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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
Is it possible for a rock magazine to age with dignity? Overlooked in all the talk about newsstand sales is the growing popularity of some other British imports, Mojo and Uncut. While Mojo in particular is maligned as a retread publication for those who never tire of reading one more explication of Elvis Presley's truck-driving days or the origins of the Buzzcocks, it is not nearly as time-warped as that. By establishing their credentials as lovers of rock in all its forms, the editors of Mojo can back up their current recommendations. When they told me to drop everything and go hear the White Stripes, I did.
Uncut takes the formula a step further, including free CDs with each issue that feature a sampler of bands reviewed in its pages, old and new. The current issue, featuring a CD of various artists covering Bob Dylan songs, is sold out at the newsstands in New York -- at $9 a pop. My point being: I'm willing to spend money on the newsstand, but not on a magazine that puts Natalie Portman (or Kirsten Dunst or any other beautiful young actress) on the cover.
Celebrity covers, and celebrity coverage in general, is considered a necessary evil by magazine editors everywhere (and anyone who has dealt with these celebrities' publicists knows that "evil" is used here in a strictly descriptive sense). The guiding philosophy is to get the suckers in the tent, which is fine if you then give them some bread along with the circus. Any magazine with a starlet on the cover has to then pass the airplane test: It must give me enough to read to get me through the average unpleasant airplane flight. Rolling Stone doesn't even get me through the gate and onto the jetway. And that's in its current incarnation, buttressed by what Needham calls "the wall of copy." At a time when it's not insulting to call a magazine a "flip book" or a "must-skim," don't expect more of the new Rolling Stone.
Not that Needham will find himself unfettered. Rolling Stone has always been Wenner's magazine and he has done a great job over the years, giving free voice to writers as diverse as Lester Bangs and Tom Wolfe. He made stars of Hunter Thompson and Annie Leibovitz and his fingerprints can be found all over journalism. Though his attempts to turn Wenner Media into an empire have certainly distracted him, he has an undisputed eye for talent and a seeming appetite for adventure. And while famously thin-skinned and imperious -- he hates to be addressed by the help but is reportedly stung when he goes unrecognized by the press -- there is no law that says publishing geniuses need to be likable. Which might explain why none of them are.
No, "[His] sin is [his] lifelessness," as Bob Dylan sang in "Desolation Row" and Greil Marcus later wrote (in the pages of Rolling Stone) of Elvis in Vegas. No one who was witness to the creation of the magazine mistook Wenner for a hippie; he always wanted success and, like rock promoter Bill Graham, was often condemned for just that. But with that drive he combined principles. His inaugural editor's note makes Charles Foster Kane's manifesto sound practically jaded.
"We have begun a new publication reflecting what we see are the changes in rock and roll and the changes related to rock and roll," Wenner wrote in the fall of 1967. "Because the trade papers have become so inaccurate and irrelevant, and because the fan magazines are an anachronism, fashioned in the mold of myth and nonsense, we hope we have something here for the artists and the industry, and every person who 'believes in the magic that can set you free.'"
That last line is from the Lovin' Spoonful song that John Sebastian long ago licensed to McDonald's. The world has changed immeasurably since Wenner wrote that note and he would doubtless blush to read those words today. He never wanted to be portrayed as some progenitor of '60s counterculture, even as he dreamt up the promotional idea of sending out roach clips with each subscription. He just knew which way the smoke was blowing -- even when he pointed out (as in the Perception/Reality ad campaign) that his readers drove BMWs instead of Volkswagen vans and drank vintage California wine instead of Ripple. But the magazine's name (and its very typeface) still has a resonance with readers like me, while I'm sure the young readers Wenner wants would draw a complete blank if pressed on its etymology.
The community that once existed for Rolling Stone has splintered, like pop music itself, into a thousand shards, and there are plenty of publications covering those fractions (not forgetting Vibe -- which actually sells far more copies than Spin or Blender -- along with the Source, Fader, Q and so on). A magazine built on the notion of Us vs. Them is no longer relevant; there is no Us.
Unless you mean the magazine. That publication was launched with no principles whatsoever and no mission beyond competing with People. Having found, in Bonnie Fuller, an editor willing to suck what little brains there ever were out of Us Weekly, Wenner finally has the editors at People alarmed as newsstand sales of Us are climbing. All he had to do was tout some celebrity diet secrets and rip the façade off Jennifer Lopez's marriage to get there. Yes, Us is doing fine without a thought in its head. Let's hope that if Rolling Stone gets the same lobotomy, Wenner will have the decency to smother it with a pillow.
