Rock-Critically Correct: Taking A Gander At “Blender”

Last week, we introduced Rock-Critically Correct, a new feature in which the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe and Spin are given a once-over by an anonymous writer who’s contributed to several of those titles–or maybe even all of them! After the click-through, he/she examines the most recent issue of Blender:

First of all, your correspondent must note a glaring omission in this month’s “Dear Superstar,” the FOB (front-of-book) feature in Blender wherein big stars are asked reader-generated questions regarding all sorts of apocrypha (questions that exude the same whiff of authenticity as the letters to Penthouse Forum).

The omission? This month’s subject, Stevie Nicks, is not asked about the rumor that she used to have a roadie blow cocaine up her ass because her nose was destroyed. Blender! You’re letting us down! You were the one that caused by minor hubbub last year when you got Ricky Martin to admit that he enjoys golden showers!

Maybe things are settling down a bit over at Blender. In the halcyon days of 2001, Falstaffian British publisher Felix Dennis blustered to the New York Times that the music magazine he was about to introduce wasn’t going to be like Rolling Stone and Spin–which is to say, it wasn’t going to be forever longing for the era when pop music mattered, maaaan.

No, Blender was going to savor the present, be irreverent and fun. It would not be tethered to a particular moment, and thus wouldn’t have to hand-wring over coverage of subsequent artists and movements that contradicted its values. Blender would also have no shame whatsoever regarding covers featuring MAJOR-LEAGUE POP SINGERS supplicating their sweater meat for the delectation of the backward-baseball cap wearers otherwise busying themselves with the C-list actresses proffered by sister Dennis Publications like Maxim and Stuff.

And that’s the way it turned out. At one point a few years ago, your correspondent heard from someone who should know that most major label artists would much rather do business with Blender than with their hand-wringing competitors.

But now that an auction for the Dennis stable appears to be concluding (Mr. Dennis’ enthusiasm for publishing having flagged in a flagging marketplace), your correspondent wonders if Blender is being positioned as a quasi-respectable publication. “No, auction front-runners,” the pitch might go, “Blender has more to it than just Christina Aguilera’s glistening rack! Why, we had Biggie Smalls on the cover last month! And for the current issue, we have an indie-rock band that affluent kids like, and whose album went to No. 2 the first week of release, and–as evidenced by our cover story–don’t appear to lead very scintillating lives!”

And my god–THAT COVER! It’s pretty much a verity of magazine publishing that cover images of bands don’t do so hot on the newsstand. But as much as Neon Bible was a sure shot for a top ten debut, it can’t help that Arcade Fire looks like the most miserable, too-sickly-to-barn-raise Amish kids imaginable. And your correspondent doesn’t think Pitchfork-niks are gonna run out and plunk down five bucks just because.

The confidence that characterized Blender five years ago seems to have deflated. In 2001–2003, photos of pop stars falling prey to nip-slips, butt-cracks and drug mishaps may have seemed refreshing, despite vexing long lead-time issues. Now it’s not so clear what the point of photos of Fergie sunbathing or photos of Cee-Lo hanging out in Vegas with chicks around a stripper’s pole could be, when such images can be called up on your computer minutes after they were taken. Anybody who could possibly care about pictures of Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes’ on-stage schween-exposure or John Popper’s gun arrest knew about these things months ago.

There’s also the magazine’s lingering Anglophilia. Blender‘s former editor launched it as an American take on Q Magazine–EMAP, Q‘s publisher, was apparently not amused at the similarity–and sometimes the colloquialisms of the English music writers he favored in Blender weren’t ironed out for the colonies. Now, a three-star appraisal of Arctic Monkeys’ Favourite Worst Nightmare gets the marquee spot in the review section: Blender senior critic Jon Dolan says it’s “less funny, less catchy” than its predecessor. So why is it the lead review? Perhaps because the band is British, and Trent Reznor, whose Year Zero gets four stars, is not. There are reviews of five British bands afterwards–one that American hipsters have heard of (Klaxons), and four (Aqualung, anybody?) that only the most psychopathic American NME diehard could have heard of. This could be because Blender is going to have a much, much easier time getting timely promos of new albums from also-ran British groups than its will have getting its mitts on Avril Lavigne’s, or it could be because its reviewer pool is still heavily English. Whatever the reason, it seems odd that an American music magazine shows so much deference to weedy English guitar bands.

There is, however, one truly inspired story in the May Blender. In an otherwise pedestrian package concerning Las Vegas and how famous people like to spend time there, associate editor Josh Eells explores the non-gambling, non-drinking and non-whoring options in town with native and Panic! At the Disco guitarist Ryan Ross. The 20-year-old considers Vegas “boring as shit,” and thus speaks for everyone who has grown up in a town that outsiders consider a destination.

Blender has always excelled with these sort of features, so good on ’em. Blender has also excelled in list-making, a pursuit many publishers have learned is a surefire method for inspiring spirited discussion in bars, on Morning Zoo with Schmucky and Fuckface-style radio programs and on VH1. This month’s installment? “Oh No They Didn’t: 20 Most Embarrassing Moments Ever Captured on Video.” No other list Blender could concoct could possibly date quicker, as the clips were probably picked in February or March, which, in YouTube time, is practically the Gilded Age.