I also have to admit here that my under-ground mindset probably adds to some of my disliking of Rolling Stone. Whereas when R.S. came out it was a cool magazine, through the years it became cool to be against R.S. Mainly because the music R.S. backs is crap. Seemingly the big label versions of cooler bands. I kind of see it like pushing The Black Crowes instead of The Quireboys. Both similar, but one more true to a style than the other. The safer one, however, gets the cover, the other gets ignored. Rolling Stone was once a daring magazine to expose the unknown, but it became just another music industry ad page.
Now, here is where I become a little hypocritical, but hang in there for a few seconds.
The issue I picked up to peruse at the in-laws had an interview that caught my eye. It was an interview with Phil Collins. Now, what made this actually interesting was that they threw 10 or so big songs from the post-Gabriel Genesis and Phil's solo offerings at Phil. He then spoke about them honestly. In fact, brutally honest.
Phil is an odd thing these days. No self-respecting Progressive Rock fan liked Phil back in the 80s, or even the 90s. Oh, sure, no self-respecting Rock fan did either, but we Prog fans had good reason, or so we thought. He was the guy that destroyed the mighty Genesis. He was the guy that removed the artistic integrity of the once great Genesis, and replaced it with sap. Never mind that he was also on two wonderful non-Gabriel releases (A Trick of the Tale and Wind and Wuthering), and one Hackett-less release that still sounds like the old Genesis and is far better than many give credit to ( . . . And Then There Were Three). But now Phil is gaining our respect. Even the proggies started to accept Phil a few years ago. Now the rest of the world is starting to like the guy again. Phil confronts our hatred in the interview. He points out that he understands the hatred, he was the guy up front, and he was everywhere. But he also points out that the first hit, "Follow You, Follow Me" was not written by him.
Phil dives into a decent amount of songs and speaks honestly. We find out how he feels after all these years, some of the comments we are familiar with ("In The Air Tonight" has been discussed plenty of times), but some are a little surprising. He is not a fan of "Sussusudio" or the album it came from, No Jacket Required. He says he wasn't being himself. When I recently listened to it (having not heard it since the 80s) I was shocked by how much 80s damage there was to it. It sounds nothing like the releases he had put out before it. I have often wondered if artists from the 70s who recorded in the 80s and fell victim to the 80s excesses heard their 80s material and thought "Why?" Phil confirms that he did.
A few other things that made me happy are the fact that he still loves his Tarzan work, a work that I felt was his best since the pre-Duke Genesis. That was a guy exploring and being experimental, you know, like Genesis did. It was also just wonderful Pop, like Genesis had dreams of being (which is why they were such huge Beatles fans).
I also appreciate his honesty on the whole talk about Against All Odds. Stating that it was a time when somebody just basically handed him a lot of money. They needed a single, he had one done, he handed over the tune and they handed over the money. Then there was the comment about what he liked about the movie. A certain attribute of star Rachel Ward's.
The whole interview/music dissection is a wonderful piece. The only problem is it is too short. Again, in the pre-shrunk era of R.S. this would probably have been a super in-depth and fascinating piece. As is, it is still a great piece, but I can only imagine what it would have been like had it been done before R.S. became a tiny little pamphlet.
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