Unglued

I’ve subscribed to the magazine Paste for the past year, but I will not be renewing the subscription. There were things I liked about getting the magazine in my mailbox every month. The CD sampler that came with every issue was always worth listening to, and in a few cases I learned the hard way that the magazine put the very best (or perhaps the only good) track from a recently released album on each sampler. This has nothing to do with why I’m letting my subscription expire. I’m letting it expire because of the magazine’s billing – not the cost of the magazine – but how it describes itself as “signs of life in music, film & culture.”

If “signs of life in music and film” means positioning the magazine to be the indie version of Rolling Stones then congratulations are in order. If “signs of life in culture” is a way of saying “we also review video games” then mission accomplished, baby! But I expect more, much more from a magazine with such a promising and hopeful tagline. Sadly, the magazine just trades in hero-worship of Britney and Madonna for the likes of Neko Case and Cat Powers. It blindly raves over Wes Anderson films in lieu of Jerry Bruckheimer blockbusters. Now I’m a big fan of “The Covers Record” and Rushmore so I like the idea of a magazine which features this side of the music and film industry, but Paste really doesn’t offer anything more than a platform for the popular for being odd and obscure to market itself to people who don’t like swimming in the mainstream.

Recording on an independent label does not make a musician’s work refreshing or redemptive; it just means the artist has chosen (or was forced to choose) a different route. Justifying reviews of video games because they are an art form – do we even have to go there? Maybe I could buy into this logic if the magazine didn’t regularly review video games that glamorize the carnage of war. After all, nothing says “signs of life” like “Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures!”

Fortunately there are alternatives to Paste. NPR’s podcasts of “All Songs Considered” canvasses the music scene and host Bob Boilen always provides the proper ratio of introduction and review to actual song content. And Brent Thomas now offers several episodes of his podcast “the Habañero Hour,” which features Christian music that isn’t content to simply pattern itself after the Top 40. Recently my friend Scott began a new blog which is really a forum for several friends to recommend music and movies we’ve enjoyed. While I don’t expect Scott, Tim or any of my other friends to say something really earth-shattering about Scarlett Johansson covering Tom Waits (see the June 08 issue of Paste), I’m optimistic that even as I become unglued I will still manage to find true signs of life in the culture.