Puree, Anyone?

A couple of weeks ago I journeyed to the UK for business. As with all my long plane trips, I made sure I had plenty to read. While waiting in the terminal, I decided to check out the newsstand to see if there were any interesting magazines. Normally Stiffy Biceptz doesn't read too many magazines, so it's a treat to buy myself a few for a trip. Looking over the music magazines, my gaze settled on a semi-provocative cover shot of Kelly Clarkson. Now I like Kelly Clarkson. She has a great voice, and I think she's fun. So I decided to pick up the magazine with Kelly on the cover. It was Blender...

As I flipped through the pages, a smile began to creep onto my face. As I read the captions to photos and the titles to articles, I found myself laughing out loud. It had been a long time since I had read such a sharp-witted music magazine that found ways to simultaneously celebrate and deflate the pop music scene with such enthusiasm. The snarky editors, the wise-ass captions to photos, where had I seen this all before??

Twenty six years ago as a high school kid I hung out in my local 7-11 with my friends on weekend nights, after or before going to a party, or just to get out of the house. There were always a few cool pinball machines to play, some interesting characters hanging around in the parking lot, and lots of magazines to look through. It was there I discovered Creem magazine, which at the time was the coolest, smartest music magazine around. It was Creem that helped lead me towards punk, new wave and alternative, and away from the classic rock of my youth. Creem had the best writers, covered a wide variety of music, and most importantly, didn,t take itself or the music scene too seriously. Creem was indeed the cream of the crop, and I rarely missed an issue from that point onward. Later that same year, I spent several nights at the Collingswood flea market picking up a lot of back issues going back as far as 1975. They are carefully stored in my basement.

Not long after the death of Lester Bangs in 1982, Creem faded from glory. It was retooled in the late 80's, but its time had come and gone. I never did look at rock magazines much after that. What was the point? They were all so serious, and so self-important.

Creem was famous for it's no-compromise style of critiquing bands, trends and the music scene in general. The letters to the editor section was largely an arena for the editors to make fun of and belittle the letter writers as being mostly a bunch of idiots, which was of course true. Few printed letters escaped without some smart-ass (but appropriate) response. The sarcastic captions to the numerous photos of countless bands were very funny, making the majority of artists pictured look like a bunch of self-indulgent idiots; most were. In every issue, famed music critic Robert Christgau would review a dozen or so recently released records which such literary flair that it is unlikely most readers of Creem could have understood what he was talking about. Fortunately at the end of each review he gave a simple letter grade. Everyone understood that -"A" meant it was great and that "F" meant it sucked. He rarely missed the mark.

Creem was all about skewering (while celebrating) the self-important pop music scene, and reminding us that it's all just entertainment and not to be taken too seriously. As I spent the next few hours reading my issue of Blender from cover to cover, I was happily reminded of the glory days of Creem and my discovery of so much great music.

It seems that the writers and editors of Blender have been possessed by the long departed spirit of Creem. They understand that its all about having fun. Boy Howdy!

Stiffy Biceptz is now a Blender subscriber. I recommend all of you follow suit.