Radar reports that The New York Times editorial page will have Bono penning columns for it in 2009; he’ll do six to ten (that’s an oddly vague commitment) pieces for the Gray Lady next year. (Radar also teases the possibility that this could mean the sacking of Sarah Palin fetishist Bill Kristol, which is a deal I would gladly take.)
Biases up front: I’m a huge U2 fan, and I think that Bono, despite his arrogance, is a saint, a musician who puts his money where his mouth is and works really hard for the things he believes in, like the AIDS crisis in Africa and forgiveness of Third World debt. (We need some of that in the First World, come to think of it.) These articles could be thoughtful think pieces about the geopolitical issues. I’ve seen him on the Today shows of the world sounding like he knows what he’s talking about. Unfortunately, I’ve also seen him pontificate at awards shows like some godforsaken beat poet-warrior robot that only speaks in bluesy non-sequiturs. Which is why I’m worried that these NYT pieces might end up looking lke this:
This week, the Sunday Styles section of The New York Times took on the “vinyl is back” trend, thus becoming the 1,495th publication in the United States to do so in the past year. Of course, the editors of the fashion-conscious Styles put their own imprimatur on the trend piece that so many other publications have tackled over the past year–and in doing so, they inadvertently provided yet another bend on the angle, one that assures countless pieces about the refound vogue of the LP in fashion magazines, where the pieces will be paired with catsuit-heavy fashion spreads instead of pictures depicting N-E-R-D-S. After the jump, the template provided by the Times for any other consumption-conscious publications who want to hop on this creaky, increasingly pricey bandwagon. (Those of you toiling on Fashion Rocks, take notes now so you’ll be ready for the big “vinyl is back” expose that you’ll run come 2010!)
The front page of today’s New York Times arts section was overtaken by yet another “whimsicial” music-related graph by Andrew Kuo, an artist who’s been making inscrutable charts of his music-consumption habits for Times‘ readers perusal for a little over a year now. This time, the subject is the ever-popular topic of “songs of the summer.” In it, we learn that he really enjoys Hotstylz’ “Lookin Boy” and Lil Wayne; also, he has zero familiarity with Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” and thus has no opinion on it, a super-contrarian pose that leads me to believe that he either doesn’t leave the house much or only visits bodegas whose ambient radio choices he approves of. (Or he’s fibbing to be “funny,” but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.)
The New York Times continues walking the marching-band beat, this time with a piece on the Bath Municipal Band of Brunswick, Maine, which has been pumping out the Sousa beats since 1961. More »
The New York Times continues walking the marching-band beat, this time with a piece on the Bath Municipal Band of Brunswick, Maine, which has been pumping out the Sousa beats since 1961. More »
Good NYT piece today by Samuel G. Freedman, who reports on the spike in enrollment for Florida A&M University’s summer band camp, in which some 450 students compete for a spot in the school’s famed drumline corps the Marching 100. It’s an illuminating look at how stylized marching bands are continuing their work into the digital age, and often enhanced by it. (Students like the Seattle teenager Freedman centers his story around often get into the camp after seeing the Marching 100 online.) It’s also got some intriguing numbers:
Today, The New York Times’ style section takes Madonna to task for no longer being a fashion leader, and–better steel yourself for this one–wearing sensible, loose-fitting clothes in her downtime. It’s a fairly mystifying piece, mainly because the writer seems to willfully ignore the obvious: Even if it’s kinda your job, you can’t remain young and ahead of the curve forever, especially when it comes to women’s fashion. Madonna may be in peak physical condition and have the money and resources to appear 10 to 15 years younger than she actually is, but there’s no way for her to single-handedly reverse our cultural bias against older women.
Of all the disastrous MySpaces I’ve seen, Coldplay’s current page does not exactly merit a second thought. It’s simple, tasteful, professionally designed, and easy to read. Perhaps the only thing remarkable about it is how good it looks for a MySpace. Yet New York Times media critic Virginia Heffernan seems to think it’s some sort of menacing pariah of the online world, a crudely cobbled-together middle finger to all those who crave browser-crashing Flash from their favorite artists’ online presence. Her piece in yesterday’s NYT Magazine is borderline embarrassing to read if you’ve ever so much as visited a MySpace page, not to mention rife with misconceptions about how the site actually works. But in the end she finally gets down to the bottom of Coldplay. Sort of. (Not really.)
I don’t know about you guys, but yesterday’s New York Times Magazine profile of the trying-so-hard-to-be-bewitching duo CocoRosie was excruciating to read–I actually only got through it on a third pass–thanks to the “how does it feel to be so incredibly awesome???” vibe given off by profiler Fernanda Eberstadt, coupled with the Casady sisters’ overarching preciousness. They eat lots of hard-boiled eggs! They have their own blend of tea! And a kooky entourage! I’m not 100% sure if the goal of this profile was anthropological, i.e. showing Times readers what two young women who were fully hatched from a place of complete privilege look like right before the end of our nu-Gilded Age, but I did know that every time I tried to sit down and really read the damn thing I kept getting flashbacks to the Sunday Styles bro-down with Vampire Weekend from a few months back. A few choice quotes after the jump.
Sure, we’ve all had a laugh when the ever-staid The New York Times has made second references to “Mr. Pop” and “Mr. Loaf” in its cultural reporting. But why, the Columbia Journalism Review wonders, are the stage names of hip-hop artists like Jay-Z, 50 Cent, and Diddy not given the same treatment? Instead, they frequently get their birth names swapped into stories right away–even though artists in other genres who hide behind aliases, from Alicia Keys (nee Alicia Augello-Cook) to Clay Aiken (nee Clayton Grissom), don’t get the same treatment. Is it because no one in the copy department wants to put a definitive entry in the stylebook on how to properly punctuate “Mr. Z,” or is there something more nefarious at work? CJR demands answers!
