Back in July, YouTube opened up an archive of some 13,000 live music performances. This was the YouTube rabbit hole writ large, a deep dive into the “vault.” Yeah, it’s a lot of Grateful Dead, but with patience, one can find Bruce Springsteen doing“Born to Run” in 1978 or Prince in all his warped glory in Passaic, N.J., 1982.

Still, it can be daunting to jump into tide. Which live performances should you really be watching? Here are 14 worth your time.

1) Nirvana, "Lithium," 1992

I remember watching this VMA performance live and feeling ecstatic at age 13. This was my favorite band on prime time, playing their hit like it’s Top of the Pops. Then at about 4:30, there’s the complete implosion of that artifice, back when those sorts of performances still flew on MTV.

2) Harry Nilsson, 1971

Not necessarily live, but this clip shows how on top of his game Nilsson was in 1971, the same year Nilsson Schmilsson was released. This BBC special gives him room to harmonize, literally, with himself. Goosebumps. 

3) Aretha Franklin, “Dr. Feelgood,” 1968

The song is about the excesses of the music business, and Franklin appropriately works those blues down to the nerve. She owns every last inch of that stage.

4) Elvis Costello, "Radio Radio," 1977

Costello’s infamous Saturday Night Live appearance—hosted by Miskel Spillman, winner of the “Anyone Can Host” contest—was an exercise in self-editing. And possibly a little self-promotion. SNL allegedly asked Costello not to play “Radio Radio,” so he did it anyway. He was subsequently banned, until he was invited back with the Beastie Boys. You can watch the entire episode, which unfortunately starts with a Grinch Who Stole Christmas rape joke. (The performance is just after the one-hour mark.)

5) Gang of Four, “He’d Send in the Army,” 1981

This clip comes from the 1982 punk concert documentary Urgh! A Music War, which contains several other amazing live clips. This one of Gang of Four in London is the clenched fist of the doc. 

6) James Brown, T.A.M.I. Show, 1964

1968’s Boston Garden performance is Brown’s cultural and political milestone, but this live set four years earlier finds him in showman mode.

7) Madonna, "Like a Virgin," 1984

This feels positively provincial compared to VMA performances of late, but never forget: Madonna dry humps her own bridal veil, and that made it on MTV in 1984.

8) James Booker, "True," 1978

The new documentary Bayou Maharajah tells the story of New Orleans pianist James Booker and his bittersweet life. It screened at SXSW last year and I specifically recall this Montreux performance, perhaps because Booker squeezes every ounce of pain and heartache from it. This entire performance is also worthwhile, showing Booker in 1983 on cable access.

9) Talking Heads, “Life During Wartime,” 1980

Talking Heads circa Remain in Light was the band at its most muscled, and this entire concert, filmed at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, N.J., a month after the album’s release, seems alien.

10) Monks, “Monk Chant,” 1965

Live on German TV, “Monk Chant” likely sounded like nothing on the American pop charts at the time. Five American GIs stationed in Germany in the ‘60s formed a proto-punk band, learned how to make feedback, and unleashed it on awkwardly dancing German teens.

11) Miles Davis, "It's About That Time," 1970

“It’s About That Time" is seven minutes of free-jazz witchery from the trumpeter and his band, including a sloping sax interlude. The whole performance is worth checking out, but this song in particular is possessed in the best way.

12) The Jesus Lizard, 1994

The Jesus Lizard Live DVD includes this performance at Boston’s Venus de Milo, and it's a real rollercoaster ride. Frontman David Yow tells fans to take their earplugs out, repeatedly hurls himself into the crowd, and generally lets his id spill out.

13) Kraftwerk, Rockpalast, 1970

This was Kraftwerk before the fully electronic release of albums like 1974’s Autobahn. Filmed live in Soest, Germany, this performance is nearly an hour of sonic revelation. As with Monks, the audience might be the part part, only these German teens look totally bored (yet very fashionable).

14) Prince, "I Wanna Be Your Lover," 1982 

Prince performs single "I Wanna Be Your Lover," from his self-titled 1979 album. The quality isn't great, but that black-and-white feed adds something special to this pre-Purple Rain performance.  

In the YouTube era, where anyone with a webcam and a torrented copy of Garageband can hit the Billboard charts, it’s never been easier to independently release new music. But the accessibility provided by the Internet has come with a steep trade-off: It’s also never been easier for great works to go completely unnoticed, lost to the digital dustbins of time.

In January, for example, Forgotify launched to call attention to 4 million Spotify songs—roughly 20 percent of its catalog—that had never been listened to before. “We set out to give these neglected songs another way to reach your ear holes,” the app explained on its About page.

With this compilation, we hope to accomplish something similar. The problem with these types of lists is that they usually err on the side of the obvious, spotlighting at least a few critically acclaimed works that anyone who visited a record store in the past year would know and/or the lesser works of perennial favorites. To avoid such trappings, we set a couple of ground rules: Any album that received Pitchfork’s coveted Best New Music tag was automatically disqualified (with apologies to Ought, Vince Staples, and Angel Olsen), and we had to agree as a group that the record was a notable improvement from the artist’s last release.

We came away with 24 important but slept-on records that merit closer inspection and repeat listens. —Austin Powell

1) Diane Coffee
My Friend Fish (Western Vinyl)

A former Disney voice actor, Fleming takes a starry-eyed approach to songwriting, wrapping cold-sweat narratives around gospel vibes and bellbottom grooves. (“Never Lonely” is my uncontested favorite song of the year.) Give it three spins; it’ll leave you dizzy and marveling at the fact that Fleming not only played nearly every instrument on the record but recorded it during a brief, two-week stint in an NYC apartment. —Austin Powell

2) Kevin Gates
By Any Means (Breadwinners Association)

His best of the year is By Any Means, a hearty chili bowl of logjammed ideas. It packs adolescent turmoil with literal yet jarring imagery about watching breaking news from a foster home. But it’s mostly a vent for the guy—working in lots of angst about flailing and failing love, from the highs of doing it in an old Excursion to explainer-y talks with his girl to watching the birth of a child via iPhone. He’s a rapper in transition, perfectly happy to keep it real and nod the little things like buying a car and ditching his lease. “I Can’t Make This Up” is his “Juicy”—a gold star, beautiful struggle moment. Gates makes you feel most when he goes into villain mode and raps about the trap with flippant, stacked couplets like, “Dead broke, got mad at it, I’m back stacking, I’m flap-hacking, your flap-rattling.” —Ramon Ramirez

3) Various Artists  
Master Mix: Red Hot + Arthur Russell (Yep Roc)

When he died of AIDS in 1992, Arthur Russell was barely known outside of a cadre of eclectic New York artists. His obscurity may have partly been the product of his vast and prolific stylistic interests, ranging from his avant-garde cello compositions to underground disco, the broad sweep of which has lead to his music resurfacing as a major influence on artists in this century. Red Hot’s two-disc tribute compilation attempts to capture all of those facets of the enigmatic artist, and it’s a credit to Russell’s music that it still feels extremely modern and new in the hands of those reimagining his catalogue. 

Jose Gonzalez opens with the quiet ballad “This Is How We Walk on the Moon,” but it’s Robyn’s “Tell You (Today)” and Hot Chip’s dizzying “Go Bang” that drive the dance rhythms upward. Not all the covers challenge the originals, but each offers enough of a compelling take on Russell’s oeuvre to be worthwhile in their own unique ways, from the ballads contributed by Phosphorescent, Devendra Banhart, and Glen Hansard to Blood Orange’s immaculately suave take on “Is It All Over My Face & Tower of Meaning.” A supremely worthy tribute that hopefully exposes Russell’s music to a new generation. —Doug Freeman

Angeleno Nick Waterhouse may just be the coolest man in one of America’s coolest cities. Bespectacled, slim, and sartorially sharp, both Waterhouse’s looks and his music—razor-sharp, juke joint R&B—cut to the heart of distilled ‘60s cool. That style reaches its apotheosis on Holly, the singer-songwriter’s immediately captivating sophomore album. At almost exactly 30 minutes, it’s a lean listen, strutting confidently from the jagged guitar licks of “High Tiding” to the boastful horns of “This Is a Game” to the slinky, soulful mourn of “Hands on the Clock.” Throughout, Waterhouse takes a discerning eye to the seedy nocturnal underbelly of modern Los Angeles—he’s named Chinatown as an influence in interviews, and it shows in the album’s cool, critical, noir-inspired remove. —Patrick Caldwell

5) Neneh Cherry
Blank Project (Smalltown Supersound)

You might know Neneh Cherry from her ‘80s dance hit “Buffalo Stance,” but the singer’s career has spanned genres and her origin story includes a stint singing with the Slits as a teenager. (She’s also the stepdaughter of legendary jazz trumpeter Don Cherry.) Her sound has always been delightfully unclassifiable, and her first solo album in nearly 20 years, Blank Project, finds her stitching together jazz, funk, R&B, and hip-hop. Produced by Four Tet, Blank Project lifts its rhythmic weight from U.K. synth and drum duo Rocketnumbernine, who allow Cherry the room to free associate and work the nerve raw on the title track and “Weightless.” The Robyn cameo on “Out of the Black” is a dream collaboration, but that track is almost the weakest one on the album.

Cherry’s 2012 LP with Swedish-Norwegian free jazz trio the Thing was also criminally overlooked, but Blank Project pulls from that—and her experimental early ‘80s outfit Rip Rig + Panic—while looking forward. She’s a collaborator in the true jazz sense, and she’s found common ground with Four Tet and Rocketnumbernine; it’s interesting to hear them swirl around the room together. It’s not a “comeback” album as much as an evolution. —Audra Schroeder

6) Dean Wareham
Dean Wareham (Double Feature)

Dean Wareham has been making daydreamy makeout music since 1987, first as the guitarist for the minimalist but reverb-drenched shoegaze trio Galaxie 500, then as frontman for Luna, those essential indie balladeers of the 1990s, and most recently with his wife Britta Phillips, Luna’s bassist since 2000. Not many musicians wait 27 years to put out solo material, and in the case of the aptly titled Dean Wareham, the patience more than shows: Almost every song is a laid-back, effortless-sounding stunner, frictionless and dusted with fine, foxy melancholy. (Between this and Kevin Drew’s cheeky Darlings, it’s certainly been a big year for silvered dad-rock.)

The best of these tracks, including “Holding Pattern” and “Babes in the Woods,” unspool into noisy, nervy bridges that showcase Wareham’s knack for freestyle form. And even with its typically vague lyrics—“There’s nothing wrong with the road we’re on/Searching, searching, feel the secret of the shining, yeah”—album closer “Happy & Free” could easily replace “Auld Lang Syne” as a wistful New Year’s Eve standard. You know what? There isn’t something in my eye. I’m just feeling emotions I forgot I ever had. —Miles Klee

7) Lace Curtains
A Signed Piece of Paper (Matador)

A Signed Piece of Paper, his second solo album, builds on everything that’s come before it. It’s a sobering, disheveled portrait of life slumming in L.A., one step removed from stardom, with little, mundane details adding a rare intimacy (see the slinky R&B of opener “The Fly”), whether he’s looking at photos of Kim Kardashian or listing early Metallica albums. He chronicles his own struggles with the music industry through veiled narratives about Sly Stone ("Boardwalk to the Alps") and Notorious B.I.G. (“Wilshire and Fairfax”), but even in its darkest moments, there’s a hint of wry humor. “You catch more flies with honey,” he observes in “Crocodile Tears,” “but who wants to catch flies?” It’s four stars. Easy. —Austin Powell

8) Ava Luna 
Electric Balloon (Western Vinyl)

On their second proper full-length, Brooklyn’s Ava Luna eschewed just enough of the avant-strangeness preoccupying 2012’s Ice Level to settle on a soul-tinged post-punk that would make even the truest David Byrne purist proud. Electric Balloon doesn’t just bounce and sway on the herky-jerk stylings of vocalist Carlos Hernandez and his band (drums, bass, keys, and two backup vocalists), it finds space within the chaos. Think of it as the album in which the quintet stops sounding like a more abrasive Dirty Projectors and actually carves out their own way. 

Credit Hernandez—the spiritual and physical nucleus of the band—for that, sure, but extend just as many accolades towards singers Becca Kauffman and Felicia Douglass, who disown those DP comparisons through subtlety and soul in spaces in which their fellow Brooklynites would’ve tried to knock your socks off. For more of that, check the support squad on “Judy,” as well as the infinitely divine “PRPL,” in which Douglass exhibits the ways in which power can make its way without strength. —Chase Hoffberger

While the Clean remains an ongoing exercise for Kilgour and a continuing influence on a whole new generation of artists, you'd think he'd hang up his gloves and serve up some adult contempo record. Instead, Kilgour continues to push himself further and further, leaving brilliant records lying around like scraps of paper for whomever to listen. With End Times Undone, the artist takes some cues from his finest recordings, lying somewhere between the hazy jangle of 2001's A Feather in the Engine and the heavy-vibed charm of 1991's Here Come the Cars. —Randy Reynolds

10) PARTYNEXTDOOR  
PARTYNEXTDOOR 2

Twenty-one-year-old Mississauga, Canada-born Jahron Anthony Brathwaite (stage name: PARTYNEXTDOOR) is maybe a tad late to the buffet, but his second record PARTYNEXTDOOR 2 (his eponymous debut dropped last year) is beautifully bloated at 18 robust songs. “East Liberty” is synthetic-pumping bass with forward lyrics about rental cars and the motherfucking ocean. Drake shows up on “Recognize”—it’s duty-driven and excellent. The arresting, wait-for-the-drop masterpiece is the stripper-humanizing “SLS.” “Is he balling for you though?” he mansplains to his muse. But songs like T-Pain’s “I'm 'n Luv (Wit a Stripper)” stop short at the narrator's self-interested fantasies; on “SLS,” he sees a life and a background story, “Marriage ‘cause girl we came from nothing, she learned that shit just from her older cousin.” —Ramon Ramirez

“Whichever console you play/No matter how many hours a day/I could win at any game/Whether you’re a boy or a girl or a supercomputer,” raps Sarah Bonito on “Sick Beat,” atop a layer of pillowy pop synths and a cannily deployed sample from “Super Mario 64.” That’s quite the throw of the gauntlet, but London trio Kero Kero Bonito backs it up on debut album IntroBonito, a toweringly catchy fusion of contemporary J-Pop and South London hip-hop. Bonito raps and sings in both Japanese and English as she tackles video gaming as proxy for feminism (“Sick Beat”), the general unpleasantness of infants (“Babies (Are So Strange)”), and the dullness of small towns (“Small Town”). The results are as fascinating as they are occasionally strange. —Patrick Caldwell

You can tell she’s not big on her contemporaries; on highlight “So Blonde,” one that contains a leading rock chorus, EMA’s detached singing snickers, “Let me tell you ‘bout this girl I know. She’s so blonde.” But she barks the “so” with Trent Reznor fury. Her affection for ‘90s NIN is just a jumping-off point (she reportedly almost collaborated with the band’s keyboardist on the album before deciding to build it all herself). What stars here is her centralized, astute songwriting. EMA followed up 2011’s critically acclaimed Past Life Martyred Saints with a navel-gazing passion project, and the best thing she’s done. —Ramon Ramirez

The film is heavy on visuals but not dialogue, and Levi’s score tries to fill in the wordless dread. The soundtrack’s standout is “Love,” however, which floats above a scene in which Johansson's alien experiences the titular emotion, but not for long. In a piece for the Guardian, Levi explained they “were looking at the natural sound of an instrument to try and find something identifiably human in it, then slowing things down or changing the pitch of it to make it feel uncomfortable. There was a lot of talk of perverting material. It does sound creepy, but we were going for sexy.” The soundtrack manages to be both. —Audra Schroeder

Scott Hutchison, the face of anthemic sad-sackers and cult favorites Frightened Rabbit, found himself at a crossroads early this year, around the end of a long tour. “I thought we were going to … go straight back into writing another album, and the guy at the label knew things weren't really quite right,” Hutchison told Interview. “He basically was like, ‘We'll pay for this record. Go away, make a record and indulge yourself.’”

The result is a solo project called Owl John, and while the first tracks released under that moniker don’t fully depart from the chiming, rain-streaked morbidity of Hutchison’s main act, they represent a subtle sonic shift. Take the sinister electronic pulse that emerges two-thirds of the way through “Ten Tons of Silence” or the phaser-like distortion of the pokerfaced “Hate Music,” and it’s clear that this dude is inching his way toward an atmospheric songcraft that doesn’t rely on high melodrama or a meaty Scottish brogue to make its bruising mark. —Miles Klee

15) Mary Gauthier
Trouble & Love (In the Black)

At times defiant, hurt, cold, bitter, and desperate, the LP chronicles Gauthier’s emergence following a ruptured relationship but with unflinchingly steeled awareness and introspection. The sparse, rootsy accompaniment allows her twang to carry every hint of hurt and resolve, through the brutal “How You Learn to Live Alone” to the glimmer of hope in closer “Another Train.” Gauthier may never achieve mainstream popularity, but with Trouble & Love, she’s crafted one of the great and timeless heartbreak albums of our time. —Doug Freeman

16) SZA Z (Top Dawg Entertainment)

SZA (real name Solana Rowe) is a 24-year-old former marine biology student, bartender, and Sephora makeup sales representative. Her music masks the past with synthesizer dance jams like “Julia,” but the day glow of bored afternoons playing Nintendo between miserable shifts shines bright here. On “Child’s Play,” guest Chance the Rapper gets excited about taking an Uber to his neighbor’s place. SZA lulls with her textbook voice, and lands blows about love with words like, “Type A personality, just dumb enough to lie to me.” —Ramon Ramirez

17) Sleaford Mods
Divide and Exit (Harbinger Sound)

British duo Sleaford Mods are refreshingly blunt on their latest album, Divide and Exit. Singer Jason Williamson gasps through each song, spitting minimalist poetry about “St. George’s flag twats” and other colorfully sharp barbs. There’s not much in the way of harmony, chorus, or hooks, and yet there’s something that loops you in. Comparisons to the Fall have already been cast, but Williamson and beatmaker Andrew Fearn don’t seem concerned with them. Williamson has more modern targets in his sights, like “complete arseholes” Kasabian. “You’re Brave” is nearly a taunt, Williamson chanting over an electronic beat as he calls some wanker a “tit rifle.” Indeed, much of the album feels like a dare, and perhaps that’s the appeal. Skip straight to the canned laughter of “Liveable Shit” for proof. —Audra Schroeder

18) The Greyhounds
Accumulator (Ardent Records)

Years spent backing JJ Grey & Mofro meant that Austinites Andrew Trube and Anthony Farrell could only employ their funked up Greyhounds as an auxiliary outfit when they’d come in from the road. That is, until Ardent Studios came calling in 2013. The longstanding Memphis cornerstone was launching an imprint and wanted Trube and Farrell’s help opening it up. Thus came Accumulator, the first of three albums for the label, an 11-track effort released in early April. 

The album doesn’t contain any new material—it’s material scraped from previous DIY releases repurposed into a pseudo greatest hits collection—but it does pack plenty of punch. Note the cooled-out lead single “What’s on Your Mind” and dangerously slow burn of “Yours to Steal,” two tracks retooled from 2011 EP Spring Training, or the sweet Hammond B3 sounds Farrell pushes through the fat funk of “You’re Gone.” The organist and accompanying guitarist’s chemistry is palpable (check “Get Back”) and laced with humor (“Amazing”), subtlety (“All Over But the Shoutin’”), and more than enough soul. Together, they’ve parlayed a side gig into a run this summer with Tedeschi Trucks Band and dished up an exemplary primer for a new batch of material soon to come. —Chase Hoffberger

19) Reigning Sound
Shattered (Merge)

The secret to his songwriting with Reigning Sound has been its immediacy and malleability, the way the same songs can be construed as girl-group pop, bleary-eyed country, or R&B scorchers, dependent on the night and/or album. He does a little bit of everything here, but while he could fill a jukebox with his tales of eternal teenage angst and brash heartbreak, Shattered ultimately finds Cartwright eager to pick up the pieces from a struggling relationship and try again—a fleeting desperation best captured in the bittersweet “Once More.” And he’s all the better for it. —Austin Powell

20) Steve Gunn  
Way Out Weather (PoB)

Beginning in 2005 as a member of GHQ, no one probably including Steve Gunn could have imagined the important work he'd be pulling off as a songwriter in 2014. Though 2008's Sundowner did show Gunn stepping out into vocals, it wasn't until 2013's Time Off that Gunn made the plunge into full singer-songwriter mode. Not unlike Michael Chapman's Window, the tight trio setting of Gunn, Tripp, and Truscinski created a whirlpool of folk, psych, and loner auras not heard in ages.

On Way Out Weather, Gunn continues his homespun strain of folk, psych, and loner-isms but with a larger group of players that help to create a truly captivating ideal of Americana without all the Dylan nods and mod production so many records continue to suffer from. The unity heard and felt within each composition and how harmonious it is as a whole is nothing short of brilliant. —Randy Reynolds

21) Timber Timbre
Hot Dreams (Arts & Crafts)

With 2011’s Creep On Creepin’ On, Canada’s Timber Timbre laced their dark atmospherics with a touch of soulful pop, creating a beautiful otherworldly soundscape. Hot Dreams keeps that sense of gentle melody but dives more deeply into experimental and psychedelic sounds that seem to meld Richard Hawley with Daniel Lanois. Frontman Tyler Kirk’s low, mournfully seductive vocals roll out languorously and full of a building dread in the vein of Kurt Wagner. Hot Dreams is at turns disturbing, almost apocalyptic, as it unsettlingly winds through genres, from twisted spaghetti Western guitar tones on “Bring Me Simple Men” to the cosmic lounge of “Grand Canyon,” which feels drawn from some ominously ethereal soundtrack. Timber Timbre slowly draws you into their warped world until suddenly you find yourself irrecoverably through the glass darkly. —Doug Freeman

22) Alvvays
Alvvays (Polyvinyl)

None of the weapons in Alvvays’ arsenal are especially unique. On the Toronto quintet’s self-titled debut, you’ll find reverb-laced, analogue-sounding production, sunny surf rock licks, and a whole lot of songs about longing. It’s a sound that says California more than it says Canada—think Best Coast, Girls, or Vivian Girls, and you’re well on your way. But while the tools may not be new, they’ve hardly ever been more skillfully employed. Alvvays is a pop marvel, careening from the wonderfully wistful “Archie, Marry Me” to the tuneful sorrow of “Next of Kin” to the gentle bob of “Red Planet.” If the mark of great pop music is its emotional immediacy, then Alvvays, with singer Molly Rankin’s immensely gripping croon an especially strong asset, may have just made the best pop record of the year. —Patrick Caldwell

23) Amen Dunes 
Love (Sacred Bones)

"I really feel like this is my Astral Weeks, or something," McMahon toldSpin. "I wanted it to be a huge record. I think I achieved that." —Austin Powell

Trio Spray Paint, assembled from the phantom limbs of Austin punk-noise band When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, have pieced together the perfect ode to Texas as an altered state with Clean Blood, Regular Acid. The songs hinge on the tandem chants and riffs of George Dishner and Cory Plump, propelled along by drummer Chris Stephenson, and there’s a bit of the repetitive chaos of fellow Texas groups like Rusted Shut here (“Cussin”), as well as echoes of early ‘80s Sonic Youth (“Rest Versus Rust”).

It’s a love letter to Texas punk past, present, and future (and apparently, “Texas Talking Powder”), but anyone with a penchant for heavy rhythms will be able to find solace. They’ve also got some pretty legit fans. Check out Plump’s track-by-track commentary for Stereogum for the origin stories of several of the album’s songs: “If my memory serves me I believe we started jamming on the drumbeat of Sonic Youth’s ‘Shaking Hell’ and ended up with this.” —Audra Schroeder 

Houston Texans quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick threw for six touchdowns to beat the Tennessee Titans 45-21 on Sunday, but his son might have been the real star of the day.

During Fitzpatrick’s post-game press conference, he introduced his sons Brady and Tate and their friend Dylan to the journalists in the crowd, and like any proud father, he wanted to show off Brady’s math skills. With Brady at the ready, Fitzpatrick asked a reporter to pick any two numbers in the 90s for Brady to multiply.

H/T SB Nation | Photo via Jeffrey Beall/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)

DVD screeners for at least five new Sony movies have leaked online and downloaded millions of times following a serious hack targeting the studio, Variety reports. Some believe North Korea is behind the attack.

Annie, Still Alice, Mr. Turner, and To Write Love on Her Arms have all been leaked ahead of their official cinematic release dates—but it’s Fury, starring Brad Pitt, that has proved most popular among pirates. Figures dating from Nov. 11 indicate the screener has been downloaded more than 1.2 million times.

Meanwhile, Annie clocks in with 206,000, followed by Still Alice (103,000), Mr. Turner (63,000) and To Write Love on Her Arms (20,000).

The leak is part of a broader attack on Sony that saw the company’s website defaced by a group calling itself “Guardians of Peace” (#GOP). “Warning: We’ve already warned you, and this is just the beginning,” the message said. “We have obtained all your internal data including secrets and top secrets.”

The hack so seriously affected Sony’s computer systems that employees were forced to use pen and paper to work, Re/code reported.

It’s unclear who is behind #GOP—but one of the more surprising theories being bandied around is hackers connected to North Korea. The authoritarian peninsula state has expressed outrage over Sony film The Interview (which is about an assassination attempt on the country’s president), describing it as an “evil act of provocation.”

Re/code is reporting that security consultants working on behalf of Sony are “actively exploring the theory” that the hack may have been led by “third parties operating out of China on North Korea’s behalf.”

Sony is, for now, staying mum on who it believes the culprits are, telling Variety only that “the theft of Sony Pictures Entertainment content is a criminal matter, and we are working closely with law enforcement to address it.” 

H/T Variety | Photo via Fury | Remix by Fernando Alfonso III

Teaser trailers are sure getting extra teaser-y these days. But for House of Cards, it sort of works.

A 12-second clip announcing the show’s season 3 return to Netflix dropped on the House of CardsTwitter this morning. There’s no audio, but we do get that patented Frank Underwood stare-down, now with more presidential power.

Screengrab via House of Cards/YouTube 

When Drea de Matteo jumps on the phone to discuss the premiere of her new YouTube reality series, The Muthaship, she can barely get a word in before her young son, Blackjack, interrupts to try to show her his new skateboard tricks. 

"That’s why I’m doing a reality show, right there," de Matteo laughs. "So I can fucking keep him in skateboards and scooters, and to pay for his emergency room visits because he’s such a crazy person."

De Matteo says for years people pitched her reality shows, but her focus on making a name for herself as a serious dramatic actress had held her back. She won an Emmy for her portrayal of Adriana La Cerva on HBO's The Sopranos and is wrapping up her work on FX's Sons of Anarchy as Wendy Case. 

"Constantly for years and years I’ve been asked to do a reality show," she explained. "I’ve always said no. I’ve always been a little precious about my career, not wanting to tangle that up in anything, not wanting to show myself in any light but the characters I play. A lot of actors don’t feel comfortable in who we are; that’s why we start acting."

Now, de Matteo says, she finally feels confident enough in herself to let the cameras in. However, it helped that the Endemol-produced show was shot entirely on iPhones by her personal friend, Carter, which made the experience less like a reality show, and more like a series of home videos.

"I never thought we were really shooting anything," she explained. "I never felt like I’d committed to anything. I was nervous; I had a lot of trepidation about doing it because it was the one thing I swore I would never do. But I did it for a lot of reasons. One, for a paycheck, to be honest. Two, my friend gets a job. Carter gets to stay in L.A. and work. I’m all for keeping us together. … And I also feel comfortable being myself more at this point in my life than I ever have. I always wanted to hide behind a character. Now that I’m a mom of two kids, I don’t mind being myself." 

For de Matteo, the Internet and social media are a veritable wild west. She only this year got a Facebook and an Instagram, but she claims to live under a rock and is super focused on her life as a mother instead of trends. She says she's not fully aware of the breadth of YouTube and viral stars, but she was especially struck by Vine star Brittany Furlan and her creativity.

"She’s doing pure, artistic comedy in six seconds," de Matteo enthused. "I was completely fucking blown away by her. I wanted to throw her out there and say don’t anybody fucking tell you that you can’t make your dreams come true. If you’re talented someone will find you. But I suppose if you’re not talented someone will find you too, since some of these kids have no talent and are becoming overnight sensations."

"I can’t even do a talk show," she deadpanned. "I get too nervous just doing a talk show. If I had to talk about somebody else, it makes more sense for me, but to talk about myself for an extended period of time makes me feel an asshole. I know I have to do it as part of my job, but it doesn’t interest me."

Originally, the show wasn't even supposed to focus so intently on de Matteo.

"The original concept for my show was going to focus on all of my friends, and what it means to turn 40," she said. "And how, when we turn 40, we regress, and youth really is not wasted on the young. We regress with all this knowledge and build up speed to move ahead. All the questions you had when you were 27 are answered, to a degree. There’s so much more at stake now, and the paths you take now lead up to the end of your life."

In the end, though, the circus of de Matteo's life and her lack of filter made her story the focal point. She filmed the show up to midway through the shooting schedule for Sons of Anarchy, and her budding YouTube stardom became the talk of the set.

"When the clips started airing and I had to go to work, all the guys at Sons were like, ‘what’s this Muthaship stuff?’ and I was like 'oh fuck,'"she said. "When we were shooting The Muthaship, I had no idea where Sons was going. I still have no idea where Sons is going, except that it's amazing. I only read pieces, and I didn’t want to hear them in the read-through. I do feel like it’s some of the best season finale episodes that television has."

"It’s like me going from Sopranos to Joey," she laughed. "It’s me going from total seriousness to total ass."

Although de Matteo liked the iPhone experiment, and says Endemol has been great working with her on exactly what is out there from her show, down to video thumbnails, she thinks for a second season, she'd want to have more a production, now that she's used to the reality show life.

"There is value in it, in actual production," she explained. "The cameras don’t phase me. I’m used to being more alive when the cameras come on anyway. I don’t even recognize a camera in the room; it means nothing to me. And I don’t have an edit button."

Photo courtesy of Endemol Digital

Now that December is upon us, so is the official start of the holiday party season. Between dodging the creepy guy in sales at your office Christmas party and choosing the right knit for your friend’s ugly sweater shindig, there’s a lot of celebration to prepare for. But this is 2014, and Dear Abby’s advice on being the perfect seasonal guest is a little out dated.

Thankfully, there’s another Abbi who has some party etiquette advice for you, and with the added expertise of her friend Ilana, you’ll be able to throw down with the best of them. Let the girls from Broad City give you a primer in how to prepare for seasonal celebration circuit.

From bringing the perfect hostess gift, to dodging mistletoe kisses from creeps with candy cane cold sores, the girls have though of every tip you need to navigate your way through a holiday bash. 

Just remember, if the side effects from taking someone else's boner pills don't wear off in six hours, see a doctor. 

Chris Rock’s recent Saturday Night Live appearance was a bit hit-or-miss, but his opening monologue was perhaps the bit that hit the hardest. Rock’s never been an overtly political comic, but his comments about the opening of One World Trade, gun control, and the Boston Marathon bombing certainly struck a nerve.

In a fantastic interview with Frank Rich for New York magazine, Rock explained why so many people were offended by his comments. When asked about the “political correctness that was thought to be dead,” Rock responded:

Oh, it’s back stronger than ever. I don’t pay that much attention to it. I mean, you don’t want to piss off the people that are paying you, obviously, but otherwise I’ve just been really good at ignoring it. Honestly, it’s not that people were offended by what I said. They get offended by how much fun I appear to be having while saying it. You could literally take everything I said on Saturday night and say it on Meet the Press, and it would be a general debate, and it would go away. But half of it’s because they think they can hurt comedians.

The whole piece is worth reading, but here are eight more of the realest bits from the interview.

On the Internet and how it’s changed how comedians try out material:

It is scary, because the thing about comedians is that you’re the only ones who practice in front of a crowd. Prince doesn’t run a demo on the radio. But in stand-up, the demo gets out. There are a few guys good enough to write a perfect act and get onstage, but everybody else workshops it and workshops it, and it can get real messy. It can get downright offensive. Before everyone had a recording device and was wired like fucking Sammy the Bull, you’d say something that went too far, and you’d go, “Oh, I went too far,” and you would just brush it off. But if you think you don’t have room to make mistakes, it’s going to lead to safer, gooier stand-up. You can’t think the thoughts you want to think if you think you’re being watched.

On Obama’s presidency in its second term:

I’m trying to figure out the right analogy. Everybody wanted Michael Jordan, right? We got Shaq. That’s not a disappointment. You know what I mean? We got Charles Barkley. It’s still a Hall of Fame career. The president should be graded on jobs and peace, and the other stuff is debatable. Do more people have jobs, and is there more peace? I guess there’s a little more peace. Not as much peace as we’d like, but I mean, that’s kind of the gig. I don’t recall anybody leaving on an up. It’s just that kind of job. I mean, the liberals that are against him feel let down because he’s not Bush. And the thing about George Bush is that the kid revolutionized the presidency. How? He was the first president who only served the people who voted for him. He literally operated like a cable network. You know what I mean?

On raising his kids in an Obama presidency:

...but it’s also my kids grew up not only with a black president but with a black secretary of State, a black joint chief of staff, a black attorney general. My children are going to be the first black children in the history of America to actually have the benefit of the doubt of just being moral, intelligent people.

On Apple CEO Tim Cook coming out as gay:

Which I think is actually bigger than the football player. Because the average person in that locker room is in his 20s. And it’s just not a big deal to be around a gay guy—if you’re in your 20s. Whereas Tim Cook is around these corporate guys. That is the epitome of a boys’ club. That is sexist, ­racist—the least inclusive group of people you’re ever going to find. Men who have no problem being called owners. Who actually wants to be called an owner, even if you owned a football team? Just the title owner is just so nasty and disgusting.

On racism in America:

But the thing is, we treat racism in this country like it’s a style that America went through. Like flared legs and lava lamps. Oh, that crazy thing we did. We were hanging black people. We treat it like a fad instead of a disease that eradicates millions of people. You've got to get it at a lab, and study it, and see its origins, and see what it’s immune to and what breaks it down.

On dealing with failures in Hollywood:

I’m still on the table, which is good. No one’s yanked me off. You can be behind and on the table. I never take any of it personally. It’s all money, especially when you’re talking about playing a lead of anything. I guess if you’re a supporting character, friendships may come into play here and there — strings can be pulled in the lower echelons. But as far as being a leading man, there’s a printout, and there’s how much the movie made here, here, and here. How do you do in Budapest? How do you do in Calgary? Germany? And they make the decision.

On Hillary Clinton’s run for president:

I mean, I would love to see Hillary, but there’s a part of Hillary that’s like the Democratic McCain at this point. As he showed, “It’s my time” is not really enough. But you know, I’m absolutely ready for a woman president. I’m ready for a woman nighttime-talk-show host, to tell you the truth. I wonder which will be first.

On whether his daughters think he’s funny:

Sometimes. My daughter Lola was like, “Kevin Hart’s funnier than you.”

Screengrab via Hulu 

Lily Tells proves that if if the story is right, language rarely gets in the way of making a connection with the audience.

With its origins as a YouTube series narrated in French-Canadian, this webseries in which a 6-year old explains the plots of some famous movies loses little in its translation to English. Wins at the L.A. Comedy Festival and the ATL Web Fest attest to the universal, heartwarming appeal of seeing a complicated film through the eyes of a young viewer.

“I think the most important thing is that she talks about movies everybody knows,” cocreator Vincent Ethier told the Daily Dot. “I guess people are attracted to the common references of popular culture. It is the first thing that makes them click on the link to watch the series. Then they are surprised by the gap between what us adults understand of serious and mature subjects and what a 6-year-old thinks she is seeing.”

The idea for the series came from Ethier’s 2011 short animated film in which a 6-year-old girl told her version of the story of a famous French-Canadian movie. It was screened in a small film fest in Montreal where his childhood friend Bruno Mercure saw it and was touched by the idea of a young girl summarizing the plot of movies she should not have seen. The pair worked together on developing the concept as a webseries and founded animation studioDans Ta Pipe, which Ethier says is a French expression that means "in your face."

The Independent Production Fund, a Canada-based nonprofit, financed Camille Raconte, the French version of the series. Ethier acted as director/writer/animator, while Mercure handled production. The original version launched in July on You Tube, and due to its success in Quebec, five of the 12 episodes were translated into English.

Ethier is quick to point to the selection and framing of Lily is a key to the series' success. “The movies that we chose are not kid flicks. They are dramas or horror films,” Lily Talks’ director said. “So the naive look of Lily forces the viewers to put in perspective those serious matters. She makes them rediscover classics. Also, Lily is not any other 6-year-old kid. We created a more complete character so people could connect with her and not only with a text, a joke, or an old classic movie. She has a name, and a personality, and she gives us hints of her life and her family relations through the episodes so the viewers get to know her even if we never see her face.”

The process from script to screen took one year, with episodes taking one week to write, edit, and animate, plus two more days for voiceover. Next up, of course, is more of the same.

“We are now trying to push the English version. It is quite hard since we don't have the basic English speaking fanbase here in Montreal to launch the the series,” Ethier added. “If we could reach a respectable amount of views on our YouTube channel, we would be able to translate the last four episodes we have produced for the first season.” As for the next set of Lily Tells webisodes?

“The canvas would be exactly the same as for the first season with 24 new classic movies,” Ethier said. “We would like to know a bit more about Lily through the episodes and develop her character.”

When WFMU’s The Best Show went off the air last December, you really got a sense of fans’ devotion to the Tuesday-night program. After 13 years, it had developed a rotating cast of comedians and callers that felt like family. We all wondered what was next.

Now, some good news: Best Show host Tom Scharpling is turning the show into a podcast. The New York Times reports he’ll soon begin broadcasting from the Best Showwebsite, which currently teases the return of Scharpling, cohort Jon Wurster’s beloved Roy character, and Best Show mascot Gary the Squirrel.  

Scharpling also recently directed an infomercial for Adult Swim based on the fictional town of Newbridge, the setting for many Best Show sketches. There was a flicker of hope that perhaps the show could continue on in TV form, but a podcast is really an ideal format. The Times also reports Scharpling is getting “logistical support” from Brendan McDonald, who helped Marc Maron’s podcast become a success and is advising him on how to survive on an advertising model.

Podcasts are now big business, and can often launch stars, but Scharpling already has a fanbase ready to jump back in the pool with him. It will be interesting to see how it flourishes online, but longtime fans don’t have to worry about the format changing: Scharpling says he’ll still hang up on callers who bore him.

H/T New York Times | Photo via John Dalton/Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

BY BREE BROUWER

Jerry Seinfeld and YouTuber Miranda Sings took their awkward interactions from their recent Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee episode to live television. The two appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and attempted to play Pictionary.

Colleen Ballinger (who boasts over 4.3 million subscribers across three channels) appears on the show as her more-than-slightly-obnoxious, stand-offish character Miranda. She manages to insult Fallon right off the bat, insisting she’s played Pictionary before because “it’s the easiest game ever.” Flustered, Fallon assigns Miranda to Seinfeld’s team (probably because he doesn’t want to play with her).

Unfortunately, Miranda and Seinfeld don’t seem to have improved their communication skills since they filmed their installment of  Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. In the first round, Miranda “draws” mistletoe so slowly that Seinfeld tells her to hurry up. She shrieks, “Stop yelling at me! It’s too much pressure!” When Seinfeld’s turn comes around, he tries to draw the phrase “a foot in the door,” which Miranda just sees as a chicken and a box.

Fortunately for Seinfeld and Sings, Fallon and his teammate Martin Short don’t have great communication skills, either, and both teams end up tying the game with zero points apiece. Maybe in the future Fallon (who’s no stranger to YouTube himself) can team up with Miranda and the two can be as awkward as they want to be.

Sings is the latest in an ever-growing list of YouTube personalities to appear on late night television. Freddie Wong, for instance, recently got into a fight with Jimmy Kimmel and has had at least a couple of stints on Conan O’Brien‘s couch, while Grace Helbig may be getting a late night talk show of her own.

Screengrab via The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon/YouTube

Vlogger Matthew Lush said a technical failure on JetBlue's website booked him on a flight without giving him any notification of the flight. When he tried to correct the error on the phone, an agent named Regina was apparently less than helpful, telling him he'd incur a $150 charge. Lush refused the charge and decided to just take the flight instead of booking a new one.

Frustrated, Lush took to his Twitter to complain, tweeting to his 154,000 followers a joke that played on the agent's name, the same as the antagonist from Mean Girls, Regina George. Lush also included her employee reference number.

When he arrived reluctantly for his flight home, he says JetBlue agents stopped Lush, telling him he could no longer fly the airline and escorting him from the terminal for being a "physical security threat." After rebooking on another airline and heading home, Lush described his plight in a video on his channel and encouraged his 580,000 YouTube followers to boycott JetBlue. He even likened the judgement he faced from the flight crew to his own coming-out experience.

This is not the first time a digital celebrity has gotten in trouble with an airline. Earlier this year, Vine celebrity Jerome Jarre was met by TSA agents when his American Airlines plane landed because of a video stunt that involved him in a Speedo on the plane. Jarre was let off the hook by authorities, and even snagged a spot on Twitter's trending lists over the ordeal.

JetBlue stands by its decision to bar Lush from flights, in a statement to Yahoo.

The decision to remove any customer from a flight is made after careful and informed decision by local airport officials and flight crew. It’s based on an individual’s actions and our assessment whether further actions during the flight would lead to further disruption or non-compliance with crew member instructions which could lead to diversion and delays for all customers.

However, Lush still has many defenders on Twitter who are banding together under the #BoycottJetBlue hashtag until the airline backs down.

H/T Mashable | Screengrab via GayGod/YouTube

PewDiePie, also known as Felix Kjellberg, may be the world's most famous gamer and YouTuber, but he achieved another level of stardom Wednesday when he was immortalized forever as a South Park character.

Kjellberg will feature on a new episode of the Comedy Central series that tackles the world of video game streamers. Cartman becomes an overnight sensation when streams of his comments on video games go viral, a nod to the rabbit-hole quality of YouTube entertainment. In a teaser clip, Cartman even pulls off some PewDiePie-like moves during his filming.

The 25-year-old Kjellberg will make his Comedy Central South Park debut on Dec. 3.

H/T Tubefilter | Screengrab via South Park Studios/YouTube

Last month, comedian Sara Benincasa posted a preview of her new podcast, in which she interviewed her mother about childbirth and drugs and dropped the word “cunt” a few times. Instantly, you feel like you and Benincasa are best friends splitting a bottle of wine. 

That’s intentional. In the Casa with Sara Benincasa debuted today on podcast network Cave Comedy Radio, home to Emily Heller and Lisa Hanawalt’s Baby Geniuses and Michael Che and Thomas Dale’s Nobody Asked You. The first episode features Marcus Parks, a Cave Comedy Radio producer, and they talk about God’s existence and mental health, among other things. Future guests are set to include comedians Michael Ian Black and John Hodgman, plus Transparent creator Jill Soloway.

“I’ve wanted to do my own podcast for a while,” Benincasa said. “I thought the simplest concept is this: I go to the house, the casa if you will, of someone I think is awesome, or they come to my casa and we talk. I want it to feel like a dinner party where the listener is invited and they get to meet these cool, interesting people, some of whom are famous, some of whom are not. But all of whom are fascinating and have stories that need to be heard.

“I would love it if people who listened to this podcast felt as if they were eavesdropping on these friends, just talking really freely about the events of the day, news, love, and life in general,” she added. “I don’t want it to feel like a celebrity interview. I want it to feel like two people being goofy and having a good time. Or two people being emotionally intimate and having a good time.”

Benincasa’s background in radio (she hosted a show called Get in Bed on Sirius XM) translates perfectly to podcast. She’s an engaged, witty interviewer, but knows when to let her guest take the reins. The flow of In the Casa is much like that of Julie Klausner’s How Was Your Week.

Podcasts have reached something of a tipping point. Marc Maron’s podcast in now the centerpiece of his IFC show. WFMU’s beloved The Best Show is becoming a podcast, and This American Life offshoot Serial has the Internet obsessed. (Benincasa says she was listening to Serial, but had to stop, “because it started making me ask myself questions about voyeurism and I got uncomfortable.”)

“I will say this: I want In the Casa to be Serial without murder,” she added. “I am Sarah Koenig, but not investigating whether or not Adnan did it. Just maybe talking about books and feelings.”

“I think it’s a very intimate medium,” she said. “The person who listens has to create images of what he or she is hearing, and so podcasts require you to fill in the visual elements and have some control over your experience. You are co-creating the experience with the podcast host and the guest. You can also listen to it when you want to. You can listen to it falling asleep in bed. What’s more intimate than that?

“I think people form these solid friendships in a way with podcasts. They form relationships. The accessibility of the medium is such that you can just plug in a couple mics and go. I think that’s why it proliferates so easily.”

To fund the show, she decided to go through Patreon, which furthered that intimate feel.

“Crowdfunding seemed like a really cool way to create a community of people who’d donate as little as a dollar to create a wholly listener-supported experience, so that it’s not advertiser-supported; we’re not doing Mail Chimp ads, as lovely as Mail Chimp ads are. I wanted it to be listener-supported. And I also want to do fun things with the community.”

She adds that she wants to give listeners extras like a secret blog post or secret episode, to build that community. “You can start this little weird community, or maybe a big, weird community, of listeners who have access to material that only [they have].

“For example, today I have a photo shoot [to do] goofy lingerie photos and they’ll be available only to patrons. So if someone feels like looking at a size 12 to 14 woman in her underwear, I can make that a reality.”

In the Casa airs every Tuesday on Cave Comedy Radio. 

Photo courtesy of Sara Benincasa 

Music industry photographer Jarrad Seng is a dead ringer for electronic house musician Steve Aoki. After more than one instance of this resemblance happening to him on the streets, he decided to take things a step further.

Outfitted with a fake beard and Aoki's traditional garb, Seng wandered around the Stereosonic music festival in Perth, Australia, in yet another parody of the "10 hours of walking in NYC as a woman" video. All along the way, excited fans greeted him, gave him high-fives, and even begged him for photographs.

Screengrab via Jarrad Seng/YouTube

I would never say never, but I don’t think so, no. What appeals to me is celebrating the shape of my body being pregnant and capturing that time in my life. I wanted to do something that felt authentic to me rather than being pushed in a certain direction by somebody else.  

You can read the whole interview here. Kourtney's photos are posted in a separate Dujour gallery. 

Photo via Kourtney Kardashian/Instagram

Watching your favorite holiday movies this year is always a cherished tradition, but it is difficult finding the time to do so. Between shopping, entertaining extended family, and binge-watching Sons of Anarchy, few of us have the opportunity to commit a solid 2 hours to rewatching timeless Christmas classics like The Santa Clause or Gremlins.

Fortunately, YouTube user Jim Casey has a solution. He’s edited together a hefty number of moments from our favorite holiday films in just two minutes, all set to a powerful rendition of "Carol of the Bells."

Are you able to name every film on the list?

Lots of people need a jolt to really get into the holiday spirit, and Anthony Vincent, better known as the 10-Second Song Guy, is up to the challenge. Cleverness is more important than perfection in Vincent's videos. His Christmas compilation sees him performing "All I Want for Christmas" in several dozen styles, from Blink182 to Alvin and the Chipmunks. Vincent's versatility and enthusiasm more than make up for any, shall we say, vocal shortcomings.

Sure, the Bing Crosby imitation falls flat, but now we want a real Trans-Siberian Orchestra version of this song.

What better way is there to celebrate a major milestone as America's foremost network nightly news anchor than by appearing on The Tonight Show?

NBC Nightly News host Brian Williams, who recently marked a decade as the program's anchor, recognized that Jimmy Fallon's show was the best place to celebrate. On Tuesday night, he joined Fallon for a segment about immigration, which has been a contentious topic in recent weeks due to President Barack Obama's executive action.

Instead of just making jokes about immigration, however, Fallon brought on Williams, the slow-jam expert, to break down the situation. Williams’ numerous prior attempts at rapping may have been heavily edited, but in this segment, he was finally about to prove that he could handle himself behind the mic.

Screengrab via The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon/YouTube