What the hell happened to Rolling Stone?!!

[Screaming Lord Byron]

Latest cover. Jessica Simpson in her underwear with a vacuum cleaner. WHAT IS GOING ON!!!!

[Richardo]

1. Upholstery attachment?

:evilgrin:

Richardo <--- perv for a day.

[Brucey]

2. Everything has gone to hell, and I blame it all on

popular culture. Hundreds of years ago there was no popular culture. It is a new invention. And it has shaped the hell out of everything. Always for the worse, I'm afraid.

[Red State Rebel]

3. It's called selling out...

[Wickerman]

8. Yeah, but just when, exactly did it start to sell out?

I haven't been able to read it for years - must have been early 80's and had something to do with PJ O'Rourke. Others would say it started sucking when it went from newsprint to slick paper. Others still argue that it was when it went from small format to large.

It no longer even casts a shadow on relevant.

[Aristus]

4. Popular culture has been around for centuries.

If it lasts long enough, it becomes 'High culture.' At one time, Shakespeare and Mozart were considered popular culture. The good stuff endures; the crap...well...craps out.

edited for spelling

[Brucey]

12. Shakespeare was unknown to 99% of the world until

popular culture reared it's ugly head about one hundred years ago. Now it's movies like Shakespeare In Love and Amadeus that bring these geniuses to the pop culture. Ask anyone on the street (pop culture) to name the vice president and then ask them to name Britney's latest song. Nothing in pop culture makes it to high culture.

[Aristus]

14. Not completely true, Brucey. William Shakespeare began his

posthumous rise to the top of the literary world around the time George II was King. (Middle of the eighteenth century.)

[Brucey]

17. Yes, the literary world.

But little kids weren't singing his name. He was never part of the pop culture until movies were made using his name.

[Squeech]

18. And Mozart was known at the time

He used to hang out in the coffeeshops of Vienna and listen for people whistling tunes from operas. When they whistled tunes from *his* operas he knew he was on the right track.

Heck, even Schoenberg was *known* in his day, even though nobody could whistle his tunes (and still can't). It's only been the last couple generations that pop culture has specifically excluded classical culture.

[Noordam]

5. I think I need my house cleaned.

[Speck Tater]

7. Hmmm. Here I thought Jessica Simpson was a cartoon character

with a flat head, yellow skin, and a brother named Bart.

[Cush]

6. Maybe

they are asking readers to teach her to how to use one?

[Pale_Rider]

9. Not with a vacuum cleaner ...

... but with one of those new wipe mops.



Yaozem ...

[Screaming Lord Byron]

10. Sorry. I was distracted by something.

[THUNDER HANDS]

19. I tell ya what, folks

She could wax my floor any day.

:)

[MercutioATC]

20. I will never look at a Swiffer the same way.....

.

[jono]

23. ACK!

Gratuitous product placement!

[ThorsteinVeblen]

11. Rock 'N Roll is dead my friend.

Britney killed it.

[david_vincent]

15. Prof. Veblen, I have enormous respect for you

but surely you realize that rock 'n roll in our "reality" died long before Britney. She just came along and humped the corpse. It wasn't even warm anymore.
The good news is that rock 'n roll lives on, in an alternate reality that major record labels and the mass media can't enter.

[Squeech]

13. What the hell happened to music?

When there was an audience that wanted to read informed criticism about rock music, Rolling Stone was there (in San Francisco). When there was no longer such an audience, RS, having moved to New York, turned to kitsch and skin-- with, let us note, some occasional good journalism.

But mostly it's just another example of 57 channels and nothing on. (Or in its underwear.)

[Character Assassin]

16. Goddamn it! I blame the astrologers! I HATE ASTROLOGERS

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Oh, sorry, wrong thread.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

21. Sorry

I wouldn't touch that right-wing sanctomonious lack of talent if you paid me!

[mitchum]

22. When they brought over another English vulgarian to edit the rag...

No joke, they made the announcement earlier this year (leaving out the vulgarian part) and also said that they would no longer run the long fiction and investigative pieces. I think the guy used to be at Maxim.