Kurt Donald Cobain // m. 5 April 1994 // by Les Guzman

"Spin magazine contacted us with an assignment to photograph Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love. The shoot would take place in their Los Angeles home and would include their newborn daughter Frances Bean. We can't recall having any conversations with Spin prior to the shoot but, recognizing the intense scrutiny that had been swirling about them at that time, we knew we would be photographing them not so much as two famous musicians but as a family." - Les Guzman // 5 April 2024

Source: IG @ lesguzman

Lorde // Pure Heroine // 27 September 2013

"When I was fourteen, my greatest work of art was my bedroom. A very cool, very classic teenage bedroom, Andie’s and Duckie’s from Pretty in Pink meets the Virgin Suicides— fairy lights, fabric on the ceiling, candles, stolen road signs (badman), paper lanterns, beer crate shelves, magazine pictures and club night posters and permanent marker on the walls. Bliss! I’d sit up there and vibe out, taking a lot of selfies. Creating a small-scale work of art using the self, and then examining the product from every angle, was the best method I had to express myself and exercise creativity at that time, and I now see it as an important PH incubation phase, whether I knew it or not. Something really amazing about a young person starting to see their own face and body for the first time, coming to a very secret understanding that they are beautiful. " - Ella Marija Lani Yelich O'Connor

Featuring 2 pieces of confetti from the Pure Heroine tour that I've saved all these years, as well as scans of my much loved CD copy of the album.

Lorde // Pure Heroine // 27 September 2013

"Ten years goes really fast. One minute you’re wearing a leather collar with a giant crystal hanging off it to a Chanel party, and the next you’re blonde. A lot of stuff isn’t good after ten years. But I am still totally touched by this sweet record. I have deep respect for the vision of the little one making it. 

Going back through all of this has reminded me of something that feels important to point out, whether you make art or not: everything starts out as a bunch of bullshit in a laptop. Pure Heroine was a handful of Photo Booth selfies and emotional Word documents and Tumblr posts (and a gorgeous over-decorated bedroom) before it was even one song. I had no reason, on paper, to believe that I was capable of anything. But if you can trust that the first impulse you had to create came from a place of deep wisdom, develop a few principles for your decision-making, and absorb a lot of stuff you find inspiring, you’ll have something special on your hands. " -Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor // 27 Sep 2023

Lorde // Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor // Pure Heroine // email on 27 September 2023

" It’s close to midnight, and I’ve just finished scrolling through my entire computer and phone archive from 2011-2013. Going on this memory lane ride has reminded me, for one thing, what a different time it was technologically. We were just starting to be able to see ourselves in real time, but we weren’t constantly connected. I had an iPod touch until halfway through 2013, which didn’t have a front camera or internet access, and my sister and I shared a MacBook, which is where we did our schoolwork and I wrote my lyrics. I took my first few years of selfies on Photo Booth…. Just let that… sink in!!!

In this stage, it felt like I pulled everything off by the skin of my teeth. Every week was the most exciting week of my whole life, I was so tired and still didn’t have a winter coat and took everyone clamouring for a piece of me completely for granted. I had zero cultural context, had no idea if an interview or TV show was huge or small, and so breezed through it all truly not giving a fuck. I am not a naturally nonchalant person, it was literally just too much to care about, I could hardly get up in the morning, so I just said absolutely whatever I felt like, all kinds of wild shit, if someone did something corny I’d say so, I was ruthless in that way that only teens are. Then through that year we went on our first tours, met you guys for the first time, hours and hours of hugs after the show, my favourite part so far and where it started to feel real for me. James took a lot of beautiful film photos through that time, and I’m really grateful he did."

-Ella Marija Lani Yelich-O'Connor

Marilyn Monroe // 5th Avenue in NYC // 1957

Ooh, oh, ooh, oh - Heart of Glass - Blondie (1979)

Thank you @heyape-blog and everyone who got me to 5000 reblogs!

🖤🖤🖤

Florence and the Machine // Lungs Photoshoot // 2009 // by Tom Beard

Part 4 of 4

Florence and the Machine // 2009 // by Tom Beard

Part 1 of 4

Florence and the Machine // 2009 // by Tom Beard

Part 2 of 4

Florence and the Machine // 2009 // by Tom Beard

Part 3 of 4

David Bowie // Hadden Hall, Kent, England // September 1970

Photographer: Keith MacMillan

Happy Good Friday // He is Risen

Fall Out Boy // 2005 // by Ken Schles

“I think a lot of kids have considered themselves personal ambassadors to Fall Out Boy,” Wentz explains, picking at his permanently chipped black nail polish. “The reason our record was No. 9 when it came out was because of all these kids—not because of radio and MTV. None of that had happened yet.” But it did happen—in a big way. 

Fall Out Boy may have earned enough music industry bragging rights to last a lifetime of high school reunions, but somewhere between the adoration and the accolades, the band’s music also managed to speak to—and for—an entire generation that needed a voice. " Leslie Simon // Associated Press // 2020

The Sundays // mid 1990s

"The Sundays were pretty rubbish at being pop stars. No glitzy aspirational image, barely did interviews, low-key videos, and a less-than-showy live show… Only thing is: The Sundays made near-celestial pop music. In a career that never reached its promise, they released only three albums: this, their 1990 debut; 1992’s Blind and Static & Silence five years later. After that, The Sundays simply stopped"

Classic Pop Magazine // 2022

[Mazzy Star | Fade Into You single, 1994]