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current Monday
Report below!
This week's report by Tom Hendricks, ULA
Rolling Stone Magazine Gets Rolled
Review #: 51, 6/05
Title: Rolling Stone Magazine #974
What is it? : Long running music and more magazine - May 19, 2005 issue.
Technical Quality: Good.
Innovative Quality: Almost none. Nothing here that is new or innovative.
Illustration art work is below par.
Review: Magazine once touted as being a cultural guide for a generation is
now half ads and the rest fluff, and there may be a serious scandal that tie
the two together.
I counted 56 total pages of ads in the 100 page magazine.
Because this review covers the entire magazine, ads are reviewed too.
And ads as content makes this issue's content extremely poor. Note the
pop up ad in the middle for Camel cigarettes. Something for the kids?
Pretty scummy.
But much more unsettling than even this, is that every musical
performer ad has an article or a review somewhere else in the magazine:
It seems to this reviewer that one must buy an ad to get an article in the
magazine - and the bigger the ad the bigger the article.
If this is why there is coverage of every performer who buys an ad, then
there is a real problem of journalistic integrity.
If this is not the reason - then there is a real problem of the obvious
appearance of lack of journalistic integrity. Either way it looks very bad.
All music ads in this issue for performers (in order) include:
Dave Matthews Band full page ad .
Also see 1+ page major review - page 73.
Bruce Springsteen full page ad . Also see half page major review - p.86.
Joe Perry quarter page ad. Also see quarter page review - p. 78
Robert Plant quarter page ad. Also see full page interview p. 32 and review
p. 76.
Elvis Costello half page ad. Also see review p. 83.
Mike Doughty quarter page ad. Also see review p. 80.
EVERY ad for a musician or group, has a review and or story.
Rolling Stone gives every indication that musicians must buy their coverage.
Now lets look at coverage section by section.
1. Letters: soft - no real issues discussed.
2.Rock and Roll - Lots of coverage of dino rock acts:
Paul McCartney ( barely a whimper that concert tickets for Paul are up to
$250, and he's being sponsored by Lexus! What's this - the Bleed 'um Dry'
tour? And this is Rolling Stone that used to rebel against everything);
Neil Young, Elton John, Mariah Carey, Sting, Willie Nelson,
resurrection of Lollapalooza concert, etc. Plus some bits on new acts:
King Tubby, Mike Jones (one of the few black performers mentioned
anywhere in the magazine), Coldplay, etc.
All pieces were fluff pieces praising the artists or press releases
written by their publicists. It's hard to tell which - but clearly never a
discouraging word!
And almost all of it is about the stars not their music -
as if the actual music wasn't that important - a side note. There is
also a piece that compares Sirius with XM satellite radio. They praise both.
3. Q and A. A soft interview with Robert Plant. Then "Random Notes" with
photos of Hilary Duff, Justin Timberlake, Avril Lavigne, etc.
4. Incoming. Here the magazine makes fun of Evangelists, "God and
Man In Kentucky", and the Pope , "Ill Pappa; but later
treats the FILM "Kingdom of Heaven" with reverence.
Also note the 'straight face' reporting on important (?)
stories such as the Chart of Plastic Surgery.
5. National Affairs: Here in "The Quagmire" we have
the only serious reporting in the magazine, and it seems as
out of place as a NYT op-ed piece in "The Inquirer". Two
issues are discussed, 1 - the Iraq war is going badly, 2 -
the different factions involved. The coverage seemed serious
but in the end, very lite, incomplete, and badly structured.
6. Orlando Bloom: a puff piece on the "Kingdom of Heaven'
star. Where the author says, "I thought it was gorgeous Epic."
No chance of the interviewer asking a tough question after that.
Then a tabloid type picture story of Motley Crue's new tour.
7. Jack Idema : a confusing story about a shadowy figure
in Afghanistan - difficult to read, and I lost interest fast.
8. Young Hollywood. Puff pix and press releases of new stars and starlets.
9. Reviews: There were 54 reviews, 1-4 stars. They were soft to say the
least. There was only one 1-star review, for Paris Hilton's film "House of
Wax", seven 2-star reviews, and two 2 and 1 half star reviews. That leaves
FORTY FOUR 3-4 star reviews. Note all musicians featured in ads got 3 or
better stars.
10. Charts. These seemed fair though there was no explanation
of how they were determined.
Overall half ads, half fluff, a real disappointment. And a real
danger here that the coverage is ad driven. Also it's important
in what they didn't cover too - no look at music conglomerates,
unethical behavior, over priced product, or even more
importantly how rock has become everything it started out
opposing - and so has Rolling Stone!
Real quotes:
"Emile Hirsch, An actor rediscovers his inner skateboard demon."
"Radio fans frustrated by shrinking playlists, niche
formats and painfully long commercial breaks have more
options than ever." (And later in the story they write this
with a straight face) "the industry is fighting back with
a $28 million ad campaign ... and print ads in Rolling Stone"
(Note 'Garbage' is also the name of a band)
"Radio welcomed their return giving the first single,
the guitar-driven "Why Do You Love Me,' heavy airplay
eight weeks before the album's April 12th release. "It's
refreshing to hear Garbage on the radio again," says
99X/Atlanta program director Leslie Fram..."
No I didn't make any of that up.
Contact Info: letters@rollingstone.com
Overall Grade: 00.4 out of 10.0
Grading system: 9-10 Highest grade - Life's work of
a master (ex. Collected plays of Shakespeare, collected
symphonies of Beethoven) 8-9 Single best work of a
celebrated master's career. 7-8. Best work of an era or
genre or decade. 6-7 Best work of the year. 5-6 Very
good. 4-5 More good than bad. 3-4 Average amount
of good = amount of bad. 2-3 Mostly bad with some
redeeming parts. 1-2 Nothing redeemable. 0-1 So bad
it is offensively bad and outrages the reviewer for
taking up that time in his life - just awful.
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our website or e-mail me, Tom Hendricks. tomhendricks474@cs.com
http://musea.digitalchainsaw.com
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