WRITING MUSIC
There are as many styles of music as there are fashions in clothing – and that goes for music reporting, too. This week’s magazines run the gamut, with offerings of everything from interviews to rankings, with politics and scandal to leaven the mix.
With the debut of Jay-Z’s latest album “American Gangster” earlier this month, Rolling Stone serves up the obligatory Q&A with the rapper/music executive. Generally, such interviews are boring and do little more than add to the white noise that is the promotional blather surrounding a new album. But this one actually shows a mature side to Mr. Sean Carter, almost erasing the demerits the interview gets for yet again regaling us with tales of his younger years as a drug dealer. Matt Taibbi’s piece on the supposed appeal – and alleged lunacy – of Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee had all the promise of being a good read until Taibbi marred it with his heavy-handed take on some of Huckabee’s faith-based views. The section on 10 new bands to keep an eye on was moderately fun, though it will remind you yet again how derivative things have become in music these days.
Blender also offers us a Q&A with Jay-Z, only it’s longer and a tad more boring, particularly if you’ve already read Rolling Stone. But that might be the least of the magazine’s offenses. A profile of “The Hills” vixen Heidi Montag most certainly qualifies as a problem, as does the piece on the 100 best indie-band albums. We stopped reading after the third-best album. A compelling article about the state of things with Amy Winehouse redeems things a bit. Typically, we laud Blender as a fresher variation of your typical music magazine because it’s tongue-and-cheek, but this issue misses the mark.
Spin‘s cover story is an exclusive joint interview with Bruce Springsteen and Arcade Fire’s Win Butler. The pairing is not so unlikely, the mag says: Arcade Fire, based in Montreal, is at the forefront of a new generation of bands that revere Springsteen. Whatever. It still seems a little too contrived for our tastes. Much more fun to read is an interview with Beth Ditto, the hefty “frontgrrrl” for the band The Gossip. The sassy singer argues, for instance, that the authorities took away Britney Spears’ kids because of a “cultural misunderstanding.” “She’s from Louisiana, I’m from Arkansas. When I go home, guess what’s in those baby bottles? Mountain Dew. I’m not saying it’s right, it’s just normal.”
Old-school deadheads won’t like the fact that the Beastie Boys grace this month’s Relix, but the tried and true fans of the jam band publication may have to open their minds a bit. The feature on “hip-hop’s freshest forty-somethings” includes a bit of Beastie-style goofing around, but the mag also successfully explains the chemistry that distinguishes the New York group, which just released a new album. The deadheads will enjoy the short piece about the new 24-hour Grateful Dead channel on Sirius Satellite Radio. There’s also a nice feature from an upcoming book about The Beatles’ final days in Los Angeles, which include tales of groupies, parties and joints the size of knockwursts.
The New Yorker offers more new worries with its cover story, “The Virus Inside us.” The piece describes how evolutionary biologists are bringing back to life a number of deadly viruses that became extinct thousands of years ago. Hopefully, scientists can learn how Mother Nature originally beat them into extinction in the first place. On religion, the magazine takes a look at how a megachurch took root in unlikely New England, not in the Sunbelt locales typical for evangelicals. There’s a great cover illustration, “Violent Night,” depicting a gunship chopper with mercenaries guarding Santa as it descends from a starry O’ Holy Night sky.
New York magazine’s cover at first glance looks like a toe-sucking. But it’s not. It’s just the catchy way the magazine packages its wrap-up of the booming spa industry, “The Economy of Touch.” The magazine also dissects Dan Rather’s anger at CBS and why he’s convinced he’ll win his $70 million lawsuit against the network and his former bosses. The magazine’s culture pages are possibly the best in the city, likewise its “Strategist” section for shopping: tidy, fresh and very urban.
Newsweek climbed aboard Rudy Giuliani‘s popularity train with a cover story sure to annoy both his fans and detractors. One rub could be the inside headline, “Growing up Giuliani.” Rudy fans will admire the article’s intimate details that give a complex picture of a complex person, whose dad suffered a nervous breakdown in a public toilet. The magazine also examines the boycott flap over “The Golden Compass,” a Nicole Kidman flick that’s accused of being both anti-Catholic, and not anti-Catholic enough.
Time plays it safe with a cover story about how scientists expect to be able to sort out parts of the brain determining either good or evil. The magazine also wraps up the year in medicine, from A to Z, tracking breakthroughs and new treatments. In a look at the Mideast, Time says Arab and Jews are destined to live together in Jerusalem whether they like it or not. Another report says parents could be hurting their preschoolers by tutoring them too much, too soon. For example, identifying a flash card at an early age isn’t really reading, and is “something a pigeon can do.”