Idolator

Once again, we present Rock-Critically Correct, a 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, a look at the new issue of Rolling Stone:

So Your Correspondent comes to Rolling Stone's 2007 Hot Issue. The assessment that follows, however, can be described only as "lukewarm" or "the temperature of a half-full baby pool," since real-life, non-blogland issues intruded upon YC last week. So indulge him as he goes over an issue that was commented upon by Idolator's overlords, among others, almost two weeks ago.

The reason for Idolator's interest in the issue was its cover, which depicts Bob Ritchie—a guy YC has always found to be quite likable—staring defiantly into Max Vadukul's lens while attended to in a manner to which he is accustomed by four stripper-y looking women. Thus, the image is more or less guaranteed to fill the average music blogger's heart with hot, unswerving hatred.

But enough about a bunch of dudes who couldn't get that kind of pussy in a bajilliion years! Should our understanding of "hot" encompass the nifty new thing that your aunt will be aware of six months hence, Kid Rock and his new album hardly fit the bill. More than likely, Atlantic Records, which is based in the same building as RS, needed a push for Rock & Roll Jesus, and the mag was in between Wenner-tastic issues: the preceding one operated under the bizarre notion that readers wanted another Hunter S. Thompson retrospective. As for the next, it's entirely possible that Mr. Wenner himself will decree that the planned cover package be delayed in favor of one celebrating his pal's big Nobel win.

About the feature: give a bacterium a pen, a notepad and three hours with the Kid, and you'd get a usable profile. However, strapping young "man about tour buses" Austin Scaggs records the Kid's comings and goings, which include blowjobs aplenty and Rock mentioning that he's hung out with the president and Donald Rumsfeld, which nominally qualifies a celebrity for a spot in RS' enemies list.

So then! What about the items that RS deems, ahem, hot? The package rounds up "living in Philadelphia" some six months after the "sixth borough of New York" blog boomlet, Band of Horses some six months after its own blog boomlet, and "the YouTube folk revival"...ahh, you know the drill. RS does respond relatively quickly to the emergence of Vampire Weekend, and suggests that Internet service providers could put an end to file-sharing whenever they bloody well feel like it, which YC hadn't thought of. In "Swiftboating the Democrats," Jerome Corsi, the Republican operative behind that selfsame effort to discredit John Kerry, handicaps each Democratic presidential candidate save Mike Gravel. It's pretty interesting, but notable for how Wenner would never allow such a piece to appear were he (and thus RS itself) fully invested in the 2008 presidential race. The editors also pick a bunch of up-and-coming figures and trends from the respective fields of film, TV, sports, tech, books and fashion, but your boy didn't find any of them very enlightening.

In truth, the Hot List's 56 pages are notable mostly for how they bear the scent of contributing editor and designated snark peddler Rob Sheffield. There's a ticker of Hot This or That quips that runs across the bottom of the entire package, and YC bets it was written by Sheffield. His essay regarding how the hot Zeitgeist is "Not Dealing with Reality" pinballs from snide cultural reference to non sequitur so recklessly, it not only suggests that it was written under deadline, but doesn't succeed in making much of a point. Sheffield makes Chuck Klosterman seem like Alan Goddamn Greenspan: the guy needs some fresh air.

Since YC is so late, he'll quickly go over the mag's reviews section. Much has been made about how Bruce Springsteen, alongside the Rolling Stones, U2 and Bob Dylan, is a member of the mag's "we give these artists new albums five stars no matter what" club. And so David Fricke's review of Springsteen's Magic runs over with hosannas as to Springsteen's insight as to the national mood, as well as his "Telecaster sting" and "the robust peal of Clarence Clemons' saxophone." The review merely contributes to the consensus of a hundred fiftysomething daily newspaper music critics—not to mention the twentysomething bloggers who would have otherwise trumpeted their contempt for the Boss had Win Butler not voiced his appreciation. (Does anyone care that YC thinks Magic is very dull?)

But wait! Four and a half stars for The Very Best of Mick Jagger! You might think that RS would be marginally chastened by the opprobrium that greeted Wenner's 2001 five-star appraisal of Goddess in the Doorway and just ignore it. But Jagger might be mildly annoyed that his new album wasn't reviewed and might interrupt Wenner's idyll in Mustique with an irate phone call! More than likely, it's simply that, as reviewer Fricke puts it, Jagger is "one of rock's greatest singers and songwriters," and he thus forever deserves such deference that this best-of comp escapes the reissue ghetto in the back of the reviews section and is third-billed behind Magic and a four-star review of the cover boy's new album, in which reviewer Anthony DeCurtis treats the Kid as if he's a Jackson Browne-style artiste.

The cumulative effect is that the Hot List '07 clears the air of subjects that Wenner doesn't much care about—that is to say, topics unrelated to his friends, his allies and the Bush administration (YC should point out that Matt Taibbi's National Affairs columns in RS are typically insightful and entertaining)—then the record reviews section comes along and says that Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger are great and that Kid Rock is maturing. Get ready for that Gore cover.