Everybody’s A Wenner: The “Rolling Stone” Review-Section Revue

And here we are again: Another new issue of Rolling Stone has arrived, and once again, we’ve gone straight to the reviews section, hoping to prove our only slightly asinine “every album automatically gets three stars” mission statement.

But you know what? We’re going to hold off on the number-crunching for this installment–not only because we need a break from rewriting the same conclusions every two weeks, but also because our Mellencamp-colon joke will work better at the end. So for today, we’re going to look through the rest of the magazine, hoping to find something rantable. Let’s see…is it the cover of John Mayer, Derek Trucks and John Frusciante 696’ing each other? Nah. The full-page ad featuring I’m From Rolling Stone big-mouth Krishtine? We’re over that already. The multiple pictures of Joss Stone? Ah, now you’re talking.

There’s Ms. Stone on page 35, with a caption that notes that the singer “finally has an album to be stoked about.” We’ve been hearing variations on this company-line statement for weeks now–in all sorts of publications–and we can’t help but wonder: When the hell did everyone start giving two poos in a pup-tent about this woman? Was there some sort of conference call in which every magazine and newspaper editor was told, “Hey, we know she sounds like a fur seal with sleep apnea and a copy of There’s A Riot Going On, but let’s all just pretend we care about Joss Stone’s new album. And while we’re at it, let’s write a half-dozen in-the-studio pieces about Mandy Moore, even though no one on the entire masthead can name one of her songs, not even the XTC cover.”

Come on. We realize that both women are hot, but really–are we to believe that there’s anyone at Rolling Stone who’s not going to let these discs languish in their must-sell pile before taking them to Princeton Record Exchange?

Issue #: 1020 Total number of reviews (excluding reissues): 17 Total number of three-star reviews: 5 Total percentage of reviews that are three-star reviews: 29 percent Number of I’m From Rolling Stone mentions (including advertisements): 3 Number of pictures in which John Mellencamp looks as though he’s a passing an uncomfortably shaped grapefruit wedge through his colon: 1

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