“Blender” Hits The Pause Button

Once again, we present Rock-Critically Correct, a 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 jump, a look at the new issue of Blender:

Clearly, the April 2008 edition of Blender denotes a transition between the stewardships of departing editor Craig Marks and incoming editor Joe Levy.

For one thing, the masthead in this issue cites no qualifier-free editor or editor in chief whatsoever: the first staffer named is Creative Director Dirk Barnett. Perhaps there were still contractual matters to be ironed out at press time.

For another, a country artist appears on Blender‘s cover. Your Correspondent must admit that, despite dallying with mainstream Nashville fare as a listener from time to time, he thought Taylor Swift was an American Idol personality before he read the accompanying article. Yet Blender has occasionally featured country performers prominently (Leann Rimes made the cover in 2002), whereas its competitors have long concluded that Nash Vegas and its exponents are inseparable from red-state values and must be avoided. As long as it was determined that any performer is sufficiently comely, Blender didn’t discriminate. It remains to be seen whether the thoroughly blue-state-oriented Levy will continue this policy, but this feature was obviously assigned by Marks.

Jody Rosen’s piece posits that Swift is a relative rarity: a young female star in a genre that emphasizes rugged men in their twenties, and whose music evidently bears some emo and hip-hop traits. Rosen succeeded in making YC curious re: Swift’s music (he was particularly amused by quoted lyrics from Swift’s “Picture to Burn”: “So go and tell your friends I’m obsessive and crazy/ That’s fine, I’ll tell mine you’re gay”), but did not succeed in convincing YC that the sylvan songstress is a particularly interesting individual.

Third-billed to the Swift article comes a piece by David Peisner, the fall guy for the dumb reviewing policies of Blender‘s sister magazine. He scribes “Meet Beatle Bob, the World’s Most Obsessive Fan,” the story of a renowned 55-year-old St. Louis-area man who attends live music events every night of the week, has no visible income or evidence of a home and may be afflicted by Asperger’s Syndrome. Peisner presents quite a bit of vivid detail–he accompanies Bob to the house he claims is his own, only to be met by a woman at its front door who has never seen the guy before–and otherwise does an exemplary job on the sort of oddball/human interest story Marks often subsidized via images of young blonde women with pendulous dugs.

One thing both editors (and, for that matter, any other in music magazine publishing) doubtless share is the belief that cover lines teasing Nirvana content is a good idea. Hence, the band that we cannot let go of gets the “Every Original Album Reviewed” treatment. Given that Nirvana released the princely sum of four albums during its lifetime, and that its survivors authorized a bunch of naked cash grabs since 1994, YC thought this piece spectacularly cynical. But contributor Douglas Wolk at least includes the catalog of the Foo Fighters (YC is surprised that Wolk holds the decidedly prole Foos in any affection whatsoever, awarding the first record five stars) and the lone album by Krist Novoselic’s Sweet 75, so the piece is redeemed ever-so-slightly.

Elsewhere, in this issue’s persistent back page featurette wherein artists are queried about their on-the-spot self-portraits, “Who Does Adam Duritz Think He is?” the titular interviewee tells Music Editor Rob Tannenbaum “…if you asked my girlfriends, they would tell you, ‘that boy loved to go down on me.’ And I am damn good at it.”

…You’ll excuse YC for a moment, as he must wipe the vomit off of his monitor. Right! YC has long been mystified by the prospect of any woman allowing this vile and supremely dull creature between their legs, but he is reminded that, apart from the ancient “success = access to pussy” equation, many a porn starlet has attested to the oral virtuosity of the similarly Hedgehog-esque Ron Jeremy. And do y’all suppose that Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox ever commiserated over his technique?

Finally, YC’ll note Robert Christgau’s three-star review of Del the Funkee Homosapien’s Eleventh Hour. He doesn’t wish to heap opprobrium upon Christgau this time, but will only mention that in a late winter/early spring that features next to no big-ticket hip-hop album releases, all four of the magazines regularly assessed in this space chose to review a record in the past month by an also-ran MC that not even backpackers have any affection for. Rock critics forget an alternative rapper? Heaven forfend! Get ready for the Basehead reappraisal.

Essentially, this issue appears as if Marks’ big bag of tricks has now been upended and fully excavated. Levy has probably been taking stock of which components of the magazine he wants to keep and which he wants to remove. So! Next month, then.