‘Rolling Stone’ Beclowns Itself Delving Into Jeffrey Epstein’s Musical Tastes

Congratulations Rolling Stone, you have finally found the veritable bottom of what anyone would ever be able to classify as “musical journalism.” This is so bad, this is so egregious, anyone who had any part in the writing, editing, approval, and publishing of this piece should be frog marched out of the Rolling Stone offices immediately, and a public retraction, mea culpa, and detailed explanation of how such an article ever came into being should be issued, along with vehement promises that no such offense will ever happen again, so help them God.

On Thursday, February 26th, Rolling Stone published a story written by Cheyenne Roundtree delving deep into the musical tastes of convicted mass child rapist, viper Capitalist, and all around piece of shit Jeffrey Epstein. And when we say “deep,” Rolling Stone proudly boasts how the article “combed through thousands of files to better understand some of Epstein’s more mundane, day-to-day habits, particularly when it came to his musical tastes. What Did He Really Listen To?”

…as if anyone cares about what Jeffrey Epstein vibed out to amid the horrific revelations that have been unearthed about this American monster so far.

The exhaustive, nearly 1,700-word treatise upon Mr. Epstein’s listening habits painstakingly culled through the Epstein Files to present completely unimportant details about how Epstein listened to music, where he listened to music, the type of music he listened to, his Spotify wrapped from one year, a playlist he asked a friend to make for him on another, and other such superfluous details that are apropos to nothing.

It’s patently clear while reading through this article that Cheyenne Roundtree spent days, maybe even weeks composing and researching the story. And instead of doing what? Has Rolling Stone reported on Jelly Roll getting caught on video using the N-word three times yet? Maybe Rolling Stone could have reported how country punk band Jason and the Scorchers and Blues Traveler were named in the Epstein files, and tied to human trafficking—something Jason Ringenberg has now reached out to Saving Country Music to flatly deny.

If there was some sort of insight into Jeffrey Epstein’s sadistic, pathological behavior that could be gleaned from such a psychological exercise as analyzing his musical interests, maybe there would be a tiny shred of value in this enterprise. But that’s not the case at all. Instead, the upshot of the whole thing is that despite Epstein presenting himself as a “cultural savant” (which there really isn’t a lot of evidence of), his musical tastes were “largely devoid of sophistication.” Basically, music is a completely insignificant aspect to this entire saga.

However, what an article like this runs the risk of doing is humanizing Jeffrey Epstein by presenting him as just a normal guy with normal musical tastes. The only good news about this story is Rolling Stone is getting absolutely trounced by its own readers over it. The comments beneath the article on social media were a bloodbath for the publication where they had to delete the posts, though strangely, they’ve decided to keep the article itself up. (Saving Country Music has chosen not to link to it).

The article was going so terrible, Rolling Stone decided to change the title, and allude that somehow Epstein’s musical inclinations were part of his manipulative behavior. But this title only makes it worse, because this premise is not presented in the article, and it tries to make his meaningless musical consumption part of his criminal pathology to cover Rolling Stone‘s tracks.

Amended Title:

This deep dive into Jeffrey Epstein’s music listening truly deserves to go onto the Rolling Stone Wall of Shame right next to their pronouncement of the Hawk Tuah Girl as the next Dolly Parton, and their previous Editor-in-Chief Noah Shachtman covering up, ironically enough, a story about child pornography.

Why musicians, publicists, labels, and the general public continue to assign any cultural cachet to this rag and its paywalled corporate content is beyond quizzical.

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