BGT’s Amanda Holden Channels Athena Tennis Girl Poster Ahead Of Tonight’s Final – What’s Hot and What’s Trending 7 June 2014

Amanda Holden as Athena’s Tennis Girl

BGT’s Amanda Holden Channels Athena Tennis Girl Poster Ahead Of Tonight’s Final – Britain’s Got Talent judge Amanda Holden has posted a photo which shows her lifting up her tennis skirt just as the famous Athena Tennis Girl did back in the 1970s.

Amanda was appearing with former British tennis player Tim Henman at a special pre-Wimbledon event being held at Westfield Stratford City and posted this photo on her Twitter account before going on court this afternoon.

The pose will be very familiar to many in the UK as it channels the Athena Tennis Girl poster that was such a huge success in the late 1970s. That poster showed 18-year-old student Fiona Butler exposing her pert bottom whilst wearing a short white tennis dress. Fiona was the girlfriend of the photographer Martin Elliott and has since revealed that she received no money for the pose despite the fact that the poster sold over 2m copies.

The poster is probably the most iconic reminder of the UK in the 1970s and is as representative of that generation as the Che Guevara poster “Guerrillero Heroico” is of the 1960s generation.

 

True Story Behind Sexy 50’s Pictures – What’s Hot and What’s Trending 25 April 2014

True Story Behind Sexy 50’s Pictures – it has been revealed that the sexy 50’s pictures by the man described as the greatest pin-up artist in the history of American illustration were not just drawn from his imagination but were based on real women.

Gil Elvgren (1914-1980) is best-known as the man behind all those cheesecake glamour calendars produced by US promo publishing company Brown & Bigelow.

Elvgren’s pictures date back to a more innocent time and capture women in moments where their dresses have been caught in the wind and they are revealing stockings or they have been caught by a garden sprinkler.

His women all feature prominent breasts and long legs and normally have an innocent expression and there is a feeling of catching them in an off-guard moment. All his pictures were painted in a vibrant colour scheme and his work earned him the reputation as the “Norman Rockwell of cheesecake”.

A feature on Nerve.com shows some of Elvgren’s original pictures but places alongside them the real women that he based the pictures on. It is interesting to note that he actually had photographs of them taken in the same poses as he painted them in. As they say in the article his paintings act as an early form of Photoshop photo manipulation.

There is still a big nostalgia market for this type of art and in fact to this day you can still get a calendar featuring some of Elvgren’s 50’s glamour pictures. There are plenty of pictures to choose from for the calendar as Elvgren produced over 500 different glamour paintings of women until he stopped working with Brown & Bigelow in 1972.

His work still commands high prices with his painting “Fire Belle”, depicting a busty girl sliding down a fireman’s pole, selling for over $190k in 2011.

You can check out more of Gil Elvgren’s original pin-up paintings on his tribute site.

 

Cheryl Cole’s Bottom Is Revealed – What’s Hot and What’s Trending 24 August 2013

Cheryl Cole’s Bottom Is Revealed – after having many hours of work done on her latest tattoo Cheryl Cole has now had her bottom revealed in a photo from her US tattooist.

Earlier this year she had surprised many of her fans when she revealed part of the giant rose tattoo on stage during the Girls Aloud tour.

Today her Californian tattoo artist Nikko Hurtado showed off his handiwork, and Cheryl Cole’s bottom, with an online photo of the completed artwork.

Hurtado is known for his very detailed ink work and is especially well-known for his portraiture pieces. He is highly skilled and our Geordie lass must have known that she would be in good hands when she picked Hurtado for the very involved rose tattoo.

 

Lady Gaga In Nude Video Release – What’s Hot and What’s Trending 8 August 2013

Lady Gaga In Nude Video Release – the singer has been showcased in a new video release on behalf of the Marina Abramovic Institute and is completely naked for much of her time on-screen.

The 27-year old has long been a big fan of the famous 66-year old Serbian artist who can also count Liv Tyler, Christina Ricci, Sharon Stone, Courtney Love and Bjork amongst her celebrity fans.

It is Gaga’s second fundraiser for Abramovic in the last few days as she was also involved with the recent arts benefit for the Watermill Center in The Hamptons. On that occasion she was seen embracing the artist on a haystack while wearing a black dress with sheer and leather sections that exposed a see-through black bra.

The Watermill fundraiser was a fairly hardcore arts event as shortly after her arrival Gaga was seen looking at a  new work by the artist Lisa Lozano which showed a naked woman in a giant container of honey. Completely unfazed by this Gaga’s response was to grab a spoon and sample some of the honey from around the nude whilst showing her delight to the assembled onlookers by simply saying “Mmmm.”

In this latest fundraising video for the Marina Abramovic Institute La Gaga is firstly shown wearing a white full body outfit whilst singing, if that is the right word for it, a single meditative sound. She is then seen wearing a grey industrial style boiler suit whilst sitting on a large wooden stool in front of a lake. She is finally shown completely naked bending over in the woods, on the grass wearing a black blindfold as well as some very bizarre shots of her hugging a giant crystal.

The NSFW Lady Gaga video can be viewed below via the link to Vimeo where as you can imagine it has received a very large number of hits in recent hours.

 

Beyonce Poses Nude For New Flaunt Magazine – What’s Hot and What’s Trending 10 July 2013

Beyonce Poses Nude For New Flaunt Magazine – the singer is seen naked in the latest issue of Flaunt but it turns out that the photos are actually 2 years old.

Beyonce is seen nude in several of the photos including the magazine’s cover feature. She has had her body covered in bronze and multi-colour glitter for the shots which are probably her most revealing photos so far.

The sexy photos were taken by Tony Duran in 2011 as part of the promotional work for her Year of 4 album and have been kept secret until now.

As well as the revealing photos Flaunt also carries an interview with Beyonce in which she discusses amongst other things what food and drink she enjoys. She has received some criticism for her relationship with soft drinks manufacturer Pepsi but is happy to stand up for the company and unlike a lot of celebrity endorsements it seems that this is a case where she actually likes the drink.

‘Pepsi is a brand I’ve grown up seeing my heroes collaborate with. The company respects musicians and artistry.’

 

Iconic Album Designer Storm Thorgerson Dies – What’s Hot and What’s Trending 19 April 2013

Iconic Album Designer Storm Thorgerson Dies – the man responsible for what is probably the most recognisable album cover of all-time has died at the age of 69.

Storm Thorgerson produced the cover art for a huge number of albums during his long career but no piece of work ever came close to matching the success of his cover for Pink Floyd’s massive 1973 album The Dark Side Of The Moon.

The simple prism design for The Dark Side Of The Moon came from a representation of the lightshow in the band’s live performances and a request from Pink Floyd’s keyboard player Richard Wright to have “a cool graphic – something smart, tidy, elegant.”

Despite the Scandinavian name Throrgerson was born in Potters Bar in Middlesex and grew up in Cambridge, going to the same school as Roger Waters and Syd Barrett. As a teenager he also got to know Floyd’s guitarist Dave Gilmour and these relationships were to prove very important in Thorgerson’s life.

 

Top 100 Favourite Albums From BBC Poll – What’s Hot and What’s Trending 01 April 2013

Top 100 Favourite Albums From BBC Poll – today saw the announcement of the Top 100 albums as chosen by Radio 2 listeners.

The poll saw Coldplay take the top spot with their second album, A Rush Of Blood To The Head.

The results were given out during Jo Whiley’s Bank Holiday Monday show and saw Coldplay’s 2002 album just edge past Keane’s 2004 release Hopes and Fears.

The poll was the culmination of BBC’s recent season The Golden Age Of The Album which featured shows on BBC 4 and 6 Music as well Radio 2.

One set of tv shows that we would recommend watching if they are repeated is Danny Baker’s 3-part series The Great Album Showdown on BBC Four which featured celebrities as well as music insiders debating their choice of the top albums in the genres of rock, pop and R&B.