2019-09-01 Rolling Stone

14 | Rolling Stone | September 2019

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Letters to ROLLING STONE, 475 Fifth

Avenue, New York, NY 10017-0298.

Letters become the property of ROLLING

STONE and may be edited for publication.

Email: [email protected]

Subscriber Services: Call 800-283-1549.

@sarahajeel:

I don’t think

I’ve ever

read a cover

story where

the opening

paragraph is

the artist being

forced to clean

their room!

Correspondence + LOVE LETTERS & ADVICE

CONTACT US

Billie’s Teen Spirit

For Billie Eilish’s first ROLLING STONE cover [“Triumph
of the Weird,” RS 1330], traditional was out of the
question. Photographer Petra Collins explained,
“There have been a lot of young women on the
covers, and I was like, ‘I want to do the opposite
of what the Britney Spears cover was.’ ” For reader
Rebecca Stout, this resonated. “As a mother of a
teenage girl, what can I say but thank you, Billie
Eilish, for proving girls don’t have to shop their
body parts in order to be sexy, cool, or successful.”
Other readers did not share in this sense of em-
powerment. “Why the morbid, downer picture of

Billie on the cover?” asked Anne Campbell. But for

many, it was Eilish’s music — not her image — that

mattered most. Reader Kevin Dodd wrote, “Eilish’s

critics need to understand that she and her brother

did things on their own. Unlike so many pop artists,

they’re not the product of record-label commer-

cialism. If we want new music to be creative and

uniquely inspired, then we need to support these

kinds of performers.” Eilish fan Joshua Hess raved,

“When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? is the

first album I’ve listened to start to finish. I’ve had it

on repeat all summer.”

Goodbye, Dr. John

When I first heard him at 17... as the Night

Tripper on Gris-Gris, he literally blew the

doors off of what I thought music was all

about [“The Joy and Mystery of a New

Orleans Saint,” RS 1330]. There will never

be another Dr. John.

—Ian Martin, via the internet

Kamala’s Case

Jamil Smith is 100 percent dead-on

[“Kamala’s Moment,” RS 1330]. Love her

politics and policies and her campaign.

At 62 years old, I made my first political

contribution and pledge.

—Phil Panos, via the internet

“She’s better

than 95

percent of

pop artists

and [did it]

without letting

the industry

decide

what she

sounds like.”

—Mark Gard, via the internet

Our Kinks Album Guide was published back in June [RS 1328], but

we’re still receiving letters from passionate fans taking issue with

some of our choices. Many of them found the distinction between

“Must-Have” picks like Village Green Preservation Society and

“Further Listening” selections like Kinda Kinks to be rather absurd.

“Arthur listed as ‘Further Listening’?” wrote Christopher Moore.

“That’s like listing the Beatles’ Rubber Soul as ‘Digging Deeper.’ ”

Kinks fan Reed MacNeilage agreed: “The ‘Further Listening’ [albums]

would be a good career for most bands.” Meanwhile, after years of

false starts and unfulfilled promises, Ray and Dave Davies are finally

recording new songs together and even considering a possible

reunion tour, their first since quietly breaking up in 1996. “At this

stage, it’s far too early to say,” Dave recently told ROLLING STONE.

“It would be fun, though, wouldn’t it?”

Fans Debate Kinks Discography

REUNITED

The Kinks

in 1964

Dems’ Clown Car

Seems like one of the root causes of the

circus is the ridiculously long campaign

cycle [“The Iowa Circus,” RS 1330]. How

can we change that?

—Bill MacLeod, via the internet