Best Rolling Stone ever!

I've had a love-hate relationship with Rolling Stone over the years. It tends to piss me off more often than not, but I read just about every issue. They do things like giving the last mediocre Mick Jagger solo album five stars and giving Britney Spears, etc., the cover way way way too many times...but they've also linked up with salon.com and written some great political articles over the years (most of them by the veritably insane Matt Taibbi). And when they write about something worthwhile, there are few magazines better.

Honestly, now that I'm thinking about it, the quality of Rolling Stone pretty much directly coincides with the quality of music that's out there at any given moment. In 1999-2001, when music was at about its lowest point ever, Rolling Stone fell all over itself kissing up to all 'new big things' in music. But lately it's been a downright enjoyable read, issue after issue, and I think that says good things about the current state of music. And now there's THIS issue:

Worst President Ever?

Calamitous presidents, faced with enormous difficulties -- Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover and now Bush -- have divided the nation, governed erratically and left the nation worse off. In each case, different factors contributed to the failure: disastrous domestic policies, foreign-policy blunders and military setbacks, executive misconduct, crises of credibility and public trust. Bush, however, is one of the rarities in presidential history: He has not only stumbled badly in every one of these key areas, he has also displayed a weakness common among the greatest presidential failures -- an unswerving adherence to a simplistic ideology that abjures deviation from dogma as heresy, thus preventing any pragmatic adjustment to changing realities. Repeatedly, Bush has undone himself, a failing revealed in each major area of presidential performance.

Plenty of others are already commenting on this one, and most of them are far better writers than me, so I'll leave that to them. But being that I'm a much better music nerd than they are, I'll point out another couple of great parts.

Eddie Vedder Q&A (to go along with what appears to be a great review of the new album that I still can't stop talking about):

Looking back, you can say, "This record is a little midtempo" or "Why was that the single?" but I can't necessarily answer objectively. Melodically speaking, the new songs are pretty strong. I think the drumming is impeccable. And we've figured out a way to create space for the guys in the band, for them to get to that level of energy that they have when we play live. I'm not sure how that happened, but I think it's a step in the right direction.

New Neil Young Album:

Living With War features what Young describes on his Web site as "metal folk protest" and "a metal version of Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan," recorded with "a power trio with trumpet and 100 voices."

In between this post and a post I made last week about the revival of really good protest songs came this Boston Globe article from the weekend, talking about protest singers, their "renewed cry", and their diversity. It's a good (and encouraging) read, though there is one quote I'd like to point out:

Taking an antiwar stand is unlikely to affect sales for groups like Pearl Jam, known for its liberal leanings. But it has hurt the Dixie Chicks, who were virtually eliminated from country radio after speaking out against Bush at a concert in England in 2003. Nevertheless, their new album, ''Taking the Long Way," set for release May 23, includes the song ''Not Ready to Make Nice," in which they reference the backlash -- including death threats -- they received after their onstage comments.

That will not do anything to win back fans alienated by their criticism of Bush, according to John Hart, the president of Nashville-based Bullseye Marketing Research, which has conducted phone surveys to determine how people feel about the group. Hart says music fans typically don't want to be told who to vote for.

''I'm sure that Pink, she's delivering a message from her heart, as are the Dixie Chicks," says Hart. ''I don't think they're bad people. I just think they're expressing an opinion. Unfortunately, they think most of their listeners or fans feel that way, and they're wrong. All the fans want is to hear their music."

You can think that all you want, Mr. Hart, and you can say it in as condescending a way as possible, but I think the numbers might disagree with you a bit. Ask the Dixie Chicks how their Amazon.com numbers are doing (#4 highest-selling CD, over a month from their actual cd release). And for that matter, ask Pearl Jam if their latest single (5 weeks at #1 on the modern rock charts) is being hurt by the political content. I think the answer might disappoint you.