FADER's latest features Wiz Khalifa on the cover and inside proclaiming, "When I'm high I can interact with anybody." That's as deep as the text gets because FADER is a music magzine which treats musicians as if they were models. Sometimes it works; often times, it doesn't.
Filter attempts to mine what it hopes is the "hipster groove." In other words, they fawn over the likes of James Franco. Translation, it still reads like a cheap Bikini knock-off. The issue ends with a drawing done by PJ Harvey and, even in print, you can smell the magazine's editors preening.
Spin features a review of PJ Harvey's new album Let England Shake by Amanda Petrusich who argues of the songs, "They're as bloody and forceful as the battles Harvey references." The album earns nine-out-of-ten DOTS and we wish other music mags would utilize a rating system based on sugary candies.
Then again, we just wish Rolling Stone would do something, anything, to indicate what decade it is. Decade? Scratch that. What century! The March 31st issue features "cover boy" Howard Stern indicating the dream of the nineties is alive in Portland and on the pages of Rolling Stone.
In the spring music preview, Stevie Nicks says of recording In Your Dreams (release date May 3rd) with Dave Stewart producing, "This has been the best musical year of my life, honestly. And I've done lots of albums with Fleetwood Mac and solo records that have been fantastic."
That's the high point of the issue. Paul Simon, whose new album So Beautiful Or So What is released April 12th, gets a meager paragraph in RS but the cover of Uncut and a wide ranging interview conducted by Allan Jones that may be the finest interview Simon's ever done. Also be sure to check out the five page feature article on the sixties underground press.
And, yes, if you buy one music magazine this month, Uncut would be the one.