On Rolling Stone & Mastodon

I was a subscriber of Rolling Stone magazine for five years, but this year when it came time to renew the subscription I just couldn't face another year of cover stories on the Jonas Brothers and Zac Effron or whatever shit goes on there these days. Seriously, Rolling Stone has sold its soul to the devil, and not in a cool way like Robert Johnson or Mick Jagger. No, a music magazine that used to have the Fucking Beatles or the Rolling Stones or Jimi Hendrix on their covers now panders to the preteen Disney crowd. It is sickening.

Here is the May 15, '08 edition for example. On the cover are the girls of the Hills. Sure, they are dressed in skimpy outfits and are "hot" I guess, but they are also braindead stars of a reality show with no talent whatsoever. Rolling Stone, music still exists. Would it kill you to put My Morning Jacket or Vampire Weekend or MGMT on the cover? Or really anything that does actually count as music?!

So that's why I was quite pleasantly surprised to see the newest Rolling Stone. I had an hour to kill so I took it off the shelf and there was Lil' Wayne, an actual artist, who is a hell of a lot more interesting than U2. And that wasn't the only good article in there. There is a three-page spread on Mastodon, a band that I have heard a lot about over the last few years. They are the best metal group in the world, one of the few groups from that genre that also gets its share of critical acclaim. I'm not much of a metal fan, though, so I had never checked out their music or really read too much about them. And the article really made me fascinated with the group. It was one of the few times that I have started reading an article about a band I had no interest in up to that point and could not pull myself away. And the reason for that is that Mastodon is an incredibly interesting group, one of the few real fucking rock & roll bands left. And this is presented brilliantly by Brian Hiatt. Here is how he opens the article: "Brent Hinds, frontman and lead guitarist for Mastodon, has reached the inevitable point in the evening when his speech starts to slur." After reading that sentence, there was no way I wasn't going to read the whole article. That article was what Rolling Stone should be all about, presenting genuinely exciting bands to a larger audience. For that, I am glad I picked up the newest edition. Still, I think I'll check in next time to see if Miley Cyrus is on the cover before I resubscribe.