Just when I thought Rolling Stone's rockist tendencies were as shamefully set in stone as they were going to be, they go lower by finally putting Lil Wayne on their cover (to your left). They put Wayne on the cover not for being arguably the biggest pop star in the world, but for "going rock" on his Rebirth album, which might not even come out.
Rolling Stone is legendary for its stupid cover stories (just in the last year they put Zac Efron and the Jonas Brothers on the cover), but this one is on a different level. They refuse to put Wayne on last year, when they basically acknowledge in the story here that he sold the most records of anyone in 2008, and only want to talk about how he made a "rock album," which, given the few tracks we've heard, is going to be awful on another level. I wonder if they finally realized, "Hey, holy shit, it's 2009. Maybe we shouldn't devote this issue to a Byrds album, and instead we should get that Lil Wayne character on there."
Furthermore, Blender was on to the Wayne phenomeon (they put him on the cover roughly every other issue for the last two years) back before he was "rocking" and they got rewarded by having to fold.
Predictably, the comments on the cover at RS have been generally in the "We hate Lil Wayne! We hate rap! Bring us Dave Matthews Band!" ilk. This is lame all around.
I suppose this cover marks Lil Wayne's further penetration into mainstream culture, but at the same time, Rolling Stone is so late to the party on this one. [ RS ]
Lil Wayne »
IS it me or all the hateful comments on RS related to him being black and a rocker? white people, its 2009 goddamit..
btw, theres always hateful comments in every RS article about wayne..has little to do with his new direction. Internet trolls just love to hate.