The Economist—the weekly magazine that unwholesomely purveys smarty-pants English attitudes that so many undergraduates, junior i-bankers and other insecure Americans find so impressive—is winning over new readers: teenage rappers. The Guardian reports:
A teenage rap duo in Chicago has recorded a track, aptly called "The Economist," that extols the British publication's breadth and brevity and samples podcast commentary by correspondents Edward Lucas and Anthony Gottlieb. "The style in which they write is simple and concise, how do they get their sentences so precise?" the rappers wonder.
It’s so worshipful of the magazine that we half-suspected the song was a parody of the kind of enthusiasm for the Economist that Spy magazine mocked years ago. "He reads the Economist so he can get the gist, its solid competence gives him confidence that his intelligence is correct," the rappers exclaim. But apparently lyrics are sincere.
Click here to listen to the thing yourself. (Gawker, another purveyor of unwholesomely smarty-pants English attitudes, describes it as "not entirely uncomfortable to listen to!")
(via Gawker and The Guardian.)
Posted by guest , May 06, 2008 3:56PM
Spot on re the quick hit nature of The Economist. Easy to read, pick up what you need to know fast. Same as the FT. Notice how the WSJ is coming around to that same way of thinking - fewer and fewer of those long and tedious pieces on things no one cares about.
Posted by guest , May 06, 2008 3:59PM
I can't wait till Rupert takes over the Economist and ruins it like he did with the WSJ.
Posted by guest , May 06, 2008 4:02PM
You mean by eliminating those long and tedious articles that no one cares about?
Posted by guest , May 06, 2008 4:35PM
John,
If you could write as well as the Economists do,
You could be a smarty-pants...
...too.
Posted by onetwo , May 06, 2008 4:46PM
Damn you Carney--we were going to post on this but Anal_yst and I couldn't get to the mp3s through our respective interweb fortresses.
Any chance you could post the actual sounds on this site??
Posted by guest , May 06, 2008 5:29PM
The Economist for people who want to be thought of as plugged into elite opinion.Vanity Fair has about the same utility.
Posted by John Carney , May 06, 2008 5:32PM
I'll see what I can do, OneTwo.
Posted by diablo , May 06, 2008 5:47PM
guest @5:29 PM
Why Vanity Fair?
Really, compare The Economist against Newsweek or TIME. There's no contest there.
Posted by guest , May 06, 2008 7:12PM
How'd that Iraq war turn out for you, smarty pants Economist editors?
I kid. It's a good magazine, but they manage to be spectacularly wrong at times just like everyone else.
Posted by guest , May 07, 2008 5:49AM
Does anyone else find Vanity Fair increasingly irrelevant? Last month, the magazine featured Madonna (50+); the reclusive life of Doris Day (86); Donald Trump's desire to build a golf resort in Scotland; some ideas for the next President by the famous expert Robert Kennedy, Jr.; and reporting by Dominick Dunne (80 something) on an inquest into the death of Princess Diana, whose well-reported death occurred in 1997 (11 years ago).
This month it's the doomed 1968 campaign of Robert Kennedy (40 years ago, and one of the most exhaustively covered media events of the 20th Century); the haunts of John McEnroe (who last won Wimbledon 16 years ago); an expose of the H.L. Hunt family fortune (which has been receiving media exposes continuously since 1982); musings by the indisputably famous and reliably cloying Barbara Walters (70+); a Q. and A. with Ivanka Trump, 26-year-old daughter of Donald Trump, who makes a point of getting along with Daddy; and of course, the soft porn shots of 15-year-old Miley Cyrus, who apparently doesn't want to be a Disney princess any more. The last was the most original feature in the magazine, but wasn't this done before by an even younger Brooke Shields?
Well, Vanity Fair does want to go green, so it's recycle, recycle, and recycle.
Posted by guest , May 07, 2008 7:16AM
Spy magazine was one of the greatest monthly publications in history.
Posted by Bugs Meany , May 07, 2008 10:29AM
Vanity Fair was once a solid magazine. Now it's like a glossy version of the Huffington Post. Check out the latest issue--there's a nice sob story about the so-called "20th hijacker" and how he made pee-pee in his pants.
Esquire has similarly degenerated. One month they're trying to convince us that John Walker Lindh is a "better person than you or I," the next that Angelina Jolie is the "best and most important woman in the world."
Posted by guest , May 07, 2008 10:34AM
I subscribe to Vanity Fair in large part cause its only $12 a year. Small price to pay for something to look at on the pooper (as HAM would say). They're practically giving it away cause its chock full of ads. Good business prop there. Contrast that with Business Week, Forbes, Fortune. Last airport delay I happened to pick up a Business Week. Jeesh, its like a pamphlet. Flimsy paper even. Def a shadow of its former self. They're clearly struggling.
Posted by guest , May 07, 2008 12:47PM
@10:34am, other than being a good business property, what do you think of the Vanity Fair content?
Business Week is definitely past its glory days. I don't know anyone who reads it regularly.