at­ing realms of sur­re­al­ism in gen­er­al and Dada in par­tic­u­lar. “The move­men­t’s refusal to be defined or cod­i­fied gave Ray the ratio­nale to leave his for­mer life …

Lindsay Lohan Recreates Iconic Hairstyles Inspired by Twins Annie and Hallie From ‘The Parent Trap’

Lindsay Lohan Recreates Iconic Hairstyles Inspired by Twins Annie and Hallie From ‘The Parent Trap’

Published by skeptic

Good hair never goes out of style! Lindsay Lohan teamed up with NEXXUS® for their Style Swap campaign where she reimagined iconic hairstyles from The Parent Trap. Nexxus In the 1998 movie, the actress played twins Annie James and Hallie Parker, who were separated by their parents, played by Dennis Quaid and Natasha Richardson, only to meet each other after ending up at the same summer camp. Lohan, 38, looked back to the film for inspiration on how to style her luscious locks today using three products from the brand’s eleven piece Styling Line. Nexxus Think: A polished, sleek ponytail that pays homage to James created with the Slick Stick, big, beachy hair influenced by Parker using the XXL Volume Medium Hold Hairspray, and shiny, soft waves inspired by Elaine Hendrix’s role as future stepmother, Meredith Blake, completed with the Repair & Nourish Ultra Lightweight Hair Oil. “I bring all the tips and tricks I’ve learned throughout my career into my everyday life, and often find myself using my favorite looks from the past for inspiration,” Lohan said …