Rolling Stone’s 2008 Hot Issue spotlights acts like Band of Horses and Vampire Weekend (more on that here). All week, we’ve been taking a look at Hot Issue hits and misses from the past twenty-one years (because nobody’s cultural thermometer is accurate all the time).
Hit: “A savior,” we called him. “The hip-hop Proust.” Whatever insane expectations we placed on Nas, the Hot Rapper of 1994, he’s lived up to them. He’s since feuded with Jay-Z and somehow survived, he married the girl who’s milkshake brings all the boys to the yard (Kelis), and he’s one of the few rappers who has credibility enough to claim Hip Hop Is Dead. Unfortunately, Nas’ hotness didn’t rub off on his 1994 Hot List page 64 neighbor, Hot Athlete/Baltimore Orioles Jeffrey Hammonds, who finished his disappointing baseball career in 2005 after playing for six teams over the course of twelve years.
Miss: In his 2002 Hot Singer-Songwriter write-up, we (and his Wikipedia page) had the audacity to mention Cory Branan in the same sentence as peers Ryan Adams and Bright Eyes. Branan’s The Hell You Say lead to appearances on David Letterman, Carson Daly and our Hot List, but it would be another four years before Branan’s sophomore album 12 Songs was released to little fanfare. Branan also probably wins the award for Hot Lister with the smallest MySpace following (7,458 fans as of right now).
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