Customer Reviews

Interview (1-year)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

I know "Interview" has been around awhile, but I just recently got into it. In short, if you're into the arts, it's your magazine. It touches on music, movies, fashion, and everything inbetween. And often the interviews of celebrities are done by other celebs, like "Jim Jarmusch" doing a Q&A with "The White Stripes", just like they're sitting in a room chatting, very casual. I like that. Also the photography is tops, and often takes up the whole page (good mini-posters). They're good about not exposing the same old people too, lots of fresh faces, usually cool. Hey, if it's good enough for "Andy Warhol", it can't be bad, huh?

Interview is a small magazine with big ambitions. All the latest news in entertainment, fashion, and politics can be found within it's colorful pages. The photography is amazing, and grand in scale, although the magazine is packed full of ads (which are equally as colorful I might add). This is NOT entertainment weekly- Interview is the indi-film of magazines, and the people and films it covers are not usually those found in typical magazines. Instead of focusing on the actor du jour, Interview covers the up & coming, the soon to be, and the undiscovered. The interview formats are fascenating and unique, as most are done by celebrities, of celebrities. If one is looking for typical hollywood gossip, Warhol's masterpiece is not for them. At such a cheap price, Interview is a gem that is yet undiscovered by many. I highly recommend it!

Interview has been hit with a number of production problems over the last couple of years. The dual editors Glenn O'Brien and Fabien Baron coulnd't agree on content so Baron leaves in January of 09. Art directors M/M Paris come in for three issues but leave when they aren't paid. O'Brienn leaves in the summer of '09 and Baron comes back. The result? Well, the magazine never comes on time (up to 2 Months late, if at all!) There is also a lot of doubling up the months, instead of October and November issues there is one October/November issue combo, same with December and January.
And this is written on February 7, and still no February issue of the magazine has been mailed.
So subscribe at your own risk, because who knows if Interview is going to be around long enough to fulfill your subscription. And at $6 an issue, it is really not worth buying it on the newsstand.

And to update, it is now March 15 and I have received no February issue OR March issue.
Here is Interview's response:
"We regret to inform you that our February issue will be delivered late
due to production delays.
Please allow until March 10, 2010 for delivery of this issue.
We are sorry for the inconvenience this has caused.

Second Update: May 2nd
No February Issue. No March Issue. No April Issue. No May issue.
Called up Interview and cancelled my subscription and demanded a full refund for services not rendered.

FINAL UPDATE: I asked for a complete refund and GOT IT! They are a lot faster mailing out their refund checks than their magazine!!!!!

So again, do not waste your money on a subscription to Interview- you will not be mailed any magazines.

Interview's got it all: fashion, music, films, people, AND it's done the right way. It's visually pleasing, well-written, classy, and ahead of the trend-curve.

OK. For those of you who continue to believe that New York is the center of the United States, Hell, the world, who forgot the map CNN kept flashing with the two different colors after the election that MIGHT infer there are several schools of thought about the polycentric views of the US, for those of you who can take a little criticism from the midwest, the dark states, middle earth, the Elba of the 21st century, you're not.

There's a whole world out here. People have jobs. Yes, it's true. We work, send our kids to school, even go to church on Sundays. And on other days too. We vote. Oh, yeah, you already know that.

So having an interview with an actor who goes on about how he meditates, is a vegan and thinks about trees and birds when he has a particularly stressful scene with Ashley or Uma or Diane, you know, it just doesn't carry a lot of weight with the serfs. But . . . .

It's a great magazine. Andy lives. Photography is tight and realistic. The ads are sexy and provocative. The sidebars interesting and insightful. It's wordly. It covers music as well as RS. It's (don't get all riled up now) a fun magazine to read.

However, the interviews which we are led to believe are the heart and soul of the magazine, seem to be along the lines of 'damn, it's so good to be me and I guess you're OK too.' Or, 'I see you're wearing a $15,000 Versace with a plunging neckline and . . . you've selected old, black, Converse All Stars to wear with it! How Noveau! How tasteful!'

Come on. Where's the bite? Where's the interview with Alex Rodriguez that says 'how come you went to therapy . . . it's only New York?' or with Marv Alpert 'hey what's on your fashion agenda now?'

Chris Berman from ESPN says he was on Maui a couple of years back and he was walking with his kids one dawn and he ran into Steven Stills with his kids. Now that's a conversation I would have liked to hear, not one that ends up with me thinking the two parties to the conversation (it sure isn't an interview - see Columbia University's Interviewing 101 in their School of Journalism) are off to pick out furniture.

It's New York. Show your teeth. Flex. 5 stars. Larry Scantlebury

Interview is one of my favorite magazines. The interviews are always good. I think that the interviews are more candid since it's done by peers. I also think that the photo shoots in the Interview are some of the best around.

Interview is quite possibly the best magazine in terms of nag-for-your-quality-for-your-buck-for-your-time for fashion photographers, or any in the fashion industry.

Interview magazine is full of advertisements, and features very little content. It might as well be free.

Pros
- Large print
- Cheap (Paid $2)

Cons
- Little Content
- Full of Ads
- 10 issues annual, not monthly magazine

This magazine is like no other. The interviews are fantastic, the pictures are great, and it's very original. I can understand people not liking it if they're used to and prefer the typical, predictable magazine format.

It's not for everyone, but for people of a certain people, it's heaven.

Bottom-Line: I subscribe to "Interview Magazine" but I will not be renewing my subscription.

I have been making a conscience effort of late to expand my horizons, to get out of (magazine reading) comfort zone. To that end I have cast my reading net out from the usual news rag, and started reading a new diverse set of magazines, including Esquire, Ebony, Business Week, US, People, Popular Science, Jet, Car & Driver, Essence, Laptop Magazine, Travel & Leisure, Cooks, and "Interview Magazine", just to name a few.

For a person like me who usually frequents the aforementioned news magazines, "Interview Magazine" is like a culture shock. First off the magazine is large; larger in fact than any magazine you might find on the newsstand or in the local chain book store with the exception of Rolling Stone. Second the magazine is printed on thick paper stock, which has a gritty feel to it; say good-bye to glossy and hello to matte and muted colors.

"Interview Magazine" features advertisements, wall to wall advertisements; the interviews with up-and-coming and established celebrities interspersed throughout the pages of the magazine seem almost coincidental. I am currently reading the April 2007 issue, with a large inviting picture of Liv Tyler on the front cover. To the magazines credit it does try and cover the full spectrum of entertainment from fashion to music, from art to the movies and places in between.

Most of the interviews--especially those done on up-and-coming stars and starlet's--are mere snapshots of the persons personal and or professional life; there is little sink my proverbial intellectual, or even mildly interested teeth into. There is just enough there to try and goad me into find out more. The in-depth interviews are a lot more fulfilling; most of these are done by other celebrities; for instance in this issue Rose McGowan is interviewed by Quentin Tarantino, and Liza Minnelli interviewed musician Gerald Way. Past issue have followed this same formula, with mostly good results, meaning I have enjoyed the interviews and images.

But the one huge downside to "Interview Magazine" is its slavish devotion to advertising. In fact the first 50 pages of this issue are devoted to wall-to-wall cutting edge, youth-inspired clothing and fragrance advertising. The masthead of the magazine is stuck somewhere with this advertising soup, but the table of contents did not show up until one third of the magazine was leafed through--very annoying! Not only that, but every celebrity image was accompanied by a solid paragraph on who made what they were wearing, who styled their hair, who did their make-up, and incredibly, what fragrance they happened to be wearing during the shoot!

Is this an example of advertising run amok, or am I being far too sensitive and demanding in wanting "Interview Magazine" to at least be a magazine and not a run-on poster board for the chic and impossibly unfettered youth of America (New York City) and Europe is wearing? But so many magazines follow this advertisement-on-every-page formula; is this the new norm, and should I get used to it?

I could in "Interview Magazine's" case if most of the writing were not so rushed and devoid of substance. This is something I alluded to above; sound-bites have their place, but not inside the covers of a magazine name "Interview Magazine", where I at least expect to learn something more about an artist than where they were discovered, their age, or how often they frequent Starbucks. It's called substance and "Interview Magazine" just doesn't have enough to justify its larger than life existence.

I subscribe to "Interview Magazine" but I will not be renewing my subscription; in this case my bid to broaden my horizons found a mostly vapid landscape full of wasted paper, muted colors, and questionable prose.