Why Music Magazines Suck

[Mattman]

#1 Reason: Obsession With Lists

I am not exaggerating when I say that that shit rag Rolling Stone features a "special edition" issue every other month detailing the "500 Best Songs Ever", or the "50 Greatest Artists of All Time", or of course the infamous "100 Greatest Guitar Gods of All Time".? Each list is of course extremely subjective, pointless, and simply blows smoke up the ass of artists who are either dead or revered enough already.? The Top 10 of the so-called 500 best songs ever issue includes nothing released after the 60s ("Imagine" is basically 60s), except for "Smells Like Teen Spirit", which music magazine editors maintain is the "anthem of a generation" over and over until we can't stand it anymore.? It's not just Rolling Stone, either.? Spin magazine has a special edition on lists about as often, detailing the "100 Best Frontmen Ever", "The 50 Most Influential Artists Ever", or "The List Issue".? Even Blender will bombard us with meaningless issues like "The 50 Worsts Songs Ever".

My point is, how often do we need to hear the same old bullshit about why the artists of yesteryear are so great?? We've heard all those songs and know about all those artists, give us something new.? Maybe it's because today's music scene is weak?? ?Yeah, well, these are MUSIC MAGAZINES.? They have the power to publicize bands that they think should be brought to the world's attention.

Reason #2: Less Attention Paid To Modern Music
It seems far more common to see pictures of artists like The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, the Sex Pistols, or Nirvana on the covers of music mags these days than pictures of modern artists.? The much-touted "Rolling Stone" interviews are never with new artists - they're with Pete Townshend, Keith Richards, Bruce Springsteen.? Unless your name is Eminem.  I mean, seriously, looking at music magazines in the newsstand these days is like one big retro trip.? It's just another reason why today's popular music scene is so weak and stagnant....because people can't stop living in the past.? The 60s and 70s are over, okay?? Deal with it.? If there's one thing that annoys me more than most, it's the near-deification of Kurt Cobain.? The music magazines are still obsessed with this guy even though he's been dead for over 10 years and his band only made a few albums.? Look, he wrote a few good songs, but stop treating this three-chord punk rocker like the Jesus Christ of rock music.

Reason #3: Less Attention Paid To Music In General
Why do I keep on seeing people like Jon Stewart, Lindsay Lohan (before she had a record out), and Dave Chapelle on the covers of these things?? Gee, I'm sorry, I thought these were MUSIC MAGAZINES.? Get back to music.? There's already an Entertainment Weekly out there.

Reason #3: "Rolling Stone" magazine
It's time to let go of this ancient hippie artifact.? Rolling Stone is easily the worst of the music magazines.? They have the most lists, the least attention paid to modern artists, and the most non-music related fluff.? Let's look at the cover subjects of 2004, found at

http://m1.buysub.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?langId=-1&krypto=w9y0eJiN7%2F8m9BhHKauBTDsqbksSRhw4%2FYdqLV3GfOWFx4rVIToCUmYYxVZUHw%2BTKGZXjUKLsESy%0ATYvq6BvcSSdOo0r8yPaoha7Hjvm6RBE%3D.

Hmm, let's see...Eminem, Jon Stewart, Lindsay Lohan, John Kerry, Tom Cruise, Michael Moore, the guy who writes Doonesbury, D12, Usher, Quentin Tarentino/Uma Thurman, Ben Affleck....does anyone see a pattern here?? Only like two or three of those 11 cover subjects in this supposed music magazine can be called "musicians".? Oh, and I forgot the many, many lists of old subjects, like "50 Moments That Changed Rock 'n' Roll", or "The Photographs: 50 Years of Rock 'n' Roll", or who could forget "500 Greatest Songs of All Time"?? At least Spin covers new artists, even if you'e never heard of them.

Of course, Rolling Stone takes up just as much of its pages with stories about politics, which are okay, even if they reek of old "fight the man" hippies trying to look cool; sex stories that no one really cares about (they did an entire article on a guy who had a really large penis....certainly newsworthy); and movie reviews by the most annoying blowhard in all of criticdom - Peter Travers.? This guy can't write a review without finding the tiniest, most inconsequential detail involving sex.? Case in point: his review of Spider-Man talks about that kiss in the rain scene as "being kind of like a public blowjob".? Gee, uh, thanks for the intellectual cinematic insight.? Dumbass.

When the Olsen Twins start appearing on your cover, you know you're not exactly a radical magazine for true rock music fans anymore.? So stop pretending.? I say, get this Britney Spears fanzine outta here.

[jarmo]

It's sad that music magazines are becoming more and more interested in gossip about "celebreties" than music these days.

There must be a reason why RS writes about people who aren't even in the music business. I guess it sells.


We used to have this entertainment supplement with our paper every Friday. They wrote about music, movies, concerts, DVDs, computer games, basically stuff about entertainment. They had interviews with musicians, actors etc. I remember how they devoted the whole paper to GN'R when they played in Sweden in the 90s.

Anyway, this summer they decided to redo the thing. Today it has a new name and it's basically a "magazine" full of pictures of "stars" eating, swimming, drinking, walking their dogs and so on.

There's almost nothing about music in it anymore. The album reviews were moved into the "regular" paper.

Apparently this new magazine sells more than the old one. I stopped buying it, but it seems like the rest of the country likes it. 


/jarmo

[kj_jive]

Anyway, this summer they decided to redo the thing. Today it has a new name and it's basically a "magazine" full of pictures of "stars" eating, swimming, drinking, walking their dogs and so on.

There's almost nothing about music in it anymore. The album reviews were moved into the "regular" paper.




/jarmo

I'm sorry Jarmo. But welcome to the good ol' US of A!

[jarmo]

Well, that paper is Swedish.

But usually everything you get in USA, we get a bit later. 



/jarmo

[kj_jive]

Well, that paper is Swedish.

But usually everything you get in USA, we get a bit later.?



/jarmo

haha yea, i was just saying that you were lucky to have something cool like that.  Album reviews are nowhere near the newspapers where im from.

[GNR_Green]

Good post.

I was in WH Smiths today (in England).  I looked at the music mag section and it exactly how you described it.  There were lists advertised on nearly every cover, as well as another chestnut you didn't mention above - Halls of Fame!!!!  All the pictures were of 'old' artists or dedicated to old bands.  In England We've got a handful of main music mags, which are: NME, Q, Classic Rock, Kerrang, Metal Hammer, Uncut (I think it's suposed to be for music) and the usualy teeny trash ones like Top of the Pops and crap dance music ones like Mixmag.  They're pretty much all into the celebrity, old musicians retro thing and try to be 'lifestyle' mags half the time.  There's also the list obsession we all know and love.  I used to get the NME (which is till a weekly) but it's full of crap music basically.  I liked Q for a while, but it's got so much you don't wanna read like Avril Levene etc.

There should also be a mass burning organised for any magazine that calls Kurt Cobain the rock icon of the century or Eminem the world's greatest artist.  That wouldn't leave many mags on the shelf!!