Posted on 11/23/2002 4:57:59 PM PST by I_Love_My_Husband
An Open Letter to Rolling Stone
This letter was written to rolling stone after their "women in "rock" issue was published, but was not printed by their editors. Please forward it to all the rocking people you know!!!!!
I tried to find some cleverly worded way to express my disgust with your "Women in Rock" issue, but what i have to say is really quite simple: You guys are completely retarded.
By RS standards, Rock is no longer a style of music but a trendy costume to be whipped up by expensive stylists and slapped onto the latest pop tart barbie doll. Give a girl some tight pants and a spiky bracelet and POOF! She ROCKS!
Your poor choice of cover girls and featured artists brings to mind the Sports Illustrated swimsuit editions. There is nothing necessarily wrong with the breast-baring models inside..but we all understand that they have NOTHING TO DO WITH SPORTS--Which just might be offensive to women who are interested in sports or who might even be (gasp) real athletes.
Yes, Britney has a talented stylist and yes, somebody gave Shakira a Guns & Roses t-shirt to wear..but they ARE NOT NOW NOR WILL THEY EVER BE ROCK.
Maybe it's naive of me to expect any glimmer of rock'n'roll credibility OR respect for women from a magazine whose cover shot is regularly a naked underweight actress. The thing is , I AM a woman musician with a rock band, and as we all are I am STARVED for any little crumb of recognition that real women rockers might be thrown. So like a sucker I find myself short another five bucks ..and pissed enough to write my first letter to an editor. Avril Lavigne gets some studded accessories from Hot Topic so now she's "upholding the brazen tradition of teenage outrage"???!! Are you SERIOUS? And could someone please explain to me why people keep insisting on referring to PINK as rock? Wasn't she doing the white girl hip hop thing a minute ago? Yeah, she performed on the Aerosmith tribute show --big deal..she was on the Janet Jackson tribute show just before that--Whatever's trendy. WHO CARES. She's a Spice Girl reject...but I digress.
Jewel and Mandy friggin' Moore have full page features as Rock Icons...Meanwhile Joan Jett gets one line. ONE LINE. Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, who have never stopped touring, recently did 10 days in the Middle East playing for the troops stationed in Afghanistan. In AFGHANISTAN, Joan would come onstage wearing a birkha, which she ripped off and stomped on before blazing through the purest and nastiest rock show ANYWHERE. But even in the RS WOMEN IN ROCK issue, a story like that gets ONE SENTENCE on the bottom of the last page of Random Notes.
Britney's Rock credentials? Well, she butchers the song "I Love Rock'n'Roll" on her latest record, and when asked about it the genius replies "Well, I've always loved Pat Benatar." And SHE is your Rock issue cover girl?? You should be REALLY embarrassed.
Sleater Kinney was the only rock group listed on the cover..and they got only half a page. Ashanti, the r&b back up singer who can't seem to do anything without "featuring Jah Rule," has two pages.
What about the Donnas? The Yeah Yeah Yeahs? The Distillers? A mag like RS has the power to shine important light on groups like these--instead they are afterthoughts, and that valuable spotlight is wasted on the same overexposed pop princesses WHO HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ROCK.
In your own letter from the editor you have the hypocritical balls to say "rock radio won't touch female artists, while the pop factory keeps churning out soundalike clones, and ambitious musicians with something to say find themselves left out in the cold."
The pages that follow those words are a blatant display that Rolling Stone magazine is happily working for the factory now too.
If the issue had been called "Women in Music"..or maybe "Some Cute Girls with Top 10 Records out Right Now"..I would have no beef with it. Corny as it may sound, ROCK is something which is still meaningful and even sacred to some of us. Use the word "rock" in bold letters next to a picture of Britney Fucking Spears, and you're turning your whole publication into a joke...and an offensive joke at that.
The entire grunge thing was people mistaking a lack of talent for genius.
If you were to take all the grunge and change the instrumentation to fiddle, slide guitar and banjo, it's country!
Oh good! The new one is out?!? I cant read my last one, the pages are crooked because it was bound in Mexico and the whole thing is written in engrish...
Veruca salt is on the mix with PJ Harvey, the Breeders, Lucious Jackson etc...
My mixes of "girl groups"... so I do like a couple of the Nina Gordon solo stuff, but haven't heard the whole album.
As you all know, he is one of the icons of rock, like Skynard, Zep, and Bowie. Joan is right. These days Rolling Stone is just for pop music.
Hey! I marked this thread earlier this year (did a JJ search about her then). I marked the page since it had JJ stuff on it. It’s an old thread, but I had to try to find Freepers who are probably Jett Heads just to say...
I saw my first Joan Jett concert at Milwaukee’s Summerfest on July first, this past Thursday. I’ve been a fan since college when her first 2 albums were just out. Joan was rockin’ while I was at college and she is about 4 years older than me. She looks awesome, no matter what her age. How did she stay so slim? Vegan, I know, but still she is in awesome shape.
I have nearly every album (old LPs and new CDs).
Did you see “The Runaways” film this spring? It’s worth a watch. It ended too soon, just as Joan was going off on her own to form JJ and The Blackhearts. And recently a book about her came out, just called “Joan Jett”, also purchased on amazon.com. It has lots of pictures and the text is from interviews with the book’s author. The pics of her as child are so cute. She was adorable.
Anywho, the concert was amazing. Really fun crowd, and we all got in for general admission of 15 bucks. Can’t beat that with a stick!
Wondering how many concerts you may have seen?
I am going to keep checking her tour schedule and go as often as I can to future shows.
Joan had a headcold the night of the concert. Poor thing. She never said it, but we could tell she didn’t feel well. She just rocked on through the show. Her “n’s” and “m’s” were nasal-y and when she talked you could tell she had a head cold. She snuck a few Kleenex between songs. She was such a pro, she never mentioned she was sick. She was into it about 4 songs before I noticed.
Enzo the guitar player was so into it. It was infectious how he WAS the music. He was one with his guitar. Man he was fun to watch. Kenny Laguna was there on the keyboards, loyal friend to Joan as he is. Dougie Needles was awesome. The whole ensemble was a rock machine. Not one bad note! Pure perfection.
Good thing I have a concert on DVD of her’s (Live at the Rockies, circa 2001 available on amazon.com) to get me through until the next live concert.
I was going to post a “hey I went to a JJ concert” thread, but I know that only a select few of us would care to comment, you know, in a kind manner, without flames. Hee Hee.
At the end of the show, after the encore, the last thing she said was “And God Bless this great country of ours.”
Then she walked off. Looking like she needed to rest. It was nearly midnight. Then 2 days later(tonight) she’s in Texas and then on to California. No wonder she got a cold. She had been in London earlier this year and will be in Switzerland later this year. She’s a busy grrrl.
OW!
: )
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