Pop Culture Safari!

Music new releases June 10, 2014: Jack White; The Who; Blondie; Sonic Youth; more!

Click the links to order discounted CDs, LPs and vinyl from Amazon.

Lazaretto by Jack White

Quadrophenia: Live In London (2CD Audio) by the Who

New York Concerts by Jimmy Giuffre

Blondie 4(0)-Ever: Greatest Hits Deluxe Redux / Ghosts of Download [LP / DVD]

Colour My World - The Songs Of Tony Hatch

Seven Wonders of the World

Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth

Twice by Hollie Cook

Mod Jazz And Then Some!

Original Album Series by the Buzzcocks

DVD and Blu-ray new releases June 10, 2014: Cosmos; The Who's Quadrophenia live; Perry Mason TV movies!

Click the links to order discounted DVDs and Blu-rays from Amazon.

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

Quadrophenia: Live in London (DVD)

Perry Mason Double Feature: Perry Mason Returns / The Case of the Notorious Nun

Perry Mason Double Feature: The Case of the Sinister Spirit / The Case of the Murdered Madam

Perry Mason Double Feature: The Case of the Shooting Star / The Case of the Lost Love

Pop Focus: Beach Party Movies!

In the days before music went psychedelic and men started sprouting beards, beach movies were a fixture of 1960s movie screens.

The genre was hatched by Sandra Dee's "Gidget" in 1959 and 1960's "Where the Boys Are," but really took off with American International Pictures' "Beach Party" in 1963, the first movie to pair the genre's synonymous couple: Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon.

The formula was bone simple: Boys, girls, music, bikinis. Plots and dialogue were ridiculous and superfluous - this was all just daydream fuel for landlocked, lovelorn teens. Music was mostly forgettable, too, although every once in a while someone cool like the Beach Boys or Dick Dale would show up.

AIP's "Beach" series went on to include "Muscle Beach Party," "Bikini Beach," "Pajama Party," "Beach Blanket Bingo," "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini," and the "The Ghost and the Invisible Bikini." As you can see, things got sillier and weirder as the 60s went on, just like everything else during that decade.

Below we celebrate summer, and summer's past, with a selection of pics and a few videos from the day.

Today's Best Picture Ever: Bill Bixby!

Pop Culture Roundup: Brady Bunch! Spies! Dixie Cups! P-Funk! Wally Wood!

Ann B. Davis, who played the lovable maid, Alice, on "The Brady Bunch," died at age 88 earlier this week. Variety shares a list of 12 facts many of us probably didn't know about the actress.

She co-starred with John Forsythe, later of “Dynasty” fame, and Elsa Lanchester, aka “Bride of Frankenstein,” in the short-lived 1965-66 NBC comedy “The John Forsythe Show,” about an Air Force major who inherits a girls’ school.

-----

Spy Vibe takes a look at vintage secret agent model kits!

-----

NPR remembers the Dixie Cups' great single "Chapel of Love," which turns 50 this month.

-----

The Parliament-Funkadelic "mothership" is heading to the Smithsonian.

It's 1976 in Houston, and a rapturous crowd is swaying back and forth to the infectious funk of -Funkadelic's "Mothership Connection." Then, suddenly, it's there. A sparkling silver spaceship appears with flashing strobe lights shining from its feet, spewing smoke as it lands on the stage. Out steps frontman .

...Clinton says that when he created the Mothership, he was trying to outdo everything in rock 'n' roll, including the elaborate Broadway musical Hair.

"I definitely felt we needed something to be proud of as black people," Clinton says. "We wanted to have a funk opera."