The first thing I did today after a terribly boring day at school was hurry to my mailbox. It's something that has become rather habitual. And, to be quite honest, I never know when my check from WMG will arrive. Most of the time I'm disappointed to find a cable and internet bill from Charter or an unusually high electricity bill from Madison Gas and Electric. Today, I found neither of those. When I opened my rusted mailbox I discovered a beat-up copy of Rolling Stone.

The standard protocol is to flip through all the pages until something especially compelling catches my eye. I was lucky, as Taylor Swift was ever-so kind to grace the cover. What a babe!

I noticed the usual ads promoting the newest and coolest 18-blade Gillette Razor and how Turbo Tax will make my taxes so much easier. I even stopped to smell Diesel's fragrance (dag!).

Damn, doesn't that quarter-pounder with cheese look [oh-so delightful.]

As I continued to thumb through, I also dealt with the most frustrating thing of my day -- my copy of Wii Sports failed to load. I continued to insert the disk while simultaneously flipping pages. And, in true mundane fashion, the process was repeated for the next five minutes.

I passed over the Taylor Swift cover story, missed out on a new blues prodigy, and cruised past a very interesting article about the decline of the auto industry. Just as it seemed I could dedicate all my effort towards virtual sports, I see a man that I happened to talk to last week! Donald Cumming and his band The Virgins were rocking pages 64-68 with some nice photos and some very sexy ladies.

The Virgins were featured in the fashion section of the issue, and photographer Theo Wenner did a stellar job capturing the rock stars looking like nothing but. The photos that capture our attention serve as a perfect introduction to many eager music fans across the globe. The world we live in spins so fast that oftentimes we can't even slowdown to read more than a couple paragraphs at a time -- shit, maybe even in a day.

A compelling introduction will most definitely keep the reader's attention throughout the entire article. This article may have appeared to some like another Calvin Klein ad – without the semi-nude adolescents, of course – but after a closer look you're quickly captured by a wonderful story about an up-and-coming band that very few have been exposed to.

An interesting tidbit I've learned through a fascinating class in my final semester of school is that exposure is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for processing information. Rather, in order to have that information processed you must capture one's attention.

This article immediately caught my attention, it will catch my peers,it will catch my friends. And there is no doubt in my mind that it will catch millions of others readers racing through their own beat-up copy of Rolling Stone. Whether their copy of Wii Sports loads, however, remains to be seen.

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Zachary

The article talks about how Quincy Jones (legendary, Grammy winning producer) is yet another musician turned journalist.  The article goes on to talk about how is the current slump of the newspaper world, more and more people are getting their news elsewhere before reading it in the newspaper.  

Basically, the "entertain"-ment columnists (not literally though) are starting to write columns for very notable & successful papers like the Chicago Tribune, about topics that transcend their musical endeavors.  Also as a way to spark interest once again (kind of stirring the pot if you will).   Check out the original article from Reuters and the topic link for Kings of A&R.

I think it's interesting to see guest writers like this.  Actually, its not that too old of a practice to see guest columnists from a different media background venture into the journalist/columnist world.  I often remember reading "Ask Vinnie" in revolver, where readers could send in their questions for advice, or reading about a musician or actor's favorite recipe in a local paper or magazine.