In a modern world where people don’t leave home without earphones, did you ever wonder what they’re listening to? To find out, read on.
A$AP Rocky tells XXL he can’t keep a girlfriend because he has smoked too much weed to remember birthdays. “It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I don’t remember,” the rapper insists. A non-issue, according to the interviewer who, in a bracing exchange on the difficulties of modern relationships in the hip-hop world, counters that “rappers probably shouldn’t have girlfriends… How could they be with all the sh—t that gets thrown at and offered to them?” In response, Rocky asserts that “not even just rappers, guys aren’t faithful, most of them.” Keeping scrupulously on topic, the interviewer rejoins, “True, but most guys don’t have as many opportunities as rappers have.”
If you are ready to turn your will over to what is basically a music fanzine, Rolling Stone offers a good variety of musical flavors. A feature on Seattle rapper Macklemore opens with him attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, reminding us how he is trying to keep sober while his hit “Thrift Shop” tops the charts. For an older crowd, there are flattering features on the small group of session players who were on many of the early 1970s singer-songwriter soft rock albums and an update on 70-year-old suddenly famous Sixto “Sugar Man” Rodriguez. A Matt Taibbi feature on the absurdity of California’s three-strike law leaving shoplifters with life sentences is perhaps not worthy of seven pages.
Guitars have long taken center stage in American music, whether in blues, country, folk or rock ’n’ roll (and even some jazz). Perhaps that’s why Guitar World is for the pro and the purist, not those following the pop charts (love the sheet music at the back). This month’s issue goes down memory lane with a 6,000-word interview with folk rock icon Stephen Stills, who offers a nostalgic look back to Woodstock and beyond, with mentions of Jimi Hendrix, Judy Collins and his manager — David Geffen. Country is where the best guitar playing is today, the mag says, hence the cover on Nashville star Brad Paisley, who gives a nod to Hank Williams and Johnny Cash.
There’s good stuff within the pages of Magnet’s 97th issue but good luck finding it. The glossy runs woefully thin for a publication that appears in print four times a year. The mag tends to focus on independent, up-and-coming artists but clearly struggles to stay timely. Even Magnet’s feature writer, Andrew Earles, acknowledges as much, patting himself on the back in ironic fashion for composing a buyer’s guide to the best music to scoop up during the upcoming Record Store Day on April 20 (a day promoting independent artists and record stores). “I’ve nailed Magnet’s (print version) lead time with content that’s actually topical” is how Earles introduces his debut guide. Elsewhere, other ironies emerge like the independent magazine featuring an ad for Justin Timberlake’s new album — despite the former ’N Sync boy-bander being the last thing the mag’s decidedly non-mainstream readers want to see. A feature on acclaimed folk songwriter Steve Earle is worth a read until the point it devolves into a vapid Q&A.
If you think the American, French and Bolshevik revolutions were brutal, check out the early history of the feminist revolution. In the New Yorker, Susan Faludi profiles the tragic life and death of pioneer Shulamith Firestone, who was a dominant feminist voice in the 1960s as she criticized repressive social structures. But within a few years she withdrew, complaining of a “mob rule” mentality among radicals and succumbing to schizophrenia. Other founding radical feminists have likewise become victims of “painful solitude, poverty, infirmity, mental illness, and even homelessness,” Faludi writes.
A trio of features in New York tackles the uncertain future of the media business. Frank Rich begins by declaring “the last thing the news business needs is a case of nostalgia.” But several thousand words later, he concludes lamely that “nobody knows anything.” BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, meanwhile, laments that “it’s actually really hard” to “make a list of cute animals that gets 5 million views.” So who has a winning formula for the future? How about Robert Silvers of the New York Review of Books, which is now celebrating its 50th year, and which has been consistently profitable since 1966? “I have never figured out just why,” the octogenarian editor says. “We used cheap newsprint and had very low costs, including low salaries, and no staff writers.” Gulp.
Time delivers a fine feature on a big, untold story that’s unfolding across the US: Many Latinos are leaving the Catholic Church to become born-again Protestants. While the article doesn’t beat us over the head with it, the implications for the political landscape appear to be significant. The so-called “Evangelicos” are more conservative on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage. We also admire the profile of Chinese telecom giant Huawei, which it calls “the Chinese company America can’t trust.” The mag asks whether Huawei, headed by the brilliant, reclusive CEO Ren Zhengfei, is a “hidden channel for spies and saboteurs” as it eyes the US market.