Idolator: New York Magazine

"New York" Looks At Collagen Rock

Michaelangelo Matos — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:53:00 EDT

By now you've probably seen "The New New Face," Jonathan Van Meter's cover story in the current issue of New York. If not, read it whenever you can: it's superb. Even if you find plastic surgery ghastly to contemplate based on the most hideous of its results, this is an amazingly light-fingered piece of work. It's an effortless read even if the subject skeeves you; it dashes any expectations you might have almost gleefully—and none more so than when Van Meter brings into the story Liz Rosenberg, Madonna and Cher's publicist.

Page 3 of the online version ends with a teaser that says, "Next: What Madonna's publicist says about celebrities and plastic surgery." Great, I thought, I'm sure I really want to know that. What, variations on "no comment"? Not even close:

I decided to e-mail Liz Rosenberg, Madonna's publicist since fuh-evah . . . to see if she would have lunch with me and talk about celebrities and plastic surgery. "Absofuckinlutely," she wrote back. "Though why you think anyone I represent has done anything to their faces is beyond me. Ha-ha. Getting any artist besides Joan Rivers and Kathy Griffin to go on record about the subject is not easy. Of course one of the great quotes came from my gal Cher, who said in an interview, 'If I want to put my tits on my back it's my business.' Whatever Madonna has had done—and I really don't know—she looks truly amazing."

Rosenberg is in splendid form over lunch, ripping into Madonna's brother's new tell-all ("Guy Ritchie is homophobic? It's so stupid. No, Christopher, it's just you he didn't like") and all but admitting her charges have had work done. "Improve the product," she figures, is a star's motto, and this is one way of doing it. Whatever you think of such procedures, Van Meter's piece has real insight into their PR functions as well as their aesthetics.

About-Face [NYM]

"New York" Collects Hip-Hop's Greatest Under-The-Counter Hits Of 2007

jharv — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:15:48 EST

As the remaining minutes of 2007 are suddenly ticking off way too fast for comfort (we hardly knew ye, etc.), the year-end lists are splintering into the minutiae of genre and sub-genre and even format, and New York's list of the ten best hip-hop mixtapes of the year, compiled by dependable rap (and otherwise) crit Chris Ryan in the "the year [mixtapes] were nearly broken" by tape impresario DJ Drama's bust by the feds at the beginning of the year, is a nice change-of-Christmas-shopping-list from the Year-End Analysis routine. Having only heard five of them, I can't exactly start asking "the whaaaa?" or talking shit about some Stack Bundles (R.I.P.) tape I've never laid ears on. So though I can vouch for the quality of, say, No. 8 pick Geek'd Up Music by Fabo and Young Dro (and I'm pretty sure dead relatives have heard Da Drought 3 at this point), perhaps members of the peanut gallery who've made multiple trips to their local mixtape spot this year can offer independent assessment on these ten.

10. Lost Ones - DJ Noodles and Jay-Z
9. Legends Never Die - D.J. Clue and Stack Bundles
8. Geek'd Up Music - Fabo and Young Dro
7. A Tribute to James Brown: The Foundation of Hip-Hop - DJ Premier
6. Da Drought 3 - Lil Wayne
5. The Moral of the Story - Saigon
4. March 9th - Notorious B.I.G.
3. Live Free or Die Hard - Don Cannon and Freeway
2. Do the Right Thing - Clinton Sparks and Kardinal Offishal
1. Warlordz - Dirty Harry

Ten Best Hip-Hop Mixtapes Of 2007 [Vulture]

"New York" Magazine Can't Go For Facts, No Can Do

Brian Raftery — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 09:30:27 EDT

From this week's normally-quite-savvy Approval Matrix. We're not one to object to running pictures of Messrs. Hall and Oates—and we have plenty of humdinger mistakes ourselves—but really, you only need to listen to the first twenty seconds of "Maneater" to figure out that it's a cover of Nelly Furtado.

"New York" Magazine Turns Music-Critic Duties Over To The Unwashed, Underage Masses

Brian Raftery — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 11:33:24 EST

It's been a while since New York ran one of its "Jukebox" features, in which three "citizen critics" review current album releases. And frankly, we were hoping that the lull meant that someone had finally put the kibosh on this lazy, impossibly smug round-up, which the magazine often publishes in lieu of actual, you know, record reviews. Why does it drive us so coconuts? Let us count thee ways.

1) The smug illustrations We're sure the "critics" here all very nice New Yorkers—people who always remember to put heavy trash on the sidewalk, and who never jaywalk when they know impressionable little kids are looking. But could their folded-arms stance look any more self-satisfied? It's like they're saying, "Oh, I may have a passionate opinion about this song, but I would never get too excited and gesticulate wildly about it, because that would be just so déclassé."

2) The lack of actual criticism New York has more than a few knowledgeable music writers and critics on their staff; do they really need to fill up two whole pages just so we can find out that Lily Allen has "buzzing, blipping instrumentation with appealingly casual, potty-mouthed vocals and some super-hook-y tunes"? And why are they turning over a Lucinda Williams review to someone whose country-music knowledge consists entirely of Bright Eyes and Wilco?

3) It comes from a magazine that treats music with $300 Tiffany-engraved tongs While New York's blog has plenty of music-related articles and news items, the printed version only covers pop and rock sporadically, at best: Reviews will appear for an issue or two, and then disappear for weeks, and the feature well rarely makes room for long-form profiles (the only reliable places to find music coverage are the Approval Matrix and the events listings). This would be fine if it was Woneega County Weekly, but it's New York. It's not like the editors need a three-day editorial retreat to come up with some music-story idea memos.

Admittedly, the "Jukebox" feature was likely intended to circumvent the typical quick-capsule approach, and we recognize the value of a good franchise. But this is disservice journalism, and New York readers hoping to get even the smallest amount of music-crit insight are instead treated to some throwaway remark about fifth-graders sulking about the new Clap Your Hands Say Yeah record. It's a condescending approach to the medium, and one they'd never take with film, theater or television. We realize the current music scene is not as exciting as the Upper East Side brats who are hot-knifing their prep-school days away, but would it kill you guys to acknowledge it as a semi-vital part of your readers' lives?

Oh, and, we hate to harp on it, but seriously: Giving away that Children Of Men twist was so dickardly.

Jukebox [NYmag.com]