FOREVER JUNG: Has rock become impossibly pretentious?...

FOREVER JUNG: Has rock become impossibly pretentious? Spy magazine thinks so--and gives a coterie of foppish superstars a couple of black eyes in its November issue’s List of 100 (Most Appalling People, Places and Things in America). Ranked No. 88 (just below Joan Rivers, George Steinbrenner and the Condom Glut), Spy’s “Rock ‘N’ Rollier Than Thou” category offers a host of nasty jabs at rock sanctimony and pretense. Popsters on trial include Prince, David Bowie, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe (who said he got headaches when there was an earthquake) and Bono Hewson, who once demanded that his hairdresser be flown from L.A. to Ireland for a Rolling Stone photo shoot. The worst drubbing goes to Sting, whom Spy derides for claiming that his “Synchronicity” album encouraged people to read Jung. As Spy put it: “Armed with an onstage humidifier, over $6 million in record sales and non-prescription tortoise-shell eyeglasses . . . Sting reigned as the year’s most self-indulgent, self-righteous and self-pitying pop star.” . . . Also a must read: Musician magazine’s November issue, which features a fascinating Prince cover story (titled “Prince Vs. Prince.”) by Steve Perry. The entire Purple Entourage gets cut down to size (almost to Prince size), in particular co-manager Steve Fargnoli, of whom Perry says: “Besides his Italian loafers, white T-shirt and tailored sports coat, he wears that blend of arrogance, bluster and perpetual anxiety that’s common to the upper-level servants of very powerful, willful people.’ ”