(Published in The Mirror on 4/5/07)
It seems that every senior at Fairfield University ends up with some sort of internship at some sort of magazine, PR firm or financial giant. Being no exception, I've found myself working for Rolling Stone in New York City.
The internship has allowed me to take a backstage look at how one of the world's most historically significant magazines works. Most recently I was able to talk with executive editor Joe Levy in his office to talk about the selection process for a cover, the close of the magazine's MTV reality show, "I'm From Rolling Stone" and what actual editors look for when hiring new writers.
Sean Corbett: The magazine survived its first reality show, are there any plans for a second season?
Plenty of us would be happy to do a second season. It really depends on if MTV is interested in doing a second season. And that I don't know. I know a lot of people who do shows with them who don't hear until deep into the process whether they'll do another season. The guys who did "The White Rapper," which was a great show, won't know whether they'll come back to do another. And that was one of the best rated shows on VH1 this season. What they're looking for exactly, I don't know. This isn't a show they went into thinking it would be their top-rated show, although that would have been nice.
SC: Was this originally an idea put forth by MTV or by Rolling Stone?
This is an idea that kicked around a lot, in one form or another. It's something that many people inside the magazine and outside, and in fact people walking down the street might have had after Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" came out. That was five years ago. And almost instantly after it came out, people said "Oh, you've got to do that as a TV show." And doing that as a TV show would have necessitated finding some 15 year old kid who was and insipid genius. So, that did seem one hurdle. The other of course is that, it's just not like it was in 1974. It's not a matter of that magazine not being like it was in 1974, it's entertainment journalism that's not like it was in 1974. It's no longer a matter of waiting around at the stage door and talking your way onto the bus after a gig. It's much more business than that, and everyone knows it.
SC: What were the main intentions behind the show? Was it intended to attract a younger demographic to the magazine?
Certainly I think one of its intentions is to bring the magazine to an audience that might not come naturally to us. With that said, the main intention of the television show was to make a good television show.
SC: And you feel that happened?
Well, you tell me. You know, I guess it happened, if it happened for you. Yeah, I think that the show had certain obstacles to overcome. First obstacle being that the act of writing is not inherently dramatic. You know, the dramatic part of it is struggling to find a story and making a deadline. This is not cliffhanger television stuff. Our intention was to avoid the trappings of a reality show. We wanted to make it about the work, and not about the hot tub or the interpersonal conflict. And it generally did a good job at delivering something that had a more documentary feel than a reality cliche feel.
SC: What do you say about the criticisms of the show, like jumping on the reality show bandwagon?
Well, we hope it was different from a reality show. And honestly, we're a little late to jump on the reality show bandwagon. Which may, in fact, be the criticism. Jumping on the bandwagon is something we should have done while the bandwagon was still picking up speed. If we were jumping on the bandwagon, we'd have to jump on the game show bandwagon. And I would love to find a way to turn the magazine into "Deal or No Deal," but I'm not sure how.
SC: Do you think this show is bridging the gap between MTV and Rolling Stone, two of history's most influential forces in music and entertainment?
You know, the common complaint about MTV is that they don't show videos anymore. Just as the common complaint about Rolling Stone is that we don't cover music anymore. And I've worked here for 10 years, and for a good portion of that time I was the Music Editor and I had to edit 60% of the pages in the magazine. And I'd get a little amazed and pisses when people say we don't cover music, and literally 60% of what's in the magazine, sometimes, is music coverage.
Similarly, I guess MTV has some right to be a little pissed that people say they don't show music videos when by God they do show music videos from five in the morning until nine a.m. That's four solid hours of music videos. People who make those criticisms of MTV mean they don't show them during prime time anymore. They do show them in the morning before school and they do show them in the afternoon, after school. They are there. The show is certainly intended to show MTV as interested in music, and interested in music journalism. And to find another way to put music on their network. For us, it's a chance to highlight the music content of Rolling Stone.
SC: Do you think a show about beginner music journalists reflects a desire for new music journalists, a new voice in the business?
Sure, I mean there's always a need for new voices, broadly speaking. There's plenty of room for new voices, and more encouragement and possibility for new voices in music journalism now than there every was before, and that's simply because the world online journalism means something now. And it really didn't five years ago. The act of music blogging is a very, very different thing than music journalism. And the prominence of Pitchfork and PopMatters as destination sites for music obsessives on the internet really give young voices a place and a kind of leverage a place that they didn't have five years ago.
SC: Do you and other editors look to the blogs for new writers?
If, as a young voice, your hope is to break into Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly or Spin or Altertaive Press, you're trying to the exact same thing that about 7,500 other kids who own a couple of Stooges bootlegs and the new Arcade Fire record would also like to do. And the odds are not good.
The fact that online blogging, or PopMatters, gives a young voice a place to develop and find a voice, is great. That's not the voice of Rolling Stone, and while we are constantly looking for new voices, we're not looking for that blog voice. I'm looking for someone who understands a little more about reporting and a little more about magazine writing. But we have always kept an eye and an ear out.
What I look for is somebody who has more experience than their college newspaper, and who has done something in-depth or intelligent. Original ideas, good writing. I don't want to make it sound too easy, but these are things that are not as common as you'd hope.
SC: Would you say you have a dream job? Interviewing bands, important friends, one of the best music journalism resumes in the world?
Well, I mean, I don't know. When I started doing this 20 years ago, if you told me this is what I'd be doing now I would have said something sarcastic and turned up whatever Replacements record I was listening to.
SC: Now that you have it, is it a job you love?
For me, it's been a great job. You know, I've been here close to 10 years. I love music. I love writing. I love popular culture. I love the variety of things that we cover in Rolling Stone and that I'm able to work on at Rolling Stone. So yeah, for me it's great. And I still get to be sarcastic and listen to Replacements records, so that's cool too.
SC: I read in the online chat posted on Rolling Stone's website that someone asked you about the direction of pop music. You said there are still great bands among the crappy ones, making great albums. You cited non-mainstream pop artists like Of Montreal and The Arcade Fire. Are they worthy of a Rolling Stone cover?
I would love that to be the case. I have to tell you that the cover is there, in part, to sell the magazine, and that I don't get to put my very favorite band on the cover once a year. I would love it if someone would give me one cover to do whatever I wanted to with. I think that it's quite possible that the Arcade Fire is worth a cover, but I actually think that they have to engage an audience a little more before that happens.
SC: So the criteria and process for choosing the cover story, it seems, is about what's most popular at the time. How do you know when it's time to do a Panic! At the Disco cover, followed by Fall Out Boy?
Well, it's a mystery criteria and process. It is not the case that thing that sells the most records is going to automatically go on the cover. It's just not true, otherwise we would have done a Nickleback cover by now.
You can't point to one figure that people seem fascinated with. Or, if there is one figure, they don't seem fascinated in what that figure is doing, they seem fascinated in that person's life falling apart. Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears. Nobody's interested in what Lindsay is doing on screen, or what Britney might do on record. You're interested in what they're doing in the bathroom of whatever club they're visiting.
And in times like this, it's not obvious what to do with the cover. We did a Panic! At the Disco cover, we did a Falout Boy cover. They actually happened closer together than we originally meant. We weren't planning on James Brown dying. But I wanted to do a Panic! At the Disco cover because to me they were a teen pop band. You go to their concert and it's actually like going to an N'Sync concert. Those mother fuckers could put on a show. It's not about whether I like their songs.
And then when the cover comes very close to a Fall Out Boy cover, yeah, it feels like we are suddenly trying to latch onto the emo bandwagon. And it's hard to, because the emo bandwagon is covered with tears, my friend, it is covered with tears.
But, for me, the idea of putting Fall Out Boy on the cover came from the fact that here was a rock band who wanted to make a great record and sell a lot of records. The idea of a band of their nature hiring Babyface to produce a couple tracks. I love Babyface. I think Babyface is a great, great R&B producer. And, to me, it recalls great moments in pop where people were interested in crossing boundaries. Reaching out to new audiences.
SC: What is the most important thing for aspiring music journalists to learn?
A lot of writers are good at describing their opinions, and are less good at articulating something about the relationship between the performer and the audience. And I have to admit, since I'm capable of forming my own opinions, I'm really more interested in someone who can tell me something about the music and possibly an insight into the relationship between the performer and the audience. And it's not easy. Writing about music is hard. I was amazed when I read the Bob Dylan autobiography at how interesting and evocative and dead-on his descriptions of music were. Because I read them thinking, Wow. I know he's a genius and all, but it really isn't fair that he can do this better than other people, as well. It just doesn't seem right.
The oldest advice about writing is to write and read as much as you can. And that holds true. Hunter Thompson talked a lot about typing the writers he loved. Sitting down and typing out a page of Hemmingway or Fitzgerald, to learn how it worked. Now there's a guy who took that idea of reading to the next level. He wanted to literally figure out how it worked, and teach himself the rythms of their prose. And the really interesting thing about Thompson, who started out as a journalist, a daily newspaper guy. An armed forces newspaper guy. The interesting thing about him, sitting down typing several pages of Hemmingway, is there's a writer who's very unlike Hunter Thompston. Who's not florid or Gonzo. Who's controlled and lucid. It shows you that in order to write the way someone like Thompson did, you really have to have the basic skills down down rock-fucking solid. You have to be able to write in the paired-back, lucid manner if you want to take the hinges off, put ether on the floor-boards and drive to Las Vegas, you can.
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