Medianatomy
Blender: Dennis Publishing's Well-Blended Man
August 20, 2001
By Chris Allbritton

The goal, its editors Andy Pemberton and my old Inside.com colleague Craig Marks say, is to provide a friendly, breezy point of entry for fans of any kind of music. And indeed, the cover lines bear this out. They swerve from Janet Jackson ("BOOTYLICIOUS! JANET! THE QUEEN OF POP IS BACK!") to Radiohead to Destiny's Child to Weezer and then to Mr. Faith Hill, Tim McGraw. So you've got progrock, sexy R&B, alternarock and country. Add in a little U2, DJ Clue, Dr. Dre, Dylan, Elvis and even Mötley Crüe (good lord) and you've got a musical mélange that works -- sort of.

Be not fooled, however. This is a Dennis Publication, and it doesn't stray far from its Maxim roots. And so, the second issue's cover features every skate punk's favorite pin-up, the coquettish Gwen Stefani surrounded by a quota of cover lines: Slipknot for freak metal, Alicia Keys for R&B, Billy Joel for nostalgia, The Strokes for modern punk cred and Ryan Adams for alt-country. Also the main feature is a list of the "50 Sexiest Artists of All Time From Elvis to Britney..." (Stefani clocked in at number 20, beat out by -- c'mon! -- Axl Rose.)

So you can already discern how this book's going to go down: Hot chick, several (wildly divergent) genres of music, all backed up by The Guide, a mammoth back of the book section that -- get this -- reviews CDs! You get 206 reviews in the first issue and 197 in the second. This innovation was brought over from the British music mag Q, which Pemberton edited before coming on board at Blender. And throughout, you get the trademark frat-pack wit that has made Maxim a 2.5-million subscriber phenom in just three years. Each page is packed, and the small-type is often the best part of the magazine. (Under Jim Morrison's photo in the sexiest artists list -- he's number 19 -- it reads: "People are strange; self-destructive people are hot." Good to know.)

And yet, it seems Blender is trying to be a little too smart for its own good at times. Chalk it up to opening day jitters, but the first issue's feature on Beyoncé Knowles and Destiny's Child has this assessment:

"Back in 1997, you could have been forgiven for thinking Destiny's Child were interchangeable with melisma merchants Changing Faces, Allure or 702. Their debut first single, 'No, No, No, Part I,' was an agreeable ballad with a hint of funk; the rest of their self-titled debut album was mostly slow pap and faceless sex appeal ... Though (Knowles) hasn't written as many world-grabbing hooks as Michael Jackson, Survivor makes it clear she's a funnier lyricist and an equally sophisti-cated vocal arranger. Her work on 'Apple Pie a la Mode' could be that of a less stoned D'Angelo, while 'Bootylicious' pivots on one of the year's least expected cho-ruses: 'I don't think you're ready for this jelly.'"

What the hell? Who let the Spin editor loose in the Blender offices? This is Destiny's Child for God's sake, not Dylan. Mind you, this persnickety aside on Knowles' skills as a composer is run below a half-page photo showing the three gorgeous ladies lounging in a bathroom wearing hot pants, a (very) miniskirt and leather pants so tight they make my eyes water. Despite this high-falutin' analysis of pop musicality -- hiding behind a cover featuring Jackson's crotch tattoo, I might add -- Blender gives off the vibe of a frat boy in a new suit at his first day on the job who can't help ogling those hot babes in marketing.

Also, rumors of poor care and feeding of freelancers are floating about. Keith Harris, who was hired to be the editor of The Guide, quit (or was fired, depending on who you ask) before the first issue hit the stands, allegedly because he defended freelancers' reviews when Pemberton was too liberal with his blue pencil, changing star ratings and generally happyfying them. And while the reviews are just a few lines and a star rating, it's disappointing to think that Blender might have softened hard reviews for the sake of making music "especially fun," as Pemberton said in his editor's letter in the inaugural issue. I scanned the reviews, and out of 197 CDs reviews in the second issue, there was one -- one! -- single-star "weak" rating, with by far the most common being the three-stars "check it out" score. You mean to tell me "Shaquille O'Neal Presents His Superfriends" rates two stars? Not to call bullshit too loudly, but Shaq raps about as well as he shoots free throws.

But beyond possible review-padding and over-intellectualizing T&A trios, Blender's real challenge is to decide what it wants to be. Is it a salacious music magazine, kicking up the connection between sex and rock 'n' roll a notch or two? Or is it a melodious Maxim with sexy girl musicians and wink-wink, nudge-nudge sniggering about groupie misbehavior? At the moment it feels like the latter, which makes it a possible successor to the original Rolling Stone, when it was rebellious, risky and a little dangerous. The last bit of provocation was probably in 1996, when Jenny McCarthy posed with the hot dog and the mustard.

"How many music magazines would sport a flossy Janet Jackson cover and a surreal question-and-answer session with Thom Yorke, and manage to share a laugh with both stars?" asks Pemberton in his letter-from-the-editor. "How many other mags would be broad-minded enough to realize that alt-rock beloveds Weezer and country's biggest male star, Tim McGraw, are both wonderful in their way, and worthy of your attention?" The answer, he says, is none. But there's a reason for that. The audiences for hip-hop and hard-core rock are completely different, because the trend over the last decade in magazine audiences has been to segment, segment, segment. Vibe and Spin have recognized that. Rolling Stone, has too -- becoming greyer and thicker in the middle right along with its audience -- and plays up its feature reporting. How does Blender, which hopes to be the "Ultimate Music Magazine," fit in? By not being a music magazine.

Huh? Let me explain: Some would say that the ultimate music magazine is a nimble, genre-hopping little monkey, sliding from Uncle Kraker to Burt Bacharach with just the appropriate amount of ironic detachment. Blender appears to be that on the surface, but it's really mostly an appliqué of Dennis Publishing's editorial voice to the subject of music. It is, in fact, the latest outpost of the Dennis empire, which so far has colonized the subjects of men's interests (Maxim) and shopping (Stuff). Dennis' magazines aren't about the subjects that grace their pages; they're about the readers who want to experience those subjects.

This is an important distinction. Whereas the audience for Popular Mechanics (full disclosure: I do some freelancing there) and Marie Claire both fill the coffers at Hearst Corp., they don't overlap at all. This is also true, but to a lesser degree, at Condé Nast. Dennis's audience, however, is the same group of guys. The same audience that buys Maxim and Stuff can and will buy Blender. The fact that the babes on the cover sing or play guitar instead of act or pose with the latest gadget is beside the point. (If they're smart, Dennis should publish a sports magazine -- call it Balls and feature Gabrielle Reece on every cover -- or a business mag with cheesecake shots of Maria Bartiromo.)

On reflection, perhaps the music magazines are more like the Beatles, and not just because there are five members in modern boy bands. Spin plays George, Vibe is John, and Rolling Stone is Paul -- you know, the cute one. And Blender? At the moment, it's Ringo: jocular, fun and better than the magazines that that have occupied its space before. Like Ringo, it knows its fans and its place. Unlike Pete Best.

Guest columnist Chris Allbritton is an Inside.com refugee with too much free time on his hands, and has written for The Associated Press, the New York Daily News, Wired.com, Salon.com and other publications.

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