Idolator

And now it's time for another installment of Rock-Critically Correct, in which the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe and Spin are given a once-over by an anonymous music-mag writer who's contributed to several of those titles—or maybe even all of them! For this edition, we're moving away from the usual suspects and taking a gander at Guitar World:

In the comments for your correspondent's May 22 installment, one Amphluma suggested a rundown of a music magazine that ain't Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe or Spin.

Today, we turn to a mag that cares not a whit for Battles or Mims. Consequently, this mag doesn't figure at all into the blog-o-lemmings ecosystem.

We're talking the August 2007 issue of Guitar World, folks.

The magazine was launched in 1980, and soon capitalized on the hair-metal boom, covering dudes like Ratt's Warren DeMartini and Quiet Riot's Carlos Cavazo with a gusto that older rival Guitar Player, a much more Clapton-centric publication, couldn't manage. By the early '90s, World had weathered the shred bust by dint of the fact that, well, Soundgarden's Kim Thayil and Pearl Jam's Mike McCready would probably prefer to talk about guitars and music-making—as opposed to staple topics of the day, like heroin and this guy they knew who blew his head off—with journalists.

Since that time, Guitar World has focused on whatever hard rock or metal acts happen to be out there. Rolling Stone and Spin would be choosy: both would cover Limp Bizkit after the band was too big to ignore. But Guitar World would cover Lit or Buckcherry without shame. If an act has a.) a heavy guitar-orientation, b.) a major-label budget behind it, and c.) an audience of white suburban kids, Guitar World is there with bells on. In no way is GW focused on virtuosi: rather, coverage is premised on whatever non-hipster iteration of rock bands is current, be it pop-punk, screamo, rap-metal, garage-rock or whatever metal has mutated into at a particular time.

The mag's other emphasis is classic rock: a new Rush album is a major event for GW (the issue under consideration contains an interview with the band's amiable guitarist Alex Lifeson). Eddie Van Halen or Metallica will make GW their first stop when their dysfunctionality ceases for a short time and they consent to promote something. If there's an anniversary to be observed concerning Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd or Jimi Hendrix, then Jimmy Page or David Gilmour or the guy who placed the mics around the Marshalls at Woodstock will swan in to testify as to the greatness of it all.

Somewhat admirably, there has never been much pretension to hipness or independence from major labels within Guitar World, and heaven knows the pool of writers used therein are reliably, shall we say, workmanlike. Not for Guitar World the likes of Dave Eggers or Jonathan Ames sitting down for a spot of soul-searching with Ozzy guitarist Zakk Wylde (who is to Guitar World what Al Gore is to RS). Consequently, Guitar World, and all instrument-centric publications, are looked down on by the big boys of music publishing, for actually addressing the creative process and the tools used to facilitate is looked upon as decidedly unsexy, or something...

(Your correspondent knows Idolator readers' minds may be wandering, as he will not be otherwise mentioning R. Kelly herein, but bear with him.)

GW is the top dog in a stable that included Guitar World Acoustic, Guitar One, Revolver, and two magazines launched in 2004, Bass Guitarist and Future Music. But as of a few months ago, all of those titles save Guitar World and Revolver have been pole-axed.

In this issue's editor's letter (dubbed "The Woodshed"), EIC Brad Tolinski notes that these mags are "the victims of a shifting publishing landscape" and reveals that the "coolest departments in each title" would be incorporated into "one slam bang super guitar magazine." Your correspondent supposes that saying the preceding puts a much better face on the situation than saying "many of the people I worked with are now unemployed."

Anyway, the cover feature for this issue concerns the Icky Thump-hawking Jack White, precisely the sort of guy Guitar World can get behind: He likes to talk about Son House, the merits of various effects pedals manufactured by Electro-Harmonix, and in which contexts he uses his distinctive Airline or Triple Jet guitars (based on a photo adjoining the text, the fact that he favors looking like Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore doesn't hurt). Despite a propensity for ultra-hacky constructions like positing that Meg White plays like "John Bonham's love child," writer Alan DiPerna manages to tease out that White likes living in Nashville these days because the "garage rock" scene has turned on him. Your correspondent suspects that White's contention is code for "I am not very popular in my hometown of Detroit, which is populated by a bunch of hataz."

Elsewhere, the enjoyably loutish Wylde disputes Ozzy's assertion in the same issue that their new album was assembled via Pro Tools; we learn about a forthcoming documentary regarding Wylde's predecessor Randy Rhoads (a Biggie/Tupac figure in GW's universe); and Linkin Park's Brad Delson discusses his band's new "we don't play rap-metal no more" album, but not, sadly, that he has lately modeled his look on Lindsey Buckingham circa Rumours.

Now, back to those "coolest departments" Tolinski referred to. The prime real estate for GW and other magazines that depend on advertising revenue from musical instrument manufacturers are back of the book "private lesson" columns, like "Time to Burn" from Michael Angelo Batio, the shreddingest man alive (dudes! this issue finds him examining the F# Phrygian mode!), and guitar tablature for, ahem, Daughtry's "It's Not Over." Since GW's inception, this kind of content has been key for
guitar-playing readers wishing to beef up their chops.

However, in the past couple of years, guitar tablature sites and a persistence of shred videos on YouTube have exploded in popularity. If both of these phenomena haven't yet banished the "playing guitar more than adequately is uncool" stigma afoot since the rise of Nirvana, both are extremely relevant to the act of playing the guitar, and thus would impact upon GW's readership.

So, wouldn't you expect GW to at the very least examine this mini-renaissance of the mag's very rationale? Y'know, something like "What's up with this Korean kid who rocks the shit out of Pachelbel's Canon who millions of people around the world have seen?"

Your correspondent would! Except he realizes free tablature sites would possibly be viewed as a threat to what readers have traditionally purchased GW for. The mag has also in the past couple of years included DVDs of big-name guitarists showing off their hawt licks...but of course, segments from those DVDs hit YouTube rather quickly.

So it seems that, if Guitar World can't own tablature sites and YouTube shred videos, then Guitar World will be loath to acknowledge their very existence. In a nutshell, folks, this is a fine example of a "changing publishing landscape."