A taste of honey...
If there are folks out there who would like their first legitimate, high-quality taste of Wilco's unreleased masterpiece, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, you should get your ass to your local newsstand and pick up a copy of the November issue of Jane Magazine. Make sure you get a copy with the enclosed CD, because it contains "I'm the Man Who Loves You" in all of its glory. This will be of interest to Wilco fans who are obsessive collectors who need to own every single item that has anything to do with Wilco. It should also appeal to audiophiles who are not satisfied with the fidelity of the MP3 files that have been floating around the internet (even encoded at 192 kbps, mp3s still don't sound perfect).
Plus, Jane Magazine rocks.
Jane was founded and is edited by Sassy creator, Jane Pratt, who is a really cool chick. My wife has been subscribed to Jane forever, and I've always said that it reads like a Grand Royal magazine for girls. Or women. Or whatever. But it's not gender exclusive. There's smart, funny writing that really stands out in the "women's magazine" genre. I flip through a lot of Allures, In Styles, Teen Peoples, and Glamours on the crapper and Jane is the only one that I don't leave on the bathroom floor when I'm done. Even Vogue with its great movie reviews has let me down recently. All those other magazines really seem to have an overwhelming disrespect for women at their core, but not Jane. Jane rocks.
The CD contains lots of cool songs besides Wilco, including tracks by the Beta Band, the Silver Jews, Faith Evans, and lots of artists I'd never heard of before. This is a good thing for me because I really feel like I'm losing touch and losing interest in what's happening these days in music. I don't want to be one of those old men who only listens to the bands I listened to when I was 19, so I appreciate the exposure to shit I would never hear otherwise.
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Jane Mag rocks so hard! As for the CD, which has been in my player for the past week, I can't get enough. Finally American magazines are coming around to the UK format of including great music/short film clips CD's in monthly publications.
It's a funny thing, including comp CDs with magazines, clothes, etc. I recently came across an American Eagle mix with songs from Blackiliscious, Beulah, Scape Goat Wax (Grand Royal RIP) and more. I was astonished at the mix of genres and the quality of tracks. Sure, there was your standard college-rock fare with the likes of the Webb Bros. and New Order (which also rocks), but there was a genuine eclecticism on the mix that surprised me. How will that all jibe with the noted anti-corporate stance GLONO has taken?
Can't wait to go out and get it! Thank for the heads up Jake. But, it does seem to be another sign that Wilco's selling out...
Seeling out? They just recorded an album that their label wouldn't release. I don't think that promoting yourself necessarily equates to selling out. It's not like they've signed on with Mutt Lang.
Good music is good music. Whether you hear it in a Gap ad, on an American Eagle mix, in your buddy's older brother's Camaro, or in the NYU dorm room of 19-year-old Rick Rubin. Good music is good music. And lately, I've been having difficulty finding any, so I'll take it where I can get it.
Look, I've got nothing against corporate AmeriKKKa. If they want to give me cool CDs for buying crappy magazines and faux-cool clothes, fine. If they want to pay people (me) to write cool articles and do neat stuff, fine. But that isn't going to cause me to forget all the bullshit that they dish out in droves, from sweatshops to downsizing to sponsoring sports stadiums. And it certainly isn't going to keep me from fucking every corporation in every way I can at every opportunity that presents itself. Perhaps the biggest fuck you we can all give to the corporations is to be the kind of fickle consumer that only buys for the freebie and then has no "brand loyalty" afterwards. Now that costs them big time, because their business model is predicated on taking a loss on that free CD, made up for later by the big subscription haul. Well screw that. Buy it for the CD and let them rot in hell. Come up with a marketing plan that emphasizes quality on a regular basis and I'll gladly fork over my cash. But gimmickery? No way. Take advantage and take off, leave the suits swinging in the goddamn breeze. Fuck the man.
I'm with you sab! If you want to cost em' big time, be the "cherry-picking" customer who only buys the below cost bargains, the items that are considered by retailers to be "loss leaders". They hate people who shop that way, and would much rather prefer the moron who is brand conscious and less concerned about cost.Stick it to the man, yeah!
I would also disagree with Jake as well -- good music is good music until you hear it in a Gap ad. Then it becomes just another jingle. But who am I to talk? I still rock out to the new Amoco ads with Neil Young's Rockin' in the Free World.
hey, I'm delighted that Jane Maggie is passing out the goods. But as to them rocking, no way, man. No WAAAAAAAY. Check out Bitch Magazine's delightful rant on the subject.
Fuck the rich! I'm with sab/Scotty5000-always screw the souless corporation at every turn, cause they're MORE than happy to do the same to you! Steal from 'em, screw up their marketing reasearch, and never give 'em the right info. Take their freebies and buy from their little-guy competition. It's the American Way!
One of my favorite things is that I'm a member of the Harris Poll online. They send me surveys every week and I fill 'em out with the most psychotic and inconsistent answers I can. Or I just give completely noncommittal disinformation. "On a scale of 1-10, how do you feel about..." I pick 5 every time.
Oh, and as for "cherry picking", I'm the guy who rolls into CVS with that weekly coupon book and only buys what's in it. I have not paid full price for anything at CVS in the past year.