Stars have been given some extraordinary gifts by their partners, acquaintances and friends. Elizabeth Taylor amassed a wide range of jewellery throughout her eight marriages, including a 38-carat diamond. Yet some gifts are extraordinary in ways more peculiar, like the novelty mini-fridge gifted to Elton John one year.  Here are those stories and more:

Jack Nicholson and Angelica Houston

Twenty years of both good and bad times for this couple, with a first date cancelled by Nicholson so he could meet with a former partner instead. That should have been warning enough. The final nail in the coffin was in 1989 when Nicholson announced he was going to be a father with another woman, Rebecca Broussard, who had two children with Nicholson. After giving Jack a beating, Angelica got on with her life. For Christmas that year, Huston received a pearl and diamond bracelet which had once been a gift from Frank Sinatra to Ava Gardner. It was Jack’s way to conclude their relationship.

Alice Cooper

Alice Cooper, rock and roll star, film actor, a golfing celebrity, restaurateur and a popular radio DJ is surprisingly a mild-mannered, softly spoken man. Having had issues around drugs and alcohol, he found that golf saved his sanity, a story he related in his book Golf Monster: My 12 Steps to Becoming a Golf Addict. Those close to him know just how important golf is to him. In 2015, he was presented with a gift usually seen by those looking through an anniversary gifts guide. He was presented with an Eternity Rose gold dipped golf ball and tee set by Rebel FM, during his Australian tour.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

What do you buy the man who has everything? In 2011, Angelina Jolie bought him land rights to his very own waterfall for his 48th birthday. As someone who loves architecture and taking inspiration from a visit the couple made to Frank Lloyd Wright’s famous Fallingwater estate in rural Pennsylvania, she wanted to give him the opportunity to build his very own secluded hideaway directly on top of the waterfall. The concept was to be sustainability, pulling together all aspects of nature, light, glass.

Elvis and Gladys Presley

In 1955, Elvis Presley bought his first Cadillac, which was pink. He had to replace it the same year after an accident and resprayed the new model pink to match his first. After the respray was completed, Elvis gave the car as a gift to his mother, Gladys. A generous gift except, for one thing, Gladys never had a driving licence. However, she still liked people to know it was her car, even if her son would still use it to transport his band.

Rod Stewart and Elton John

Friends since the 1960s, the friends exchanged presents each Christmas. One year it went spectacularly wrong for Stewart. Considering a gift for a man who has everything, Stewart hit on the idea of a novelty portable fridge in which the door opens at a touch of a button, and a bottle rises out in a cloud of vapour. Elton’s present to him that same year was a drawing by Rembrandt. Elton’s later wedding gift to Stewart was a £10 superstore voucher for “something nice for the house”.

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor

Married in 1964, Burton bought his wife Elizabeth Taylor a 68-carat diamond ring five years later, for which he paid $1.1 million, outbidding the Sultan of Brunei and world-famous jeweller Harry Winston. While the diamond made a fabulous necklace for Taylor, the million-dollar insurance policy only allowed her to wear the diamond for 30 days each year and in public only under armed guard.

Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx

In 2010, after Robert Downey Jr. acquired a ranch in Malibu after his friend Jami Foxx went to visit the family there, he surprised him with a pair of horses for his 45th birthday as he had seen that the stables were empty. It was only later that Downey admitted that he was terrified of horses but appreciated the gesture and in return gifted his Vintage El Camino, the one from the Iron Man movie, to Foxx.

Over the last few years, the ukulele has seen a dramatic rise in popularity. From viral videos of ukulele covers, to them appearing on-stage alongside your favourite artists, ukuleles are everywhere on the modern music scene.

Traditionally, ukuleles have been available in four different sizes: increasing in size from soprano, through concert and tenor, to baritone. The latest addition to the ukulele family is the bass ukulele, which has many of the attributes of the bass guitar but the size and portability offered by ukuleles.

Whether you’re thinking about buying your first ukulele, looking for an upgrade on your current one, or had no idea to start with that there were multiple sizes and styles available, this article has got you covered. Here we take a look a look at the most common sizes, their characteristics, and their unique sounds.

Soprano

The soprano ukulele is probably what you’re thinking of when you try to picture a ukulele. It is the most commonly used of all the sizes – and it is also the smallest. For this reason, it has the tightest fret spacing and the shortest neck of all the ukulele sizes. It is the perfect starter instrument, with the classic ukulele sound and standard tuning (G/C/E/A).

Concert

The next size up is the concert ukulele. In many ways it is similar to the soprano, but has a slightly thicker and longer neck, making it better for people with larger hands. Concert models have more frets than the soprano, and the bigger size gives it more depth in sound. The same standard tuning as the soprano ukulele applies (G/C/E/A).

Tenor

The tenor ukulele has a sound more akin to a classical guitar, and is deeper and richer than the soprano and concert ukuleles. It is bigger than the concert, and therefore has better sound projection. You can produce a wider range of notes on a tenor – making it a top choice for professional musicians. The tenor is also excellent for fingerpicking, as the frets are more widely spaced than the concert or soprano alternatives. G/C/E/A tuning is also applicable for tenors.

Baritone

In terms of size, the baritone is the next step up from the tenor ukulele. It has a wider and longer neck, and produces a deeper sound. If you are already familiar with playing the acoustic guitar, the baritone is a great choice. It has a similar sound, and is bigger in size to aid fingerpicking. The tuning for a baritone ukulele is different to the smaller sizes, and requires the same as the tuning for the four highest guitar strings (D/G/B/E).

Bass

The bass ukulele is the new kid on the block when it come to the growing market for ukuleles, bringing the best aspects of the ukulele in line with the best aspects of the bass guitar. It is slightly bigger than that baritone in size, and the tuning differs in that it is exactly the same as the tuning for a bass guitar.

Another key difference is that the strings are completely different to this found on any other instrument, made of a synthetic rubber-like material. These strings are used to give it the deep, low sound characteristic of bass instruments. Most bass ukuleles come with a pre-installed pickup for sound amplification, as volume can be an issue without amplification.

As you can see, the are a number of options out there! Many beginners choose to start with the ever-popular soprano, while others are drawn in by the new and exciting world of bass ukulele options. Or, perhaps you are an experienced guitarist looking to broaden your instrument collection, making the tenor or baritone an excellent choice. In any case, have a look around and see what excites you – the size right for you completely depends on what you are looking for!

If you grew up with the Miracle Mets, Astroturf, ’75 Topps, Kelly Leak, the Crazy Crab, and the Bash Brothers, here’s your next gift to yourself. Toymaker Super7 presents a series of retro-style action figures inspired by major league baseball players, including greats like Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Joe Dimaggio, Yogi Berra, the Phillie Phanatic, and more.

The great American centre of entertainment that is Las Vegas, Nevada, has long been closely tied to the music business. Over the decades, the city in the desert has played host to a number of legendary concerts that have since gone down in history.

From everybody’s favourite crooner to genre-defining British rock bands, all of the biggest acts have played in Vegas at one time or another. Truth is, Las Vegas and great music go together perfectly; so much so in fact that many famous songs are based on the city and its notoriously vibrant culture.

In this article, we will take a look at a selection of the finest concerts ever to have been played in Sin City. Although every night of the week sees some huge names playing Vegas’ best and biggest venues, the concerts listed here are the true generation-defining nights that have gone down in Las Vegas folklore.

So, without further ado, here is our list of the greatest Las Vegas concerts of all time…

The Beatles – 1964

On their first ever US tour, the fab four came to Las Vegas to play a series of sold-out shows at the famous Convention Center Rotunda. Today these 25 minute long shows are best remembered as some of the noisiest gigs of all time, back when PA systems couldn’t compete with over 8,000 adoring fans singing along to every single word of the band’s smash hit early singles releases. These days these famous shows are truly a part of Nevada’s musical history and perhaps set the scene for Las Vegas going on to become one of the foremost musical venues on the planet.

Elvis Presley – 1969

By this point The Pelvis was thirty six years old rather than the boyishly handsome nineteen year old that America had grown to love in the mid-1950s. In fact, this four-week run of shows at the end of the sixties was something of a comeback for Elvis who had fallen out of favour during the decade when less clean-cut rock was beginning transform music and, for that matter, America. It would not be too audacious to suggest that Elvis may not be seen with the same legendary status that he is today if it had not been for this 1969 run of shows. As it happens, he managed to completely nail every song he performed, with classics such as Hound Dog and Jail House Rock delighting audiences at the International Hotel every single night.

Prince – 1997

Back at the beginning of the end of the nineties, Prince was playing a series of sell-out shows at the MGM Grand. Although undoubtedly amazing performances from His Purple Majesty (as fans lovingly knew him), these shows would go on to be upstaged by a famous after-party performance by the legendary funk star. Taking place at Vegas’ Club Utopia, these raw, unrehearsed and thoroughly off the cuff after-party performances would soon become the stuff of legend as the late great artist would perform for many hours, often taking requests from the adoring audience of just a few dozen lucky attendees.

The Doors – 1969

These days Jim Morrison’s performance at the Las Vegas Ice Palace at the turn of the decade is the stuff of Nevada folklore; at the time though, it was met with severe skepticism. This is because Morrison was famously subdued during the whole forty five minute show, a tongue in cheek response to threats from the local governor to arrest Morrison if he was to behave in his, by that point, trademark lewd manner. In perhaps the least provocative performance of his entire career, The Doors’ frontman barely moved during the whole set and, in doing so, managed to provide more of a commentary on the state of free expression in 1960s USA than any hip-gyration or nakedness could ever have done.

If there’s no day that goes by without your favorite music and you could easily call yourself a music buff, you’re most probably interested in enjoying the best audio quality when it comes to your favorite albums and artists. Thankfully, more and more music streaming apps and services make that possible for little money.

Some of these services have been around for quite some time now and they’ve gained their popularity for a good reason that is called premium audio quality. Moreover, some of them couple that high-quality audio with user-friendly features and the possibility to enjoy thousands of tunes even offline.

A classic for a reason

Apps to improve the quality of one’s life are now available in great numbers and when it comes to music apps, there’s no exception. There are a few streaming music apps and services that remain favorites despite the emergence of newer such products. YouTube, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, and Spotify are some of them.

Each of them comes with features and rich music archives that enable users to search for and find an overwhelming variety of artists based on different genres. The filters available significantly simplify the user’s experience when searching for favorite artists and their albums. All of these services are available for web and mobile use and offer free features.

New music apps you might want to try 

You might read really interesting piano books but if you want to hear how popular piano players sound like, you can also try some of the newer music streaming apps. Tidal is an app worth adding to your music app kit if you’re on the lookout for high-fidelity music and a rich library of songs. You will get around 25 million songs, to be more precise.

Even if the app is not free, its features are a great reason to try it. You can watch more than 75,000 videos without ads interrupting them, use discovery tools to reach that album that delights you so much, and even enjoy exclusives.

In case you relate to classical music, you want to feed your passion for opera and orchestral performances, and enjoy the various benefits of listening to classical music, Idagio should not go unchecked.

For only $9.99 per month, you can enjoy a rich library of new, rare, and exclusive recordings of such performances. The quality is high and the variety offered is remarkable. Plus, you can use various filters to enjoy custom search results such as composers, soloists, or orchestras.

Deezer is also popular among music buffs interested in enjoying their favorite tunes even when on the road and offline. This music streaming option allows users to download high-fidelity tracks for offline use, which is a feature that, at least in our case, makes it a winner even if this possibility is available with the premium subscription.

Online radios

If listening to the radio sounds like something you’d almost always go for but you’d like that experience to come with a custom touch, then rest assured that the music streaming service market does not run short when it comes to such options.

LiveXLive is one of them. The streaming service replaced Slacker Radio but you get to enjoy many of the old features as there is a variety of stations you can listen to depending on the genres you like. Pandora and TuneIn are very much the same. They offer the possibility to listen to various stations after you’ve selected the genres and subgenres you’re into.

Pandora, for example, offers the Pandora Plus subscription which enables users to enjoy unlimited replays and skips and even download stations for offline use. Other noteworthy personalized online radios include Jango Radio and iHeartRadio.