For our music magazine round up, we grabbed Uncut, Spin and several issues of Rolling Stone to figure out what, as the year concludes, was on the minds of those music tastemakers.
From the cover of Rolling Stone, John Lennon peers at you with the headlines promising "The Lost Lennon tapes." The cover also promises "John's Last days: An Intimate Remembrance By Yoko Ono." And "The 50 Best Songs & 20 Best Albums Of 2010." We're glad they put the date in there because we weren't sure if we were in the eighties, the sixties or what?
As you flip through the magazine, you're several pages through Random Notes before it hits you, those weren't Random Notes items, they were supposed to be actual articles. Rolling Stone's target reader is apparently a 14-year-old with ADD and a 3rd grading reading level coming down hard from a heroin buzz. Coldplay, Paul Simon, Snoop dogg, Bob Dylan, Hole, is there nothing new about music these days? If there is, don't pick up Rolling Stone expecting to find it documented.
Even more useless is the rest of the magazine. Best Albums? No woman shows up until number 13 and that 'best album by a woman' is Taylor Swift's Speak Now. No offense to Taylor, she may have an amazing album in her some day. She hasn't found it yet. Like relevancy, Joanna Newsom is nowhere to be found on the rag's best albums list.
So we reach for the rag's other issue. It's billed as a "SPECIAL COLLETORS EDITION." What? There's John Lennon again. This time in black & white and with the other three Beatles. Will Jann Wenner ever stop trying to squeeze money out of a tombstone?
We reach for Uncut only to realize this is a "148-PAGE JOHN LENNON SPECIAL." We love John, but we've had enough. So we reach for another Uncut only to find a "148-page stones special!" Yes, the Rolling Stones.
Good thing we picked up Spin. Spin and only Spin looks at today's music. James Murphy is the cover subject of this "Best of 2010" issue. Their best 40 albums of the year can't find Joanna Newsom either but we do find albums we actually listen to on their list. and as you flip through the issue, you find many things you think you might like to hear.
Rolling Stone can't steer you to anything that wasn't released forty years ago. Not only is the magazine embalmed, but if they were to stumble over the next great thing, they'd still be Rolling Stone trying to get you to listen and, at this late date, why even bother?