Earlier today I was going to post a link to the VF list with a snide link along the lines of "The One Worst List Of Best Songs Ever," but then fate and/or Axl Rose intervened. But I was reminded of it just now while perusing the set list for Rock Of Ages, the butt-rock jukebox musical starring known chest-hair blowdrier and former American Idol hopeful Constantine Maroulis. It has "The Final Countdown" and "Oh Sherrie" and "More Than Words"; it is pretty much the exact antithesis of the VF list, blatantly honest as opposed to the cocktail-party equivocating of "good" that no doubt went on at 4 Times Square in the runup to this issue. Am I being too hard on poor old Graydon? I leave it to you, the reader, to decide.

As Idolator guest Eric Harvey pointed out, "the first one is all 'nothing's good after 1982' and the second one is "nothing's good except 1982,' " so I guess your vote depends on which side of that particular debate you're on. Guess what I voted for?

25 Best Songs [Vanity Fair]
Set List [Rock Of Ages Off Broadway]
Oh Sherrie [YouTube]

Let Your Boy get something out of the way immediately: the main reason he chose to assess this particular publication this week is simply that it is likely that many, many more Idolator readers will have access to it than the printed versions of the magazines he normally considers in this space.

Which is to say that Fashion Rocks was mailed in the last couple of weeks to subscribers of Vanity Fair (of which it is nominally a supplement), Wired, and probably a few other magazines published by Condé Nast. Which is also to say that Condé Nast succeeds in producing publications that bespeak heft and significance and thus are less expendable to readers who would otherwise forsake printed matter entirely for the options presented by the Device You Are Currently Gazing At. Discriminating readers... like you!

Like last year's Movies Rock, a supplement sent to GQ and Vanity Fair subscribers, Fashion Rocks is clearly intended to attract additional revenue from many of Condé Nast's advertisers and also pimp a TV special by the same name that will be broadcast on CBS on Sept. 9.

But unlike Movies Rock, this issue is produced under the auspices of Vogue. (Previous iterations were produced under the auspices of GQ.) Which is yet again to say that it's more than likely that editor-in-chief Jonathan Van Meter had very little leeway as to what sort of content would constitute the issue and essentially carried out the wishes of Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue since 1988.

About the best thing YB can say about Ms. Wintour is that she demonstrated a previously disguised sense of humor about herself by attending a high-profile screening of a movie premised on the persistent perception that she is, frankly, a cunt. Unlike virtually every woman he's ever known, YB is not fascinated with Vogue, the instrument with which Ms. Wintour preys on the insecurities of women. Wintour has been so good at making females feel like they're worthless unless they spend money on material goods proffered by Vogue advertisers for so long that, in terms of the publishing milieu, she's indestructible.

And so she's charged with producing a one-off magazine that is intended to promote a television special that involves famous music figures. Fashion Rocks is best understood as how Ms. Wintour contends with music culture. This means that Justin Timberlake, a guy with no new music on the horizon but whose fashion imprint, William Rast, will put out its fall line next month, is an appropriate cover choice.

It is beyond doubt that Wintour is familiar with Timberlake. But had she heard of the Kills, who are profiled herein via an article entitled "Band of Outsiders"? The London duo certainly bears a certain Velvet-esque élan that stands them in stood stead with runway habitués, but there's one aspect that's sure to get Wintour's attention: Kills guitarist James Hince is Kate Moss' latest pale, leather jacket-clad stunt dick. If pint-size hesher icon Ronnie James Dio found himself as Moss' dragon-slayer (or fellow dragon chaser) du jour, then he'd be profiled herein, no questions asked.

Writers and personalities that are only vaguely in Wintour's orbit are called in for pieces that are each headlined with a startling lack of flair. In the issue's de facto introduction, "Sound and Fashion," longtime Village Voice fashion scribe Lynn Yeager explains that "music and style have always been in sync," an idea which doesn't need explaining; Joan Jett talks about her own style aesthetics in "Born to be Bad"; in "Dirty Pretty Thing," Liz Phair is described as "the rock equivalent of Carrie Bradshaw"; the part of ex-label honcho Danny Goldberg's mem-wah, Bumping into Genius, concerning Courtney love and "that dirty little man she married that the younger people think is so wonderful" is excerpted in "I Am Legend"; "Hearts of Darkness" explores "emo" culture now that designers have taken note of it; "Fine and Dandy" examines André Benjamin and his Benjamin Bixby line; and finally, in "Hit Man," profilee Mark Ronson, a DJ at several events that Ms. Wintour has surely attended, is described as the son of "socialite Ann Dexter-Jones" and incorrectly as the stepson of "the singer of Foreigner, Mick Jones."

Ultimately, the writing in the mag does not address the point of Fashion Rocks. But the photographs accompanying the articles cited in the previous paragraph are lensed by the likes of Terry Richardson and Steven Meisel. And a marquee photo package, featuring several performers that will probably drop out of the accompanying special by the time it's broadcast, involve the contributions of Meisel, Norman Jean Roy, and Jean-Baptiste Mondino. Pretty pictures, after all, are the point of Fashion Rocks and of any endeavor involving Ms. Wintour.

(YB should say that an essay appending Meisel's shot of Mariah Carey includes the single, solitary example of memorable, insightful scribbling in the entire issue, courtesy of Michael Joseph Gross: "...Carey is Long Island's answer to Dolly Parton, a woman whose bodacious bod and over-the-top style have distracted many people from her rare and substantial talent...Carey's aspiration to G4 style seems an effort to make up for her bridge-and-tunnel background." True dat, and thus it's the one of very few ways someone with that kind of background can matter to Ms. Wintour.)

So clearly, YB finds Fashion Rocks to be a fairly vile proposition. But one photo essay therein is particularly ghoulish, and is the other reason he chose to write about the mag.

"Here Comes the Son" finds Dhani Harrison sporting a mustache and styled in the manner associated with his father George in 1967-1968. He also cavorts with one Sasha Pivovarova, one of those Eastern European wraiths models that Wintour often employs. This young woman is clearly cast as Patti Boyd, the woman pere Harrison was married to in the late '60s and early '70s—although Harrison disingenuously describes her look in a caption as being based on Stones muse Anita Pallenberg. Dhani's mother is Olivia Arias, who no doubt is thrilled to not only see her son pantomiming his father, but to witness him hugging up to a representation of her husband's first wife.

Harrison's new band thenewno2's album apparently will be released soon. YB can only assume that young Harrison or someone (poorly) advising him believes the record faces nigh-unto-impenetrable barriers, since somebody in a relevant position thinks there's something to be gained by breaking the rule observed by all Beatles progeny: "I will not be judged based on my dad's legacy—or at least I will avoid the appearance of doing so."

But Van Meter quotes Harrison in his editor's letter as a way to justify this bizarre exercise: "It's very hard to take a step in any direction musically without referencing something The Beatles have done." Van Meter adds, "In every way, our ten-page layout with Dhani and Sasha perfectly captures what Fashion Rocks is all about."

Precisely. It all makes perfect sense and is very high concept to vampires like Ms. Wintour and her underlings.

To all:

Given the rising costs of paper, postage, plastic, envelopes and human effort, the economic problems faced by the music industry, the myriad ways of finding new music in the digital age, as well as all of our deep concerns for the environment, I would like to request that you remove me from any of your mailing lists that send out unsolicited CDs or press material.

D***** ********* from my office will contact you when I need something specific, and we can make arrangements for delivery at that time.

Thank you very much.
Lisa Robinson
Vanity Fair Magazine

One wonders if digital promos are A-OK, or if they fall under the category of "press material"—one also wonders if she's operating out of environmental concern or the fear that she'll have the pants sued off her by Universal Music Group. So many questions!

Lisa Robinson: Environment, Si!; Flacks, No! [Velvet Rope]

"Well then," YB thought once he noticed that recent issues of both Vanity Fair and GQ included a standalone supplement titled Movies Rock, "so much for those 'Music Issues' Vanity Fair put out every year!"

This year has seen VF publishing a "Green" issue and a Darfur-themed issue, but the annual issue devoted to musical figures that interest editor Graydon Carter—inevitably featuring a lavish group cover portrait by Annie Leibovitz—was absent in 2007. Perhaps, since the "recording arts" component of the mainstream culture industry is quadruple fucked, Mr. Carter has little incentive to lend his imprimatur to it any longer. If Vanity Fair is going to go to any trouble emphasizing music, it must be now tethered to Hollywood, Mr. Carter's favored constituency. Apparently, publisher Conde Nast intends put out Movies Rock annually, and it will round out what would be Vanity Fair's 13-issue year.

So, then! Apparently, "Movies Rock"! And, according to a cover line, "Hollywood Turns Up the Volume." And evidently because movie people "rock" and because Bill Murray will be in the upcoming film City of Ember, a cover image captured by Mark Seliger presents Murray portraying the Vegas Elvis, mid-karate chop. Movie stars "rock" so much that it's better that an actor who has lately served as muse to YB's least favorite filmmaker ever—rather than a musical artist—should appear on MR's cover.

Similarly, "Double Threats," one of two "photo portfolios" that VF typically includes in themed issues, includes images of musicians acting in recent movies, like Charlotte Gainsbourg, Chris Brown, Corinne Bailey Rae, and in one shot seemingly every rapper who has been in a major film in the past four years. Otherwise, you have portraits of musically inclined actors like John C. Reilly, Billy Bob Thornton, and celebrated songstress Minnie Driver.

Carter's point-man for MR is Mitch Glazer, a producer/screenwriter (he produced Lost in Translation but, more importantly, he also wrote Scrooged, starring... Bill Murray!!!) who's married to Kelly Lynch (the hawt, non-Heather Graham junkie from Drugstore Cowboy), was a Crawdaddy stringer in the '70s, and is now one of Carter's Hollywood cronies. Probably not coincidentally, Glazer and Lynch were picked as one of VF's "best-dressed couples" earlier this year. Glazer labors mightily in his editor's letter to reinforce the idea that 2007 is a big year for musical cinema, citing La Vie en Rose, Sweeney Todd, and I'm Not There ("hey," he half-jokes, "maybe this isn't crass ad scam after all") before teasing many of the articles in the mag. One of which is "Soul Survivors," his own gee-whiz essay recounting his role in the creation of Martin Scorcese's Shine A Light, which captured two Rolling Stones shows at NYC's Beacon Theatre, a 2,800-capacity space Glazer describes as a "small, sweaty venue." Glazer never describes what his specific contribution to the film was, busy as he is with hosannas to Scorcese and the Stones.

So off we go! In a front-of-book featurette titled "LA Rock City" we learn which Hollywood clubs actors and actresses have been known to frequent. In "When Stars Record," David Cross and Demitri Martin critique the music of Bruce Willis, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Dogstar, thus shooting fish in a barrel; Cross, as ever, is smug in the manner common to many fortysomethings secure in the belief that culture has been on a downward spiral ever since the demise of Hüsker Dü. We also revisit 1992's signal stoner parlor trick in "Dark Side of Oz": VF staff writer Jim Windolf proposes new film/music mash-ups, including Gone With the Wind/James Brown's Revolution of the Mind and Idiocracy/ Britney's Oops!... I Did It Again. Leaving aside Windolf's cutesy conceit, YB always wondered why folks did flips over the Floyd/Oz synchronization, since the film is an hour longer than the record: are you supposed to put on Animals or Wish You Were Here for the remainder?

Then we come to "The 50 Greatest (Mostly) Rock Soundtracks of All Time." YB has to disclose a conflict of non-interest, due to the fact that he's never had any affection for the "my mix-tapes are representative of my superlative taste" aesthetic of the Pulp Fiction (No. 4), Rushmore (No. 11) and Garden State (No. 43) soundtracks. So he'll just say that nothing therein will give Conde Nast readers pause—although, in a soon-to-be post album era, it may have made more sense to come up with a list of top music moments in film, or something similar.

Finally, we get to the feature well, which, given that deeply reported longform journalism and think pieces are VF's bread and butter, seems half-baked. James Wolcott, a trusted VF contributor and a gifted critic, takes on Ken Russell's 1975 film Tommy in "Tommy Dearest"; he admits that he hadn't seen the film until this year, discloses his Who fandom, notes Russell's aesthetic inclinations, mentions that the idea of a revolutionary "rock messiah" didn't seem far-fetched in 1969, concludes that Ann-Margret is the true star of the film, and otherwise carries on as if the piece needed to be written very quickly.

Seeing as YB believes that the film isn't very good at all (he doesn't think much of the entire Tommy franchise anyhow), he thinks a better subject for Wolcott would have been the entire subgenre of phantasmagorical "rock" films that probably involved rather a lot of cocaine use on set: not just Tommy, but Nicholas Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth, Alan Parker's The Wall, Sidney Lumet's The Wiz, Brian DePalma's Phantom of the Paradise... fuck, throw Michael Schultz's infamously shitty Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in there!

That said, YB very much digs two deeply reported features: Sam Kashner's "Fever Pitch" explores the creation, production, and aftermath of Saturday Night Fever, and James Kaplan's "The King of Ring-A-Ding-Ding" tells the story of Jimmy Van Heusen, the co-songwriter of "Love and Marriage," "Come Fly With Me," "High Hopes," and "All The Way," as well as Frank Sinatra's lieutenant in all things involving booze and broads. Both are excellent: Given that each is concerned with Hollywood lore, is packed with insider-y dirt and are otherwise rigorously detailed, it seems likely that both were commissioned for Vanity Fair itself and not a fly-by-night supplement designed to attract additional ad revenue. Read 'em!

Easily the most useless piece herein comes from the pen of a woman who has Frankenstein-stitched P.R. tidbits for Vanity Fair for years, resulting in a column that makes Larry King's legendarily static USA Today commentary read like fookin' Hendrik Hertzberg. Yes, dahlings, it's Lisa Robinson, the Liz Smith/Cindy Adams of rock!

Many moons ago, this woman palled around with Mick Jagger on the New York Post's dime, and she has since proffered her artless assemblages in VF. In "Rock and Reel," she notes that a bunch of rock biopics are in production and also that pop artists are involved in upcoming films; each citation gets generally one sentence each, and to call her ability to craft a prose transition "rudimentary" would be far too generous. She also mentions that Bono appears in Julie Taymor's Across the Universe, which came out three months ago. YB wonders if Robinson or a proxy has registered the domain name "2girls5donkeys1VFeditor1cup.com," anticipating a time when Mr. Carter ever decides to call time on her far-beyond-phoned-in claptrap.

As it happens, several hours after this review's publication, CBS will broadcast Movies Rock, which was held in Los Angeles last Sunday and features Beyonce, Fergie, Usher, will.I.am, Carrie Underwood, and Mary J. Blige all singing movie songs. None of these artists appeared in the issue. If a representative of Conde Nast Media Group doesn't much care for YB's musings, that rep should take solace in the fact that he notified many readers of a televised event that seems very underpublicized.

Luda, 29, politely played along as Robinson, who appears to be in her mid-50s, asked questions that started with such phrases as "I don't understand all that rap stuff" and "Now, if you're fronting," among other gems. After her use of the word fronting, Bridges and the crowd erupted in laughter, and the amused rapper eventually grinned and asked the elder editor to explain what "fronting is ... for all the people in the audience who may not know."

Later, Robinson's tired comparison of rappers to white rock dinosaurs like David Bowie and members of The Rolling Stones was lost on the youthful audience, who, moments before the panel, were enjoying Ludcaris's hits piped in through the speakers. While a few audience members slept, one was overheard remarking, "What are these questions she's asking?"

Note to Robinson: That's what they call a "diss."

Vanity Fair Editor Be 'Frontin' on Luda [Radar]

Now that he's conquered the worlds of screenwriting and papal fashion, Bono is getting into the glossy-magazine game, volunteering to serve as guest editor of Vanity Fair's July issue:

"We need to get better at storytelling," Bono said, sitting in the 22nd floor of the office of Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair. "Bill Gates tells me this all the time. We've got to get better at telling the success stories of Africa in addition to the horror stories. And this magazine tells great stories"...

Mr. Carter frankly said that he hopes a co-mingling of brands will help sell a tough subject. "We plan on making this an event with more separate cover treatments than the magazine has ever had."

"I wanted him to change the title and call it 'Fair Vanity,' " Bono said. "He said he'd do that just as soon as I change the band's name to 2U."

Mr. Carter said, "Bono really does see the world through rose-tinted glasses."

Funny! And, more importantly, true. We look forward to Bono's first story-pitch meeting, during which he tries to sell the staff on such ideas as "Wok On: The Ten Best Chinese Restaurants in the World"; a Christopher Hitchens-penned take-down of Chris Martin; and a 15,000-word "From the Editor" letter that must be read with "Bullet The Blue Sky" playing in the background.

UPDATE: Let's hope Bono is getting at least $3 a word; according to Advertising Age, his Red campaign isn't doing so well.

Citizen Bono Brings Africa to Idle Rich [NY Times]

On a slightly unrelated note, VF apparently has a new section called "Bling," meaning they are nearly caught up with circa-2000 popular culture. Look for next month's exciting new back-of-the-book column, "Audi."

Grrrl's Got Rhythm [Vanity Fair]