Magazine has love-hate relationship with Big Apple

Insight on the News, Jan 28, 2002 by Brandon Spun, John Berlau

A month after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, even some readers used to being shocked by rock magazines no doubt were very much surprised (if not downright disgusted) to find this blurb as they opened the October issue of CMJ New Music Monthly: "Despite the rats, the roaches and the ever-present smell of human waste, New York City rock is hipper than ever.... Shelley Ridenour pokes around the world's biggest toilet [meaning the Big Apple]," read the summary of an article in the magazine's table of contents.

That description seemed especially strange considering the fact that, just a few more pages into the magazine, Editor in Chief Scott Frampton had penned a moving personal letter about the horrific attacks on the City That Never Sleeps. "There are still plenty of reminders," he wrote, "fliers posted for the missing, still more fliers announcing benefits and memorial services, the uncertainty that lingers in overheard street chatter." But Frampton concluded positively: "Music matters [in such times as these] and tragedy isn't going to take that away."

When INSIGHT reached Frampton by telephone at his offices in New York City, he insisted the contradictory statements were the result of an oversight. "Almost all of the magazine had already been printed before September 11," he says. "[The blurb] was just us kind of poking fun at the city we live in. Obviously our viewpoints toward New York ... are a little different at this point." Just like those of the rest of the country.

Frampton says he and other editors forgot about the table of contents blurb, but did catch some commentary elsewhere in the magazine that could have been even more embarrassing. For instance, he yanked pages about a forthcoming album by the hip-hop group The Coup, which had featured art showing an exploding World Trade Center on the cover. The album art, which the group said was intended to be symbolic of rap music destroying capitalism, later was redesigned as well.

BRANDON SPUN IS A REPORTER AND JOHN BERLAU IS A WRITER FOR INSIGHT.