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.
Quentin Tarrantino's new movie Kill Bill will have the all girl Japanese band the 5-6-7-8s playing several numbers onscreen. Maybe they'll be able to make to big jump into the American record market (he did wonders to revitalize Dick Dale's attention).
There are plenty of "women in rock" that get no press while there are plenty of woman singers who don't sing rock and roll that get bio-ed in "women in rock" profiles. There are disco divas, soul singers, country artists, etc. All find and dandy but it ain't rock and roll.
And as someone else mentioned, the old rockabilly performers of the 1950s are still playing out live and never get a word of press. I caught Wanda Jackson and was happy to hear her sing "Funnel of Love".
I stopped reading it regularly 30 years ago.
The last time I even touched a copy was the Jennifer Aniston issue that came out concurrently with the 911 mass murders. Yes, her tight-assed jeans on the cover made me pick it up. I then read the interview where she disparaged George Bush as a buffoon, an idiot, an illegal President and finally, just plain evil.
At least they kept me informed about current pop culture leftists................although I'm sure they didn't mean it that way.
If I want a good laugh, I will check out the MTV message boards. Hardly anyone there can form a coherent thought.
Music today is similar to what it was in the late eighties. Record companies are signing any and every piece of crap band that they think can sell a few records. 99.5% do not have any talent.
Don't believe her, she remembers when they took nickels....
The fact that RS is pandering to the bubblegum pop crowd is proof that they have lost their edge.
But to give props to Britney as a rocker? COME ON! I wish Joan would just kick her ass and get it overwith. And I know Sheryl Crow would jump in on that action.
That may be true, and I sure don't agree with those positions, but she is dead on about the women in Rock issue.
GET IN LINE PAL! 8^)
There I was thinking that I was the only Maria McKee fan in the world. I was hooked when I saw the video for "Ways to be Wicked" back in '85(?)and have since worn out several tapes and one CD of hers. She definitely has the best set of pipes I've ever heard. Supposedly she has a brand new CD on the way.
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