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Nathan Brackett talks shop with
You may not think you know who Nathan Brackett is but trust me, you know his work. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you've heard of a magazine called Rolling Stone. Claiming a seven-digit circulation, any release that's written up in its record reviews section is bound to be seen by a large chunk of people. Heading up that section of the magazine and deciding which records make the cut there, Brackett, indeed, has an important and influential job. Growing up in a small town north of Boston, Brackett credits mid-to-late '80s hip-hop with getting him serious about music criticism; he remembers fruitlessly haunting magazine shops in college looking for a copy of the Source or anything else that covered the music that he loved. After getting his first taste of ink at the University of Wisconsin's Daily Cardinal (where his very first piece was on the controversy surrounding Public Enemy's "Welcome to the Terrordome"), Brackett dreamt of making it to New York to get in the thick of all the magazine homesteads. He got his first job at a national publication when his mother alerted him to an internship position opening up at Musician magazine in neighboring Gloucester, Mass. When the magazine had an office lackey job open up in their New York office in '91, he jumped at it, just to be where he always knew he should be. After spending a few years there and working his way up to Assistant Editor (as well as freelancing for Vibe, Option, and Grand Royale), he made his way to the newly opened N.Y. offices of Time Out, working as Music Editor there in '95. When he got a call about an opening at Stone, Brackett leapt at the opportunity and has held down his job for the last five years. Jason: What did you pick up
from working with different editors when you were starting out?
Nathan: It was hard for me
at to get feedback because I was doing short reviews. Any writer will
probably tell you that it's hard to get feedback from professional editors
'cause they just want to get the copy in ON deadline. I learned that just
being able to write in English is an important first step from people like
Bill
Flanagan, Mark Rowland and Tony Sherman at Musician. Just
being clear is a virtue. From there, you can try and say something a little
more interesting. I'd see so many of these smart people who wanted to write
but couldn't quite get their point across. These editors drilled that into
me: it's like the idea that it's important to be able to play scales before
you can play something more.
Jason: What was your
impression of Rolling Stone before you started working there?
Nathan: I grew up with
Rolling Stone--my folks always had a subscription. I guess I have
this kind of primal thing for the kind of Rolling Stone font in my
head. I loved Rolling Stone and I thought everything looked good
there even though the first cover I remember was the Perfect
one with John Travolta and Jamie Lee Curtis! [laughs] Even when I was at
Musician, I remember being impressed with what Rolling
Stone was doing under David Fricke as the Music Editor and seeing how
they managed to balance covering bands that were huge with stuff that they
actually liked.
Jason: What kind of things
have you learned from working there?
Nathan: That...writing well
is hard! [laughs] Also, that an enormous amount of work goes into even the
basic news reporting about, say, VH1 hiring a new president, to give you a
recent example. It's hard to do that well. Professionalism has a bit of a
bad name in rock critic circles but there is a good reason for it at some
level. A lot of people talk about some of the good old days of rock
criticism. I've gone back and read a lot of those, looking through old
Rolling Stones and I'm not sure if I would want them to return. I
remember reading a Charles Perry review from the early '70s, and it's
basically him talking about his morning--walking up, making himself
breakfast--and then he finally got to the record in the last paragraph.
Also, I've learned that on a certain level, keeping it simple is a real
virtue with rock criticism, and just reporting about music in general. I
think that's kind of Jann Wenner's gift actually--he's smart enough to know
that on a very basic level, you have to keep things simple.
Jason: So what's a good
review look like to you?
Nathan: Well one thing that
a lot of rock critics do when they start out is they start writing for
other rock critics.
Jason: Probably because
they are.
Nathan: Yeah, they are!
[laughs] And I find with young writers, there's this kind of impulse to
show what you can do and to show that you own a copy of...the Beastie
Boys' "Cookie Puss" EP, or that you really know something about the MC5 and
that you can really draw a line between them and a new Detroit band. In
doing that, people forget that they need to connect with a reader. There's
somebody who actually just cares about music, who might not be a rock
criticism fan, who's picking up an issue of Rolling Stone,
Spin or Blender, and really just wants to find out what
something sounds like and whether it's worth checking out. There are really
different things that I look for in different rock critics. People like
James Hunter or Ben Ratliff are real music thinkers--they think about music
all day and they're able to communicate those thoughts in their writing and
they always have something interesting to say. Whereas some writers are a
lot better at just connecting with readers. Rob
Sheffield is one of my favorite writers of all time. He's somebody who
could be a very good Greil Marcus imitator but he puts a premium on being
an entertaining writer and connecting with readers and saying something
smart along the way. I guess I look for a piece that succeeds on its own
terms and something that can really connect with me.
Jason: Since you keep
talking about the reader, who is a Rolling Stone reader? When
you're editing your section, obviously you have to keep in mind who the
audience is.
Nathan: I do think about
this but I think there are a lot of different types of readers. It's a
tough question 'cause Rolling Stone has such an enormous
circulation. I try to think of different readers when I try to do every
review section. With Rolling Stone, I'm trying to think if a piece
of writing can connect with both an 18-year-old college kid who cares about
music and the kind of lifer subscriber who still cares that we
review the new Neil Young record. Sometimes I try to get in an 'older sister record'--as in, "it'd be nice to turn my older sister onto this David Gray record." Alongside that, we try to include the stuff that's getting a lot of attention on MTV
or that people are talking about.
Jason: So to balance it
out to be inclusive, you need to do that in the sweep of the whole section,
rather than trying to do that in a single review?
Nathan: Yeah, certainly.
It's tough because not many magazines are doing what we're trying to do:
address the entirety of pop music. Spin has the luxury of not
trying to do that. Blender does try to do that. And your daily
papers try to do that. So you find yourself speaking to different
constituencies. I'd like to think that anybody who cares about music on
some level will find something in any given reviews section that I've done.
Jason: Being at
Rolling Stone, you obviously function as a gatekeeper to a lot of
the music that comes out. How cognizant are you of that in your work?
Nathan: I had this kind of
deer-in-the-headlights kind of moment when Mark Kemp asked me to be Reviews
Editor after about six months into this job. OH MY GOD! You actually decide
which records get reviewed in Rolling Stone. I found here that you
really can't think about that. [laughs] I try to be cognizant on the level
that every review that we do is going to be read very seriously and that a
band spent a year of their lives off and on with every record that we
review and that a lot of bands who read our reviews are going to care
enormously about what we have to say and that hopefully, a lot of readers
will care about what we have to say. Most people would agree that we're on
the less glib side of reviewing. Rolling Stone was founded on a
certain amount of respect for the artist, and that's the line that's gone
through the magazine throughout its history. I don't think it's a bad
thing. I think there's a place for pure subjectivity in other magazines.
But I think it's a good thing that there are people out there who have a
certain sense of...for lack of a better term, newspaper-propriety when it
comes to music.
Jason: How much freedom
are you given with your section?
Nathan: I'm given a lot of
leeway. Generally, I discuss the lead review with my boss, Joe
Levy. From there on, I'm pretty much given an incredible amount of
freedom.
Jason: So there's no
pressure from above that something has to be in there, or that they need a
certain kind of review for any particular artist?
Nathan: Yeah! As I said, I
think there are certain institutional traditions that any editor for any
magazine is cognizant of. But on a day-to-day basis as far as what reviews
are going into any given section, I feel a lot of freedom to do my work.
Jason: What kind of
traditions are you talking about at Rolling Stone?
Nathan: It is
Rolling Stone, and one of the founding guidelines of the magazine
is that there are people out there who still care about a lot of the
classic rock of the '60s and the '70s. That there are people who care when
Neil Young makes a new record--or they should care. We also try to cover
wherever pop culture is going on a given two week period, and so we cover
stuff that people are buying or what they're hearing on the radio. We think
that people are curious who, say, Trik
Turner is. Then, after that, we try to turn people on to music that we
think is worthwhile.
Jason: With that last
point, how difficult is it to get in reviews of bands or performers who
aren't quite yet in the public/mainstream consciousness? In other words,
they're not popular yet, or they may never be.
Nathan: I think we try to
do that in every issue. That's the fun part of the job--I don't see that as
hard! I get excited when we do that. That's what keeps me doing it. When
David Fricke does his "On the Edge" column, he'd say the same thing about
his work. It's purely his personal favorite records. I guess I just don't
feel that we're going out on a limb when we review an independent record or
something that's just not established. I think every section has a couple
of records that the casual music fan hasn't heard on K-Rock.
Jason: You brought up
Spin and Blender before. Do you think about these
magazines and their work when you're doing your section?
Nathan: Not really. I
don't feel an enormous sense of competition with them. I covet the amount
of pages that Rob Tannenbaum gets in Blender for his reviews
section! Beyond that, I don't feel this daily pressure--"oh my God, are
they going to get a copy of the new Flaming Lips before us? We have to get
there first! Let's make an exclusive!" (laughs) I'm happy that there are a
few national music magazines where a writer can get work from. The more
pay-days out there for rock critics, the better.
Jason: How do you see your
section in the scope of the rest of the magazine?
Nathan: Well, it's the
section of the magazine where we get to say what we like. Whereas different
parts of the magazine are just covering what's out there. As I said before,
we have a certain responsibility to cover records that people are buying or
are at least on the radar. But we also get to say what we really think
about them. I can't tell you how many times it's happened, though, where we
haven't covered an artist (in the reviews section) and then they appear on
the cover. [laughs] It happens. And there have been times when we've stiffed
an artists' record in the same issue that we've given them a cover story.
So, sometimes there's a bit of a tension, but it's not something that I deal
all the time with in the office. When Joe Levy is negotiating a cover shoot
or something, I don't hear, "hey, we better get them a decent review."
Jason: With all the work
you have to do as an editor, do you find any time to do any writing
yourself?
Nathan: It's hard. I tried
to do it once every few months. I think every editor should write a little
bit. Otherwise, you forget what it's like to be on the receiving end of an
edit. I'll have someone like Joe do that and it's always a treat to do that
with him.
Jason: For the reviews
section, to some extent, your own views/opinions come into place?
Nathan: Yeah, absolutely.
If that didn't come into play, we'd just be taking focus groups to decide on
reviews. It comes into play for every album that we review. Although I will
say that I do have respect for a writer's tastes and I have reviews of
countless records in the section that I've totally disagreed with. I've
even raised the star rating for some reviews of records that I didn't like
if, say, the review read like a four star review but the writer only gave it
three-and-a-half stars. By the same token, I'll lower a star rating if it
feels that the writer didn't make the case.
Jason: On average, how
much music do you listen to every day?
Nathan: It's funny...I
find that I cram in a lot of music in between issues. I have a hard time
listening to music and giving it the attention it deserves when we're
closing an issue. If you don't include the whole record, I'll listen to
40-50 a week.
Jason: What kind of
criteria do you use to decide what you're going to listen to based on the
hundreds of records that come out each week?
Nathan: A lot of it is
trusting writers. I have a lot of people out there who turn me on to
records. And then, there'll be records I'll be curious about. Those are my
main guidelines. And then there'll be something that I'll pick up because
it has an interesting album cover or something. It's nice when something
just comes out of the pile and we end up reviewing it, but it's pretty rare.
Jason: Do you think the
whole MP3 craze and the peer-to-peer networks that have been built up
around it are going to make review columns like yours obsolete?
Nathan: Not really. I
think if anything, people need more guidance because of the
Internet. People have access to all this music. It's a great thing that
somebody can read Rolling Stone and then go on the Internet and
download half the songs that are written about in the reviews section. I
think with the Wild, Wild West of the Internet, people are looking to, for
lack of a better term, a brand that they can trust. A few years ago,
collaborative filtering was going to do away with record reviews: that's
where they say, "if you like this, then you'll also like this!"
Jason: Oh yeah,
Amazon uses that system.
Nathan: Right. I don't
know if it works for you but when I go on to Amazon, I bought my
brother-in-law an electric drill three years ago and now they recommend drilling magazines to me all the
time. I think it'd be a shame if people felt that they were fed
further into their demographic. That's what this kind of filtering does. One
of the points of rock criticism is that it can open your ears to something
else that you might not have heard of.
Jason: A lot of people are
wondering about the future of Rolling Stone with the recent change
in staff and the increased competition. How do you see this?
Nathan: Right now, we
don't know. We're going to have a new Managing Editor, hopefully within a
few weeks, and we'll see. What I'm hoping is that we're going to have more
room for record reviews. That's what I've been led to believe and that's a
good thing. Right now, I'm pretty optimistic, but I don't know.
[Editor's note: Following the recent, much publicized news of Wenner's hiring of Ed Needham, formerly of FHM, we asked Nathan if he knew specifically what direction Needham planned to take the magazine in. Here's his response: "My impression is that a lot of what he was hired to do is package the magazine better--yes, there will probably be more short stuff in the magazine, but it's going to be done well, and in a Rolling Stone way rather than a Maxim or FHM way. The magazine will always have an article or two in every issue with some heft. The difference may be that we advertise better all the little stuff we do well-'Random Notes,' music news, and short record reviews, for example. I have to address one thing, though: I love when the magazine gets called irrelevant--and then the New York Times runs a front page article about our new Managing Editor, or you read about it on the frigging CNN ticker! People have been saying Rolling Stone has been going to the dogs since we put David Cassidy on the cover in 1972, and we're still here."] Jason: Do you yourself
work with Jann a lot, and get feedback from him?
Nathan: Yeah! It's pretty
exciting to work with him. He's a great talent. He's kept the magazine
simple but he's not afraid to fiddle with it. That's why it's been around
for 30 years. You have to keep on your toes with him.
Jason: What do you mean by
that?
Nathan: Well, he'll always
ask you whether some little section that you've been doing for the last
year is still a good idea. He doesn't really feel like there are any sacred
cows in terms of the actual format of the magazine. And you know, he's
often right!
Jason: What other music
magazines out there are doing good work?
Nathan: It's easier for me
to say what writers I like 'cause that's what I gravitate towards rather
than certain magazines. I love everybody from the New York
Times--I'll read Jon Pareles, Ben Ratliff and, formerly of the
Times, Ann Powers. I'll always check out the Voice--I
still love Bob Christgau. A lot of the British music magazines have a real
energy which is just part of their culture--the
throw-it-up-and-tear-it-down kind of culture. So I'm always entertained by
Q and NME.
Jason: If there would be
anything you could change about your reviews section, what would it be?
Nathan: To get twice as
many pages--it would give us the pretense of being comprehensive, which
is very hard to do now. I'd love to feel that we could have a
guide to every record that you could possibly care about coming out in a two
week period. Right now, we have to be a lot more selective. I think the
world could deal with 10 pages of records every two weeks, but maybe I'm
just speaking for myself.
Jason: Want to make any
predictions about the next big thing?
Nathan: Klezmer in '03!
It's all going to be about klezmer wedding bands. Expect a cover story
soon.
Jason Gross is the Editor and Publisher of Perfect Sound Forever.
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