Sunday, May 23, 2004
Spin Off
Dear Spin Magazine,
I only bought you because the Mothers Against Drunken Driving were selling you, and I couldn't think of a good reason to hang up the phone.
So then you came.
And every time you came, I was slightly surprised to see you. "Oh, yes, I subscribe to Spin Magazine," I reminded myself. "How exciting, now that I can read up on all the latest music news."
I would take you inside, then, and open you up. First there were the thick pages of glossy advertisements of well-dressed, young people -- the sort of people you often poked fun of in your articles. Then there was the table of contents. Then I would try to locate an article, but you never seemed to put page numbers on all the pages, did you?
This was not the first instance in which I noticed you didn't seem to care much about your actual written product. I noticed you began including all sorts of pictures of yourselves -- yes you, the editor and writers -- in pictures with the artists you covered. The unmistakable filth of distaste began to grow as I turned the pages.
Another example of your shoddy work was your reviews section. Each month I would look forward to this section, to read up on all the interesting new music available. But you spent each review summarizing all the other work the artist had done before the particular album being reviewed. Then you inserted some of your smart-alecky comments that struck me as an in-joke with your copy editor, and that was all.
This was not the first time I noticed you trying to be smart, hip or funny. It seems every article in you holds some ulterior motive, that being to convince readers how much you know about someone or something, and how wittily you can put that person or thing down. For example, in the four years you've been dropping on my doorstep there has not been one picture caption in any issue that has not had some "sassy", smart-ass tone to it.
So I slowly began to realize that you were not for me. At first, it was because of "emo". Yes, "emo", that dreaded "sub-genre" of rock music that you could never seem to shut up about. Every damn issue you had to mention "emo", as if that was the only style of rock that meant anything. Would it have killed you, in the four years I bought you, to have included an article on Neil Young?
But, Spin, it wasn't just your constant mentioning of "emo" that lead me believe we must part. No. I think the last straw was your cover article on the ten-year anniversary of grunge music. Or was it the tenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death? I don't know. But that's the rub, isn't it? Your insistence on Cobain's godhood is what's wrong with music today -- yet you claim to be an outsider of the music press!
Ten years pass and he's still glorified for killing himself. Do you know where Kurt Cobain and/or Nirvana would be right now if he hadn't killed himself? Best case scenario is that they'd be where Pearl Jam is: a successful, but much lower profile band. He'd still be celebrated for writing the song that killed hair metal, but wouldn't that song have been written by someone else? More directly: Wasn't it just a matter of time before some band drew people away from crappy music? But Kurt died, and you glorified him. You glorified him, even though a band like Pearl Jam still exists. They didn't give up. They went on to write album after album of good music. They're easily more talented. But who makes your cover?
Ah, yes. So we've come to the topic of covers. In your quest to become the most popular indie music mag, you've decided to plaster the ugliest, most vile bands on your cover, as if to say to readers, "Look who we've got the balls to put on the cover." Listen. I can shave my dog and glue tinsel to him; that still won't impress the neighbors. I can tell you what your covers do. They tell readers: "We're desperate."
Finally, there was the phone call. You hired some sweaty in New Jersey to call me and ask me why I wasn't renewing my subscription. The Mothers Against Drunk Driving must have called you and told you. Don't worry -- I didn't hop to Rolling Stone. The Mothers didn't have Poetry or Track and Field News, so I didn't support them. I think the Mothers are winning the war as it is. But you were notified, so you called me. And when that Jersey trash bitch picked an argument with me over what my current address was, I drew my line in the sand right then and there, and I threw all of my copies of you to the other side.
So, that's all, Spin. It's been something. Frustrating, really. I'll miss your arrival on my doorstep. I'll miss that feeling that, "Oh, there's something new to read." But I won't miss the disappointment that came with every issue -- every single one -- that feeling, turning to the last page, that there was a lot of fluff there, wasn't there? That sense that I just read a whole lot of nothing that wasn't interesting that I won't remember. That I won't miss.
Smell ya later, Spin. Smell ya later, forever!
Sincerely,
I only bought you because the Mothers Against Drunken Driving were selling you, and I couldn't think of a good reason to hang up the phone.
So then you came.
And every time you came, I was slightly surprised to see you. "Oh, yes, I subscribe to Spin Magazine," I reminded myself. "How exciting, now that I can read up on all the latest music news."
I would take you inside, then, and open you up. First there were the thick pages of glossy advertisements of well-dressed, young people -- the sort of people you often poked fun of in your articles. Then there was the table of contents. Then I would try to locate an article, but you never seemed to put page numbers on all the pages, did you?
This was not the first instance in which I noticed you didn't seem to care much about your actual written product. I noticed you began including all sorts of pictures of yourselves -- yes you, the editor and writers -- in pictures with the artists you covered. The unmistakable filth of distaste began to grow as I turned the pages.
Another example of your shoddy work was your reviews section. Each month I would look forward to this section, to read up on all the interesting new music available. But you spent each review summarizing all the other work the artist had done before the particular album being reviewed. Then you inserted some of your smart-alecky comments that struck me as an in-joke with your copy editor, and that was all.
This was not the first time I noticed you trying to be smart, hip or funny. It seems every article in you holds some ulterior motive, that being to convince readers how much you know about someone or something, and how wittily you can put that person or thing down. For example, in the four years you've been dropping on my doorstep there has not been one picture caption in any issue that has not had some "sassy", smart-ass tone to it.
So I slowly began to realize that you were not for me. At first, it was because of "emo". Yes, "emo", that dreaded "sub-genre" of rock music that you could never seem to shut up about. Every damn issue you had to mention "emo", as if that was the only style of rock that meant anything. Would it have killed you, in the four years I bought you, to have included an article on Neil Young?
But, Spin, it wasn't just your constant mentioning of "emo" that lead me believe we must part. No. I think the last straw was your cover article on the ten-year anniversary of grunge music. Or was it the tenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death? I don't know. But that's the rub, isn't it? Your insistence on Cobain's godhood is what's wrong with music today -- yet you claim to be an outsider of the music press!
Ten years pass and he's still glorified for killing himself. Do you know where Kurt Cobain and/or Nirvana would be right now if he hadn't killed himself? Best case scenario is that they'd be where Pearl Jam is: a successful, but much lower profile band. He'd still be celebrated for writing the song that killed hair metal, but wouldn't that song have been written by someone else? More directly: Wasn't it just a matter of time before some band drew people away from crappy music? But Kurt died, and you glorified him. You glorified him, even though a band like Pearl Jam still exists. They didn't give up. They went on to write album after album of good music. They're easily more talented. But who makes your cover?
Ah, yes. So we've come to the topic of covers. In your quest to become the most popular indie music mag, you've decided to plaster the ugliest, most vile bands on your cover, as if to say to readers, "Look who we've got the balls to put on the cover." Listen. I can shave my dog and glue tinsel to him; that still won't impress the neighbors. I can tell you what your covers do. They tell readers: "We're desperate."
Finally, there was the phone call. You hired some sweaty in New Jersey to call me and ask me why I wasn't renewing my subscription. The Mothers Against Drunk Driving must have called you and told you. Don't worry -- I didn't hop to Rolling Stone. The Mothers didn't have Poetry or Track and Field News, so I didn't support them. I think the Mothers are winning the war as it is. But you were notified, so you called me. And when that Jersey trash bitch picked an argument with me over what my current address was, I drew my line in the sand right then and there, and I threw all of my copies of you to the other side.
So, that's all, Spin. It's been something. Frustrating, really. I'll miss your arrival on my doorstep. I'll miss that feeling that, "Oh, there's something new to read." But I won't miss the disappointment that came with every issue -- every single one -- that feeling, turning to the last page, that there was a lot of fluff there, wasn't there? That sense that I just read a whole lot of nothing that wasn't interesting that I won't remember. That I won't miss.
Smell ya later, Spin. Smell ya later, forever!
Sincerely,
