Last week, in his latest bid to be the most visible retired individual this side of Michael Jordan, Jay-Z declared that he will be boycotting Cristal, the expensive champagne brand he has previously championed in his music and lifestyle, because of comments made by Cristal director Frederic Rouzard in a recent interview in The Economist. Read more...

Jeremy Hyman didn’t know what to expect in terms of academics when he entered college as a freshman. Like so many others before and after him, he worried about whether he would take the right classes, how the professors would be, and whether he would get good grades. Read more...

*** The Futureheads are back with a brand new problem and, of course, without any clues. The problem: how to make a follow-up to a strong but characteristically over-hyped debut album. Read more...

For UCLA alumna Sasha Brookner, exposure to avant-garde music and culture is nothing new. Brookner, a Berkeley, Calif. native, grew up alongside Telegraph Avenue and the East Oakland music scene. Read more...

**** Sonic Youth songs can usually be categorized in three ways: noisy, lengthy and often difficult. After nearly 25 years of doing things this way, it would seem odd for an established band to change up a winning formula. Read more...

If turning up Black Sabbath to full blast on an iPod can cause hearing damage, imagine what moshing front and center next to a cranked-up amplifier could do to one’s ears. Read more...

Despite a historic movie-going tradition, Westwood Village has rarely taken advantage of the world-renowned UCLA film department. But that’s about to change. For 12 years, the Los Angeles Film Festival has attracted thousands of filmmakers and film fans to Los Angeles in a celebration of independent film. Read more...