Idolator

Last week, Jezebel invoked People editor Dick Stolley's "Law Of Covers," which proclaimed in part "Movies are better than music. Music is better than television. Television is better than sports... And anything is better than politics." But in this era where "popular music" is having something of a crisis, is television really less newsstand-worthy than music? To test this hypothesis, I looked at the 2007 cover roster of pop-culture generalist bible Entertainment Weekly, which this week boasted a two-page music section (sure, it was a slow week for new releases, but that's smaller than the space it devoted to books!). As my former colleague noticed back in November 2006, the magazine's covers devoted to music-related topics had become few and far between. Would 2007's roster of covers show that Stolley's maxim was still in effect, or had the boob tube finally won out over the tube amp?

EW had 49 covers this year, and seven could claim to be music-related. The breakdown:
• American Idol preview (Jan. 12)
• Justin Timberlake (Feb. 9)
• American Idol top 8 (April 20)
• Kelly Clarkson (May 25)
• Britney Spears (Sept. 21)
• Carrie Underwood (Oct. 26)
• Alicia Keys (Nov. 23)

So, seven covers—four of which were American Idol-related, and two of which were focused on the show itself, and not any of the singers it spawned. To put things in perspective, that's as many covers as EW devoted to Heroes (3) and Harry Potter (4) combined over 2007. Maybe Stolley's rule needs to be tweaked a bit: "Television is better than music. Music on television is better than music. And music is better than sports... unless those sports involve a blonde cheerleader trying to save the world, in which case you're pretty much screwed."

Magazine Archive [EW]
Cosmo Editor: "My Sense Of A Good Cover Is If I Want To Lick It" [Jezebel]