In the world of music mag publishing this cycle, sexy sells apparently and sexy and dead sells even better. Or maybe dead is sexy?
UNCUT's August issue serves up cover boy John Lennon and zooms in on "1970 HIS YEAR OF REVOLUTION & REBIRTH." Pages 26 through 28 will probably attract the most attention. Courtney Love puts herself forward for questions from readers and "stars." Reader Sergio wants to know the amount of "plastic surgery you had?" Best question from musicians?
Meshell Ndegecocell: What's this about you and [Venezuelan president] Hugo Chavez?
Courtney Love: Oh yeah, Chavez has a huge crust on me. No, seriously! He's been sending me flowers. I'm not sh**ting you. I met him at a screening of Oliver Stone's movie, South of the Border, which is about Chavez and [Aregentine president Christina] Kirchner and [Brazilian president] Lula Da Silva, all that crew that Oliver calls "The Axis Of Good". Oliver sat me in the front row, and I'm wearing this red dress, and it's quite short. Chavez had no idea who I was. Anyway, his aide -- this gay guy who's totally into me -- comes up and introduces me to Chavez, and I say "El Controversial!" and then he kisses me and says, "I love America! I kissed a girl in a rock'n'roll band!" We talked about Caracas and stuff for a while. And now he sends me flowers, and he told Playboy magazine that he'd only do an interview if I was there. Oh, he's a cute little fat guy. But can you imagine how Bill O'Reilly and the guys at Fox News would crucify me if I did that? Jeez!
After Courtney, the big story is "50 more great lost albums." Best photo in the issue? Page 35 features John and Yoko (Ono) from 1970 both with the same short hair style and both looking very pleased and in love. Another striking image is the cover of waxpoetics July/August issue, a black & white photo of Gil Scott-Heron. But gorgeous photos are all over inside. Not just the vintage James Brown photo but new photos as well such as the ones of D'Angelo for "In the Raw" or the page 57 photo of Eryka Badu with pink rimmed eye shadow. From the Gil Scott-Heron interview:
You're finishing up a book called Last Holiday about Stevie Wonder's work to get Martin Luther King's birthday declared a national holiday. How important do you think Stevie's tour was to make that holiday happen?
I think it brought a lot of attention to it. It was Stevie's tour and his campaign, and he allowed me to participate, and I was glad to do it. If you want to change America, you have to change the law. That's the only way to do it. You can burn down a lot of s**t. You can tear down a lot of s**t. You can go crazy and riot or whatever you want to do. Until you change the law, you haven't really changed the country. Stevie Wonder wanted to change the law to make it a national holiday and that's what happened. I don't feel Stevie has received enough credit.
Q features cover boys Kings of Leon on their August issue with the tag "Tight pants, dying young and us . . ." Let's stay with the cover boys. Caleb Followill talks about spending time with a prostitute:
That's actually about a terrible story during our heyday. Me and Nathan decided to have some fun. There was talk of a brothel in the desert somewhere. It's not a lavish tale about being with a prostitute. It broke my heart when I walked in and saw this really pretty girl. She could've been doing anything with her life. Something must've happened to make her think all she could do was sell herself. I ended up leaving without having sex. [. . .] I did go in with a girl but I couldn't perform. He [Nathan] was with the girl that broke my heart. I barely got my boots off. It had killed the vibe of the night for me. That was the saddest thing I've ever seen. Still is.
Q is doing their hot issue and topping the list is Kasabian. Rolling Stone tries to be hot by putting Katy Perry on the cover in pink bra and panties. A little more time on the face (the head looks smaller than the body due to the pose and the lighting) would have resulted in an image that lived on for many years. Instead, it's all a bit embarrassing with the sort of muted tones we expect in a TV coffee commercial. Page 43 is actually what should have been the cover. If Rolling Stone had the guts.
And that sums up the Katy Perry issue so we move on over to Spin and cover boy Eminem. Is it 1997 all over again? Eminem shockingly informs readers, "If I learn how to work a computer, I'm going to be on that bitch all day looking at comments about me, and it's going to drive me crazy." What???? Eminem can read? Who knew? His quotes are as tired as his face (major air brushing for the cover photo which set a new cost record for Spin).