Idolator
Last week, we introduced Rock-Critically Correct, a new feature in which the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe and Spin are given a once-over by an anonymous writer who's contributed to several of those titles—or maybe even all of them! After the click-through, he/she examines the most recent issue of Blender:
First of all, your correspondent must note a glaring omission in this month's "Dear Superstar," the FOB (front-of-book) feature in Blender wherein big stars are asked reader-generated questions regarding all sorts of apocrypha (questions that exude the same whiff of authenticity as the letters to Penthouse Forum).
The omission? This month's subject, Stevie Nicks, is not asked about the rumor that she used to have a roadie blow cocaine up her ass because her nose was destroyed. Blender! You're letting us down! You were the one that caused by minor hubbub last year when you got Ricky Martin to admit that he enjoys golden showers!
Maybe things are settling down a bit over at Blender. In the halcyon days of 2001, Falstaffian British publisher Felix Dennis blustered to the New York Times that the music magazine he was about to introduce wasn't going to be like Rolling Stone and Spin—which is to say, it wasn't going to be forever longing for the era when pop music mattered, maaaan.
No, Blender was going to savor the present, be irreverent and fun. It would not be tethered to a particular moment, and thus wouldn't have to hand-wring over coverage of subsequent artists and movements that contradicted its values. Blender would also have no shame whatsoever regarding covers featuring MAJOR-LEAGUE POP SINGERS supplicating their sweater meat for the delectation of the backward-baseball cap wearers otherwise busying themselves with the C-list actresses proffered by sister Dennis Publications like Maxim and Stuff.
And that's the way it turned out. At one point a few years ago, your correspondent heard from someone who should know that most major label artists would much rather do business with Blender than with their hand-wringing competitors.
But now that an auction for the Dennis stable appears to be concluding (Mr. Dennis' enthusiasm for publishing having flagged in a flagging marketplace), your correspondent wonders if Blender is being positioned as a quasi-respectable publication. "No, auction front-runners," the pitch might go, "Blender has more to it than just Christina Aguilera's glistening rack! Why, we had Biggie Smalls on the cover last month! And for the current issue, we have an indie-rock band that affluent kids like, and whose album went to No. 2 the first week of release, and—as evidenced by our cover story—don't appear to lead very scintillating lives!"
And my god—THAT COVER! It's pretty much a verity of magazine publishing that cover images of bands don't do so hot on the newsstand. But as much as Neon Bible was a sure shot for a top ten debut, it can't help that Arcade Fire looks like the most miserable, too-sickly-to-barn-raise Amish kids imaginable. And your correspondent doesn't think Pitchfork-niks are gonna run out and plunk down five bucks just because.
The confidence that characterized Blender five years ago seems to have deflated. In 2001—2003, photos of pop stars falling prey to nip-slips, butt-cracks and drug mishaps may have seemed refreshing, despite vexing long lead-time issues. Now it's not so clear what the point of photos
of Fergie sunbathing or photos of Cee-Lo hanging out in Vegas with chicks around a stripper's pole could be, when such images can be called up on your computer minutes after they were taken. Anybody who could possibly care about pictures of Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes' on-stage schween-exposure or John Popper's gun arrest knew about these things months ago.
There's also the magazine's lingering Anglophilia. Blender's former editor launched it as an American take on Q Magazine—EMAP, Q's publisher, was apparently not amused at the similarity—and sometimes the colloquialisms of the English music writers he favored in Blender weren't ironed out for the colonies. Now, a three-star appraisal of Arctic Monkeys' Favourite Worst Nightmare gets the marquee spot in the review section: Blender senior critic Jon Dolan says it's "less funny, less catchy" than its predecessor. So why is it the lead review? Perhaps because the band is British, and Trent Reznor, whose Year Zero gets four stars, is not. There are reviews of five British bands afterwards—one that American hipsters have heard of (Klaxons), and four (Aqualung, anybody?) that only the most psychopathic American NME diehard could have heard of. This could be because Blender is going to have a much, much easier time getting timely promos of new albums from also-ran British
groups than its will have getting its mitts on Avril Lavigne's, or it could be because its reviewer pool is still heavily English. Whatever the reason, it seems odd that an American music magazine shows so much deference to weedy English guitar bands.
There is, however, one truly inspired story in the May Blender. In an otherwise pedestrian package concerning Las Vegas and how famous people like to spend time there, associate editor Josh Eells explores the non-gambling, non-drinking and non-whoring options in town with native and Panic! At the Disco guitarist Ryan Ross. The 20-year-old considers Vegas "boring as shit," and thus speaks for everyone who has grown up in a town that outsiders consider a destination.
Blender has always excelled with these sort of features, so good on 'em. Blender has also excelled in list-making, a pursuit many publishers have learned is a surefire method for inspiring spirited discussion in bars, on Morning Zoo with Schmucky and Fuckface-style radio programs and on VH1. This month's installment? "Oh No They Didn't: 20 Most Embarrassing Moments Ever Captured on Video." No other list Blender could concoct could possibly date quicker, as the clips were probably picked in February or March, which, in YouTube time, is practically the Gilded Age.
Comments
Okay, Arcade Fire on the cover along with "The next Killers" (so, the next band to get big despite sucking), something about Daughtry (maybe that his music sucks?), something about Fergie (how she is secretly a man and her music sucks, and BEP is the most whacktastically shitty group in the land?) and something about Panic at Disco (how they REALLY suck?).
I'm sorry, I love all kinds of music, but this coverage is WAY too schizo to appeal to anyone, is it not?
I am willing to bet that anyone who truly enjoys Arcade Fire has absolutely no interest in any of the other cover headline groups/"artists" (the last word used exteremely liberally).
@Aquemini: i'd bet you $20 that you're wrong.
Dear Indie-er than thou:
artist -noun
a person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria.
You may not like what they produce, but that doesn't mean they aren't artists. I happen to agree with your taste, but not your attitude.
If nothing else, Aquemini, Arcade Fire fans are often known for their love of ugly strippers.
Damn you, Dan, you stole my joke.
so that, uh, ugly strippers piece was pretty cool, right guys?
Do the ugly strippers fall under our "artist" definition too?
Just trying to keep up...
I am not indier-than thou, at all. I just think music takes some thought and that it should express good, honest emotion, and not be an obvious "business"; which means, i think (and that is my opinion) that 1) Fergie blows (as you cannot tell me real thought and emotion goes into her work), 2) PATD is even worse (a band whose every song title and move is certainly plotted out by marketers), and 3) American Idol is one of the worst things to ever happen to American music (just because you go on some show and sing a song you didn't even write doesn't make you an artist-sorry).
And, I would venture to say, based on past comments about Ne-yo (of all crappy artists) and here, Maura, that you are certainly in the minority.
@Aquemini: i "TRULY ENJOY" the arcade fire, and also was a fan of sam's town.
so uh, i think you owe maura a twanky.
I would pay good money to listen to a satellite-radio broadcast called The Morning Zoo with Schmucky and Fuckface. Well, maybe for a week or two.
@Aquemini: I'm sorry, I love all kinds of music, but this coverage is WAY too schizo to appeal to anyone, is it not?
What has two thumbs and refutes the entire premise of your question? This guy.
Actually, not so much directed at Killers as much as Fergie, American Idol and PATD. I can see liking Killers and AF, Killers just aren't my thing and in my opinion i think their whole image and marketing led to their success more than their music (at least at the outset and their 1st album-- after hearing the second one, it is inexplicable to me why they are famous)
Dennis: actually when i say this is way too schizo to appeal to anyone, did i ever say, 'but i still love this mag' or some such?
no i didn't.
Thanks.
@Aquemini:
1) Fergie blows
Agreed. Not really news, but agreed.
2) PATD is even worse (a band whose every song title and move is certainly plotted out by marketers)
There's a few things wrong with P!atD, but "plotted by marketers" they were not, sadly.
3) American Idol is one of the worst things to ever happen to American music
Seemed true in 2002. Became untrue the minute Kelly Clarkson released "Since U Been Gone." That was nearly three years ago.
(just because you go on some show and sing a song you didn't even write doesn't make you an artist-sorry)
Which I guess makes Elvis Presley and three-fourths of Berry Gordy's Motown stable not "artists," right? Yyyyyeah.
panic! and the disco and the arcade fire are cut from very, very similar cloth. yes, the songs on one side are much, much better than the songs on the other, but the showmanship and dedication to spectacle shown by both bands is very similar. (and who knows where p!atd will be in a few years, when its lead singer will be win butler's age?)
the p!atd show i saw last year was pretty amazing.
Dennis:
1) agreed.
2) PATD does not make every move calculated by marketers, i would respectfully disagree.
3) I think Kelly Clarkson fucking sucks.
3.5) Re: Motown: I will give you that, that is a great point. Although i don't really like the music of Elvis, i will give you that. However, wrt Motown, when those groups/acts did it, there was soemthing different about it. Maybe b/c they were the first, maybe because i can feel emotion in that. But you cannot argue that the people on Am. Idol are doing anything even remotely like what came out of Motown, no?
I'll tell you where PAnic at Disco will be in a few years: still singing shitty songs about how the girl at the mall made him sad and wear makeup.
@Aquemini
You didn't read what I wrote clearly. I don't like Fergie or PATD or 90% of what's popular these days. Your like or dislike of someone's artistic output is entirely valid: you can like or dislike whatever you want. My criticism was of your statement that they aren't artists, which they clearly are. Plenty of them are mediocre artists, but artists nonetheless.
As Dennisobell notes, and to expand upon it, commercial viability is not incompatible with artistry. And some fantastic artists don't write their own music. By your logic, opera singers and classical instrumentalists are not artists because they don't perform their own work. Even the annoying and insipid commercial jingles all over the place are artistic in their own way.
Like it or don't like it, but it's still art. And they are still artists. Forgettable, interchangeable, cloying, faux-deep, corporate sponsored (and sometimes created) artists. But artists.
Rev: Valid points. However, I would say there is an inherent difference in the artistry of an opera singer not singning his own work vs some AI douche singing a Mariah Carrey song or some other trifling shit. But, i know what you mean.
I don't see anything wrong with "artists" making music simply for fun. I doubt Fergie or Kelly Clarkson thinks they are going to change the world with a pop song, but they do have a market.
Re: Blender. I'd like them much better if they, along with ripping off Q, offered up the free CDs Q has once in a while. They are always good mixes and I am more than happy to pay the $8-10 for the magazine if I get something free.
Also:
"panic! and the disco and the arcade fire are cut from very, very similar cloth. yes, the songs on one side are much, much better than the songs on the other, but the showmanship and dedication to spectacle shown by both bands is very similar."
I would say being "showmanship and dedicated to spectcale", wrt to PATD is just a nice way of saying that band has shitty songs, but their image is what sells their music.
In which case, I would say I am right.
That band is all style, no substance. And their style would be cool to me if i was 15, had no friends, and liked to dress up in really lame clothes.
@Aquemini: i bet you KILL during your class curriculum on tautologies. sheesh.
I bet you've heard Aqualung before. It's the kind of thing you'd hear while shopping at Old Navy, or Cost Plus (where I have definitely heard it).
I will say this about Blender: their captions make me giggle.
Apparently, all you people who think Kelly Clarkson sucks are in good company:
http://www.pr-inside.com/clarkson-scraps-new-album-r114163...
"That band is all style, no substance. And their style would be cool to me if i was 15, had no friends, and liked to dress up in really lame clothes."
Which is precisely why I started hating metal when I was 16 (1986): the bands were becoming style over substance. And I agree that there's a lot of that going on now again particularly in emoland. The only difference in my opinion between PATD and Enuff Znuff is the clothes.
Of course, their target market is people in their teens or early 20's trying to figure themselves out and adapt to the real world. I'm so not in that demographic.
@Jupiter8: Wow, that sucks for her. Yet Clive OK'd McPhee's album?
A few things:
1)Maura I think I love you.
AND
2)Late last fall, a friend bought tickets to a Panic! At the Disco show because Bloc Party was set to open the show. This girl would pay to see Bloc Party fold shirts at Urban Outfitters if she could. Bloc Party had to cancel because the drummer or somebody got sick. We went anyway cause well we couldn't get a refund, much to my dismay cause like many of you I could not stand P!ATD, simply because of what I thought they represented. And
a)the show wasn't all that bad
b)I even said that I would have enjoyed it more
had I gone in knowing the songs
c)You had to see how out of the loop the youngins looked when Panic covered Eleanor Rigby and Killer Queen ["This isn't on any demo of bonus EP I know of!"
d)And really, the album is what it is, and isn't all that bad IMHO.
e)They can't all be Radiohead
3)"I don't see anything wrong with "artists" making music simply for fun. I doubt Fergie or Kelly Clarkson thinks they are going to change the world with a pop song, but they do have a market."
-DAMN STRAIGHT!
"Blender's former editor launched it as an American take on Q Magazine..."
Cool, because that's what I always saw it as. I'd buy the occasional issue a few years ago, but it's been a while.
Blender is such a turn-off. Just seeing it's simplistic, airbrushed, over the top covers makes me cringe when i'm in line at the checkout. Who buys this crap? I would once in a while if their covers didn't look like the latest maxim (but i'd regret it the next morning). Blender is stereogum, if 'gum published their trashy gossip... and that ain't good.
Magazines: Rock-Critically Correct: Taking A Gander At "Blender" - Idolator "it can't help that Arcade Fire looks like the most miserable, too-sickly-to-barn-raise Amish kids imaginable." www.myspace.com/stevepeters Via the latest Music from Other Minds show. Howard Who?
Based on his/her first two installments, I think I could read your anonymous correspondent's reflections on all things magazine-al for days on end. Thanks for the feature.
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