Rolling Stone

The top 10: 10) Robbie Robertson — How To Become Clairvoyant; 9) Wild Flag — Wild Flag; 8) Wilco — The Whole Love; 7) The Decemberists — The King Is Dead; 6) Lady Gaga — Born This Way; 5) Radiohead — The King of Limbs; 4) Fleet Foxes — Helplessness Blues; 3) Paul Simon — So Beautiful or So What; 2) Jay-Z & Kanye West — Watch the Throne; 1) Adele — 21

Key choice: Robbie Robertson — How to Become Clairvoyant (#10).

“Quirky” choice that will come back to haunt them: The Lonely Island — Turtleneck and Chain (#50).

What it all means: Rolling Stone is A Serious Magazine with An Older Readership but still has A Sense of Humor. Alternatively, you could argue that it means Rolling Stone is Out-Of-Touch with everyone except for its Baby Boomer Readership. Either way, the strangely schizophrenic nature of this list, with The Band’s Robbie Robertson nestling up against Wild Flag and Lady Gaga, embodies Rolling Stone’s dilemma in the 21st century — keeping sweet with their aging readership while trying to retain some semblance of relevance to younger generations.

2. Tom Hanks is set to produce (and possibly play the lead in) a new film based on Erik Larson’s nonfiction bestseller In the Garden of Beasts. The book tells the story of US ambassador William Dodd’s experiences in Berlin at the beginning of Hitler’s rise to power. [via Vulture]

3. Alan Cumming will star in a one-man version of Macbeth that makes its US debut at the 2012 Lincoln Center Festival this summer; the project began with the idea “to swap the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, because there are so many things about gender, I thought it would be a really exciting idea to flip that.” [via ArtsBeat]

4. “It kind of remains to be seen at this point what happens to the future. I think they are certainly the last shows for a while and I guess I’d just leave it at that.” — Lee Ranaldo talks to Rolling Stone about what’s next for Sonic Youth

5. Sad but true: According to TMZ, hordes of Twihards have been faking engagements in order to try on the $799 replica of Bella’s wedding dress from Breaking Dawn that is being sold in Alfred Angelo bridal boutiques. [via Videogum]

Bonus Buzz: Just A Cat Sitting On The Stairs

Of course, the list is already being nitpicked. At Stereogum, they’ve suggested a few oversights, but they’re all dudes, too. So, let’s play this game for a minute, shall we? Aside from the ladies on the voting panel, all of whom would have made good picks for the list, which other women should have been considered? How about Joan Jett, Tanya Donelly, Carrie Brownstein, Lita Ford, Ani DiFranco, Poison Ivy, Kaki King, Dolly Parton, Etta Baker, Donita Sparks, Wanda Jackson, PJ Harvey… And that’s just off the top of our head! Add your picks in the comments, and if you’re still depressed, check out the list Marnie Stern made for us last year of her favorite female guitarists.

The Atlantic, 1857 [via]

The fact that Murphy is playing an ex-con (like 48 HRS., remember? Back when he was funny?) in a movie not aimed at four-year-olds, and is actually bothering to do the slightest bit of publicity (in the form of a Rolling Stone interview — more on that later) seems to have folks feverishly talking “comeback” or “return to form” or whatever. This notion requires two giant leaps: 1) ignoring the Tower Heist trailer, which shows Murphy doing the same tired tough-guy schtick and exaggerated “street” patter as the execrable I Spy, and 2) overlooking the fact that he’s done exactly two good movies since 1999 (Bowfinger and Dreamgirls). We’re over Eddie Murphy, and after the jump, we’ll tell you why.

10. The Rolling Stone Interview

In spite of the fact that he hasn’t been in an even modestly successful film that didn’t have the word Shrek in its title in well over four years, Murphy has somehow managed to skillfully avoid doing any press or promotion for his terrible movies; you’d think at some point in the negotiating process, some savvy producer might point out that his pictures’ grosses indicate that they perhaps need that little push that ten minutes on Leno’s couch can provide. Whatever the reason, he’s decided to give a rare print interview to Rolling Stone. They’ve only posted highlights, but those include this doozy, on the long-rumored Beverly Hills Cop IV:

They’re not doing it. What I’m trying to do now is produce a TV show starring Axel Foley’s son, and Axel is the chief of police now in Detroit. I’d do the pilot, show up here and there. None of the movie scripts were right; it was trying to force the premise. If you have to force something, you shouldn’t be doing it. It was always a rehash of the old thing. It was always wrong.

As far as we can tell, that is not an edited quote, meaning that — in a bit of conversational whiplash that would could break a neck — Eddie Murphy proposes a “Son of Foley” television show in one breath, and warns against forcing a “rehash of the old thing” with his next. Logic is hard!

“I enjoyed shooting every musician I ever photographed, each in a different way but each with respect for him or her, with great joy in the moment,” he explains. “When I was shooting a concert I didn’t ‘hear’ the music, I ‘saw’ the music. Through the lens I was looking for single visual moments which would reflect the essence of the performance in the pages of Rolling Stone.” Click through to preview some of our favorite photos in the iconic collection, from a pic of Ike and Tina sharing a San Francisco stage back in 1967 to Pete Townshend grinning at the piano in 1968 London.

George Harrison, 1968. Photo credit: Baron Wolman from The Rolling Stone Years (Omnibus Press)

Pixies – Surfer Rosa (1988)

In Rolling Stone’s defense, Surfer Rosa was only a year old when this list was made. But then, the magazine clearly wasn’t really down with what was happening in the late 1980s indie scene – there’s no mention in the Top 100 for Dinosaur Jr’s You’re Living All Over Me or Bug, or for any of Throwing Muses’ records, or Jane’s Addiction’s killer 1988 debut Nothing’s Shocking, or anything by the Gun Club. We can just about forgive them for not including Nirvana’s Bleach or Mudhoney’s Superfuzz Bigmuff, which probably hadn’t made their way to the magazine’s office by the time this list as compiled. But no Pixies? Really?

Founded in 1933, the good news is that Esquire has always been the cheeky, irreverent magazine it is today. The bad news is that that little clay man lingered far, far too long in the magazine’s design scheme. Recent issues are ultra-modern and typography-heavy, which we very much enjoy. They’ve even played with things like electronic ink and “the augmented reality issue,” so we think they’ll be coasting on through the digital era.

GQ was launched in 1931 as Apparel Arts, a men’s clothing industry insider magazine with a very limited print run. In 1957, it was transformed into a men’s quarterly consumer magazine, and the name was changed to the much more chic and layman-friendly Gentlemen’s Quarterly after nine issues.

Vogue was founded in 1892 (this is its very first cover!) as a weekly publication. When its founder, Arthur Baldwin Turnure died in 1909, Condé Nast assumed control, turning it first into a bi-weekly magazine, and then, in 1973, a monthly publication. Vogue went through many looks – some of them much sillier than you would ever expect for the famously snooty magazine – before arriving at its stately serifed logo and celebrity couture covers.

Oh, The New Yorker. You knew what you were doing right from the beginning, didn’t you? We all know what the original New Yorker cover looks like, so this is the second issue. Since so many artists contribute to the covers of this iconic magazine, we’ve decided to compare it to a Jorge Colombo cover from early this year, drawn on an iPhone. Modern technology, yay or nay?

New York Magazine, originally published in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, also seems to have had its logo down pat from the very beginning, though the designers have expanded from the straight photo and top bar covers to all sorts of creative solutions.

National Geographic, which started publishing issues in 1888, didn’t start putting pictures of any kind on the cover until 1959, or some 760 issues in. In fact, it was a largely text-based publication until the January 1905 issue, which featured several large photographs of Tibet and started the magazine on its course to being the graphically renowned publication it is today. They’ve had that yellow bar since 1910, though.

Rolling Stone, we’re not speaking to you. You know what you did.

* After beating Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber for Album of the Year at the Grammys, Arcade Fire was met with a resounding “Who?”

* When Esperanza Spalding won the Grammy for Best New Artist, Beliebers collectively lost their minds on Twitter.

* It sounded like Justin Bieber implied that rape is all a part of God’s plan when his words were twisted in a recent interview with Rolling Stone.

* Malcolm In The Middle star Frankie Muniz resurfaced recently after punching his girlfriend in the face and holding a gun to his head.

* Wu-Tang’s Ghostface Killah regaled his Twitter followers with words of wisdom on how to treat a lady.

* The Midwest became the new Middle East when the spirit of protest has gripped Wisconsin. We have the 45 best signs spotted so far.

* Natlie Portman’s talent for blubbering was revealed in this supercut: Natalie Portman Cries A Lot.

* Internet star and gamer vixen Felicia Day turned heads as a sexy elf in screenshots for the upcoming Dragon Age: Redemption.

* And finally, the Internet pooled their money to buy Detroit a Robocop statue.