You’re a guy who takes your music seriously but stopped reading Rolling Stone at least a decade ago. You’re bugged that your radio choices seem limited to contrived pop or yet another “classic rock” station playing the same songs by Boston or The Who over and over.
You find an occasional new artist you like but have a limited appetite–or even the free time–to separate the dreck from the delightful.
Alan Light thinks he has an answer for you: Tracks, the magazine he and his publisher, John Rollins, just launched after they spent several years at the helm of Vibe and Spin. (Light used to be a senior writer for Rolling Stone too.)
“When you’re younger you listen to music much more tribally,” Light said. “For example, if you listen to metal, you don’t want to hear anything softer. It’s how you shape your identity. When you’re older, it’s `What’s interesting enough that I should take time out of my life and listen to it?'”
The premiere issue of what Light and friends bill as “Music Built to Last” features Sting on the cover looking like a grizzled miner. Inside, features on the former Police front-man’s resurgent career and a photo essay on R.E.M.’s early days share space with an extensive album-review section. There’s also an intriguing rock-as-lifestyle section called SideTracks, which samples everything from a travelogue of the Mississippi Delta to Tori Amos’ burgeoning wine collection to wild birds that are beginning to mimic distinctive cell-phone rings.
Not exactly Rolling Stone, Tracks bears a faint resemblance to Musician magazine of 20 years ago.
Light notes that that the over-30 crowd buys about 60 percent of the CDs sold these days (and it’s mainly guys who buy music magazines).
“Sting does not present himself as a nostalgia act,” Light said. “He continues to work with different artists and challenge his listeners. Let me point out that Sting sold more than twice as many copies of his new album in its first week as the White Stripes, who were on the cover of both Rolling Stone and Spin.”
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