Best Cover Ever
The American Society of Magazine Editors has voted on the best magazine cover of the last 40 years, and it's this famous Annie Leibovitz photograph. From the New York Times:
The best magazine cover of the last 40 years was Rolling Stone's January 1981 cover photograph of a naked John Lennon curled up in a fetal position around his wife, Yoko Ono. That is the judgment of editors and art directors from about 50 of the nation's top magazines, who were asked to pick the 40 best covers of the last 40 years, in honor of the 40th anniversary of the National Magazine Awards. The picture was taken by Annie Leibovitz just hours before Mr. Lennon was shot and killed on Dec. 8, 1980.George Lois, the man responsible for some of the better Esquire covers, bemoans the lack of interesting or creative covers on magazines these days.
"Magazines don't even try to do covers with actual ideas any more," he wrote in Radar. "You can't just slap a picture of Nicole Kidman on your cover and expect people to say, 'Wow! What a cover!' It's just another picture of Nicole."Other top covers included the Vanity Fair cover that featured a pregnant and nude Demi Moore. Like most of the top 40 covers, it is over 10 years old.
Posted at 11:06 AM
Did you notice all the great covers only had that one, iconic image on each one? Today, Rolling Stone has some great covers but they need to vomit so much text on the sides that you lose the beauty of the photograph. Editors - leave your covers be and leave the text off once in awhile.
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ja, that's actually an amazingly good point. (sigh) advertisement.
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Stop the presses: a bunch of boomers decide something related to John Lennon to be the best of whatever category it's in!
Next up: a report from the Society of Decades announces the 1960's to be the coolest decade to be between 13 and 21 years old!
Also, a scientific study from the Organization of Innocence proves once and for all that the country was in fact completely and utterly innocent from 1776 until Nov. 1963, at which point innocence was indeed lost forever.
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Topher, I am normally the first one lighting torches and gathering pitchforks when it's time to attack the Boomers' undeniable collective self-absorption, but I mean, come on, it -is- a great cover. By the way, I recommend googling "self-absorbtion" for yuks.
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Honestly, I'd put National Geographic's famous "Afghan Girl" cover ahead of this.
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That naked Christina Agueillera cover was good. It conveyed "I slut myself for instruments I can't play." Very avant garde.
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Great Post Topher
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See I don't know if it's so great. Yoko's hand behind John's back makes it look like he has a lump. Annie should photoshop that out.
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I cannot imagine a generation more self-absorbed than my own, except for maybe the one coming up. I mean how exactly are we -less- self-absorbed than our parents' generation? Were 60% of them in therapy, on meds, and reading self-help books by age 23? Sure, maybe it sounds like I'm pulling this shit out of my ass, but seriously, you've got to be kidding me if you think this generation is at least twice as self-obsessed, narcissistic, and avaricious.
Hello, BLOGS? I've got one, you've got one, everyone's got one.
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The Afghan Girl cover was beautiful and iconic, I agree. The thing that pushes the John and Yoko pic over the limit is that on top of it being a good photo, you have a nice little reversal where the man is naked and the woman clothed. It's not the deepest, most groundbreaking photo ever taken, but it's got more going for it than being a good photo.
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The Afghan girl National Geographic cover was ranked 10th, coming in behind such iconic images as the National Lampoon cover which threatened, "If you don't buy this magazine, we'll kill this dog." That took 7th. So, yeah, it's a totally meaningless list, like all lists.
http://www.magazine.org/Press_Room/MPA_Press_Releases/13732.cfm
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The Afghan girl is hawt.
Here's a link to the full list, although it seems to be down at the moment.
http://www.magazine.org/editorial/13730.cfm
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Jed2, the really annoying thing about the Boomers' self-absorbtion is that it is accompanied by a completely unearned sense of accomplishment and a nauseating sense of entitlement.
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Here's how the Afghan girl looks today:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1870382.stm
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Really I believe the best "cover" of all time would probably be Emile Zola's "J'Accuse" article. It was simple, powerful, and got its point across about a meaningful issue. I have a hard time believing that Time-Life never put out a cover that more simply, powerfully, and clearly conveyed a point about an important issue than this one did.
And I didn't say the phrase self-absorbed. I agree that 20 and 30 somethings are always pretty self-absorbed. I merely was pointing out that the boomers have a particular way of glorifying every and all facets of their collective story to the exclusion of all others. I'm pretty sure that in 20 years the Beatles will still be on or near the top of most "best of" lists done by my generation. Can you say the same thing about the boomers? Were they putting Louis Arstrong or Duke Ellington on the same pedestals we put John Lennon and co. on?
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No, they sure weren't putting them on pedestals, but it's a slightly apples-and-oranges comparision.
I'm not saying they're not self-absorbed, I'm just saying we shouldn't point the finger at them. I mean for all of our "self-awareness", most of us seem pretty unaware of our own senses of entitlement and privledge and pretty much totally ignorant of the fact that we're by and large not doing much of anything beyond consuming more and more and expecting less and less out of ourselves. I don't think we have a sense of accomplishment, no, but on that note, as little as some things have changed, our parents' generation at least opened up a dialogue about an awful lot of things that had went undiscussed before them. All we seem to be able to offer in any bulk is unearned cynicism and middle-brow post-modern snark. I think we're a destructive force, to be honest.
Anyway, sorry, I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. I don't care either way what the greatest cover ever is.
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Yeah, I agree with Jed, we are a sorry lot.
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jed2's on the money
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This should have been the best cover ever:
http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/nes/nintendo-power1.jpg
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Thanks, but I don't think it's that we're hopeless, just kind of unbelievably spoiled and intellectually lazy.
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another awesome cover, left out in the cold:
http://www.panopticist.com/archives/79.html
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People try to put us d-down
Just because we get around
Things they do look awful c-c-cold
I hope I die before I get old
This is my generation
This is my generation, baby
Why don’t you all f-fade away
And don’t try to dig what we all s-s-say
I’m not trying to cause a big s-s-sensation
I’m just talkin’ ’bout my g-g-g-generation
This is my generation
This is my generation, baby
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ha! dude, it totally says penis!
jed2, I've been thinking the same thing for a while. Believe me, I hate boomers for the precise reasons Topher listed above. It's just that I find it weird that our generation seems to have cool kids, but they do not function as a counter-culture. Our cool kids are "the man."
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Janine, I totally agree. Very well put. Our cool kids are indeed the man, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of dissent in the ranks over it. It's just accepted, and celebrated even, yet somehow it's different than the "mainstream". How, exactly? I say Ashlee Simpson do a song that sounded like Franz Ferdinand the other night on TV. A facile example, but you get the point.
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We're intellectually lazy and consuming at an embarrassing level precisely because of the baby boomer generation. We're scared of trying to live up to their standards (none of you can argue that Civil Rights Movement didn't represent a major shift) and we are afraid we'll fail. It's a generational complex.
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there's one word that sums up our generation: apathy
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I never needed to see John Lennon naked. My stomach curses you, stereogum!
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What is "our generation" by the way? I'm guessing there are a mix of mostly Gen X and Gen Y (aka "Echo Boom") people reading this site.
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That's easy! We're the Pepsi Generation.
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We should all behave. Look at ourselves. Do you see what we've done? Stinking no-goods, the lot of us.
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Someone told me that our Canadian Pepsi is sweeter than American. Is this true? Can someone meet me on Peace Bridge with a pepsi to test this out?
It's um important research for our generation.
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what's really fucked up about the top 40 is that so many of the covers have been judged great because of the event they relate to, rather than the value of the image or cover itself: for example - why so many related to 9/11? it was a big event, but those three covers weren't all worthy of the top 40 - probably only the new yorker one qualifies (the time cover was hardly remarkable. likewise the diana cover is nothing special - it was just a photo of diana
me, i like the economist camels, the esquire one of clinton, and the one of esquire one of ali. at least there's some wit involved.
and yeah, i'm with you, jed.
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Chocolate bars in Canada also taste better than in America Calliwell
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my friend swears that american corn pops are better than canadian corn pops, and demands his parents bring the american ones back to canada when they vacation in the u.s. spoiled bastard.
and no, we're not hopeless or lost. we're just stunningly intellectually lazy, as jed2 put it. the boomers have been very effective at co-opting all forms of cultural expression (if only through controlling their dissemination), and as such they're able to elevate their own cultural landmarks to the status of iconic, while subordinating the rest (i think that's why our generation is so taken with blogs which appear to be unmediated individual expression)... fair enough for the boomers i suppose. i wish this generation was more questioning though, rather than cynically turning away or towing the mass-media line.
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inspired by this contest, the editor of real simple said she's doing a cover of a closet with a bomb in it.
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birdwire, baby boomers really didn't have that much to do with the civil rights movement considering it started around '55 when the oldest baby boomers were 9. I'm sure they contributed to the later part, but I definitely wouldn't give them full credit for the whole movement, as it sounds like you are.
just had to point that out.
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I can see why older generations have these thoughts on younger ones. I'm still quite young, not in my twenties yet, but I have my own complaints about my peers. Sometimes I look around at people my age and just shake my head at their apparent futures. I read somewhere that Americans are getting ruder... anyway else think there's a lot of truth in that? My motto is to treat people as I would like to be treated myself; It amazes that people don't follow by this. Hopefully, my generation will make something of themselves.
Oh and just a note to Canadians. You guys are cool. You seem less self-absorbed than the average American. Don't fret if most of us can't see your country's graces. Our name is much more tainted than yours, so next time you hear a Canadian joke (which happens many times) laugh- at us. :)
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Joko on the best cover is a Joko...further proof of Jann WEENER'S dementia....
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