BlackBook

Instead of ending the year with a slew of Best Of lists, BlackBook asked our contributors to share the most important moments in art, music, film, television, and fashion that took place in 2012. Here, Hillary Hughes writes about dropping a load of money on the greatest living rock 'n' rollers, The Rolling Stones.

In a recent glossy magazine feature on the lives of the post-millennial East London hipsterati, the writer, somewhat embarrassingly, blathers on fawningly about her subjects indulging in such, um, establishment-defying activities as "trading pork belly recipes" and "obsessing over fair trade coffee."It's precisely such a banal, eviscerated 21st Century version of youth rebellion that makes it all the more seditiously provocative when, in the new Rolling Stones documentary Crossfire Hurricane, Mick Jagger matter-of-factly conveys that the band was only half the reason so many fired-up young lads were flocking to their early shows; the other half, he insists, was for the singular fuck-the-old-crusties thrill of "participating in a riot." Indeed, the film electrifyingly recalls how rock ’n’ roll once seethed with all the violence and anger that young people felt towards "he generation that is running our lives." The teenagers were, literally and figuratively, storming the barricades. 

● George Clooney and his equally dashing father were both handcuffed and arrested this afternoon outside of the Sudanese embassy in Washington, where they were protesting the brutal and genocidal conditions in south Sudan. [MSNBC]

Even though she’s just 24, British singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding has been making music for a decade. Two years after releasing her debut EP, 2009’s An Introduction to Ellie Goulding, for which she was awarded the critics’ choice trophy at the 2010 BRIT Awards, Goulding has completed her first studio album, the folksy-pop offering Lights, scheduled for release this month. Lights was nominated for two Brit Awards this year—for breakthrough act and best female solo artist—garnering effusive praise from The New Yorker along the way, who touted Goulding as “the future of music.”

● Pierre Hardy on his highly-anticipated new shop in the West Village and jaw-dropping skyline shoe (pictured). [Style] ● Louis Vuitton hosts a private dinner for Keith Richards' autobiography, Life. [WWD] ● Rag & Bone play with lengths, layering, and fluorescent hair in their Pre-Fall 2011 collection. [Fashionologie]

● Disney star Demi Lovato allegedly went on quite a cocaine and booze bender, all the while screaming, "I'm famous, I don't care what any of you think of me the whole world loves me." Oh, and it was all caught on camera. [Radar] ● A Missouri woman is insisting that Lil Wayne is the father of her grandson. Already a father of four, Wayne has until December 9 to be tested. [TMZ] ● Pink is probably pregnant, and to hear the magazines tell it, she thinks it will strengthen her shaky marriage. That always works, right? [Us Weekly]

Word has it that Johnny Depp will be helming a documentary about virtually indestructible Rolling Stones guitar player Keith Richards. In and of itself, this isn’t terribly surprising, as Depp and Richards’ mutual affinity is well known. After the first Pirates of the Caribbean installment, Depp admitted that the lion’s share of the inspiration for Captain Jack Sparrow came from the legendary axe-man, and by the third installment Richards was appearing in the franchise as Depp’s piratical pappy. What is surprising about the announcement is that Depp has the audacity to consider directing again. He’s only tried his hand at it once before, with 1997’s The Brave, and the results were, very, very mixed.