Everyone who has ever watched VH1 knows Joe Levy's face. Seemingly on every countdown, \Legends"" retrospective and ""Behind the Music,"" the spiky-haired Levy is a sound-bite machine with immense musical knowledge. No surprise, then, that he is the music editor for Rolling Stone magazine. He recently discussed the sorry state of modern music with the Cardinal via telephone.
The Daily Cardinal: Who're some of the people you've interviewed over the years?
Joe Levy: Beck. Beastie Boys. Jon Spencer. Rufus Wainwright. Lauryn Hill. Janet Jackson.
DC: Any good stories?
JL: They're all shorter than you think. They're all tiny people with big heads. It's because that photographs well.
DC: I had no idea.
JL: Sheryl Crow won't come up to your knee, my friend. The woman could be in the Wizard of Oz as one of the munchkins. Actually, she's not that short. But Ben Stiller'not even up to your knees.
DC: You don't really know how tall I am, Joe. I could be pretty short.
JL: You're taller than Ben Stiller, buddy. But interviews are a weird thing. It's rare to find somebody being themselves. If you do an in-depth story, you get to know them better and some good stories have come out of that. Any I could share, though? I don't know.
DC: What's your least favorite musical trend right now?
JL: I'm tempted to say the remix album, except that the Jennifer Lopez remix album is better than the two studio records. Maybe the instantaneousness of the greatest hits package upsets me as a trend. I didn't know that I needed a Backstreet Boys or 98?? greatest hits album. But I've got them both, and I'm glad, because it can take the place of the three Backstreet Boys albums in my collection right now. The worst trend, though, is that you can't distinguish artists. That's not to say that there are Britney songs'and God knows videos'that I'll stand by, but it produces a lot of crap. Would I have sacrificed Britney to not have Jessica Simpson? No, but it would have been nice. What's yours?
DC: I don't know. Rap-rock, maybe.
JL: Ah, yes. In the old days, in the early '90s, we had rap-rock too, but we called them the Red Hot Chili Peppers. You don't remember how many Red Hot Chili Peppers imitators there were. There were legions of really bad bands that made Limp Bizkit and Adema look like geniuses. You never heard the Limbomaniacs. They were a really bad band.
DC: I'll take your word for it.
JL: Another thing is that what we lack right now is a culture hero. You can't point to music right now and find someone who is speaking for the people. That's not Alicia Keys. People like Kurt Cobain or Tupac Shakur, they united people, and there's nothing like that now.
DC: Do you think there's somebody out there with that potential?
JL: Not really. ... You've got to remember, Nirvana came out of 10 years of growth from American underground rock. From the first Black Flag records to when Nirvana broke out, there were a lot of bands criss-crossing the country and building a network. I think there are bands out there that are like that now. I think the Strokes are one of them, and so are the Hives. Absolutely the White Stripes as well.
DC: Are there any albums that come out soon that you like?
JL: The Moby record, I like a lot. The Van Morrison record is generic in some ways but a really good record. The Tom Waits records are good. I think there's a lot of good stuff out there.
Levy will be speaking at Hillel, 611 Langdon St., Tuesday at 7 p.m. It is free and open to the public.
