As the Fix notes, Rolling Stone has everyone in a bit of a state today with its cover featuring Kanye West as Jesus, complete with a realistic crown of thorns, some painful-looking wounds and a terribly current "Passion of the Christ" reference. Gawker, Brooklyn Vegan and Stereogum all weigh in on the stunt. The New York Daily News offers some highlights from the accompanying article (West's porn "addiction," his MTV-assistant girlfriend), while the Village Voice finds it all rather tame and suggests some additions to the photo shoot that might have caused some real scandal: "Why not have Kanye on the cross ...? Why not have the cross played by Terry Schiavo, and Terry Schiavo's life support machines played by the ghost of Hurricane Katrina?"
While New York prepares to bid farewell to CBGB next fall, another music landmark has been destroyed in the name of progress -- and Super Bowl parking. The former main Motown office building in Detroit was hastily torn down last week in preparation for next Sunday's big game. NPR reports on the demolition. (Click here for some eerie photos of the long-abandoned structure.) Brooklyn Vegan, meanwhile, notes the apparently irony-free decision to have "Motown legends" perform at the pre-Super Bowl show, as reported on Billboard.
Finally, Stereogum is excited about a couple of pop-music-related documentaries being screened at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, including movies about Neil Young and Leonard Cohen, and the Beastie Boys' DIY concert film we mentioned last week. Other music films being shown in Utah include a rockumentary featuring pop-punkers Good Charlotte, directed by the editor of arty fashion mag Nylon, and "Beyond Beats and Rhymes," a documentary about the gender politics of hip-hop. And one blogger is horrified at the news that two members of Weezer are to play Lou Reed and John Cale in the forthcoming Edie Sedgwick biopic "Factory Girl." The movie's script apparently already has the avuncular Mr. Reed's seal of approval: "One of the most disgusting, foul things I've seen -- by any illiterate retard -- in a long time."
-- Matt Glazebrook
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