Kurt Loder (born May 5, 1945) is an American film critic,
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
,
columnistA columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating copy that can sometimes be strongly opinionated. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs on the Internet....
, and television personality. He served in the 1980s as
editorThe term editor may refer to:As a person who does editing:* Editor in chief, having final responsibility for a publication's operations and policies* Copy editing, making formatting changes and other improvements to text...
at
Rolling StoneRolling Stone is a United States-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J. Gleason.The magazine was named after the 1948 Muddy Waters song of the same...
, during a tenure that
ReasonReason is a libertarian monthly magazine from the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and has twice been named one of the "50 best magazines" by the Chicago Tribune.- History :...
later called "legendary". He has contributed to articles in
EsquireEsquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
,
DetailsDetails is an American monthly men's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications. The title has founded in 1982. Alan Patricof bought the magazine in 1987. Condé Nast bought the magazine a year later for $2 million. Its current format stems from an October 2000 relaunch of the title, following a...
,
New YorkNew York is a weekly magazine concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it offers less national news and more gossipy, tabloid-like stories, but has also published noteworthy articles...
, and
TimeTime is an American newsmagazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong. As of 2009, Time no longer publishes a Canadian advertiser edition...
. He has also made
cameosA cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television. Short appearances by film directors, politicians, athletes, musicians, and other celebrities are common. These roles are generally small, and...
on several films and television series. Prior to
Rolling Stone, Loder had worked for
CircusCircus was a monthly American magazine devoted to rock music. It was published from 1966 to 2006. In its heyday the magazine had a full-time editorial staff that included some of the biggest names in rock journalism, including Paul Nelson, David Fricke, and Kurt Loder, and rivaled Rolling Stone in...
magazine and had been
draftedConscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War...
into the
United States ArmyThe United States Army is the branch of the United States Military responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military and is one of seven uniformed services...
.
Kurt Loder (born May 5, 1945) is an American film critic,
authorAn author is defined both as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created...
,
columnistA columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating copy that can sometimes be strongly opinionated. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs on the Internet....
, and television personality. He served in the 1980s as
editorThe term editor may refer to:As a person who does editing:* Editor in chief, having final responsibility for a publication's operations and policies* Copy editing, making formatting changes and other improvements to text...
at
Rolling StoneRolling Stone is a United States-based magazine devoted to music, politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J. Gleason.The magazine was named after the 1948 Muddy Waters song of the same...
, during a tenure that
ReasonReason is a libertarian monthly magazine from the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and has twice been named one of the "50 best magazines" by the Chicago Tribune.- History :...
later called "legendary". He has contributed to articles in
EsquireEsquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
,
DetailsDetails is an American monthly men's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications. The title has founded in 1982. Alan Patricof bought the magazine in 1987. Condé Nast bought the magazine a year later for $2 million. Its current format stems from an October 2000 relaunch of the title, following a...
,
New YorkNew York is a weekly magazine concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it offers less national news and more gossipy, tabloid-like stories, but has also published noteworthy articles...
, and
TimeTime is an American newsmagazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong. As of 2009, Time no longer publishes a Canadian advertiser edition...
. He has also made
cameosA cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television. Short appearances by film directors, politicians, athletes, musicians, and other celebrities are common. These roles are generally small, and...
on several films and television series. Prior to
Rolling Stone, Loder had worked for
CircusCircus was a monthly American magazine devoted to rock music. It was published from 1966 to 2006. In its heyday the magazine had a full-time editorial staff that included some of the biggest names in rock journalism, including Paul Nelson, David Fricke, and Kurt Loder, and rivaled Rolling Stone in...
magazine and had been
draftedConscription in the United States has been employed several times, usually during war but also during the nominal peace of the Cold War...
into the
United States ArmyThe United States Army is the branch of the United States Military responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military and is one of seven uniformed services...
. He is currently best known for his role at
MTV NewsMTV News is the news division of MTV, one of the first and most popular music television network in the U.S., as well as some of MTV's related channels around the world. MTV News began in the late 1980s with the program The Week In Rock, hosted by Kurt Loder, the first official MTV News correspondent...
and for appearing in numerous other
MTVMTV is a cable television network based in New York City and launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs...
-related television specials.
Early years
Loder was born in
Ocean City, New JerseyOcean City is a city in Cape May County, New Jersey, United States. It is the principal city of the Ocean City Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Cape May County. As of the United States 2000 Census, the city population was 15,378...
. He graduated in 1963 from
Ocean City High SchoolSee here for the closed Ocean City High School in Maryland.Ocean City High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school located in Ocean City, in Cape May County, New Jersey, United States, as part of the Ocean City School District...
in Ocean City. He spent two years in college "and just hated it". He was drafted into the
United States ArmyThe United States Army is the branch of the United States Military responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military and is one of seven uniformed services...
and joined its journalism school. He later said that he "just fell into" his field, elaborating that his "entire journalism background is four weeks... That's it. Nothing else. You can learn journalism in four weeks. It's not an overcomplicated thing. It's very, very simple." He was in the military for three years.
Loder lived all over Europe for the next several years, doing what he later called "
scandal sheetScandal Sheet is a black-and-white film noir directed by Phil Karlson. The film is based on the novel The Dark Page by Samuel Fuller, who himself was a newspaper reporter before his career in film...
" "
yellow journalismYellow journalism is a type of journalism that downplays legitimate news in favor of eye-catching headlines that sell more newspapers. It may feature exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, sensationalism, or unprofessional practices by news media organizations or journalists...
". He returned home to
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered on the north by New York, and to the east by the Hudson River, Upper New York Bay, the Kill Van Kull, Newark Bay, the Arthur Kill, Raritan Bay, Sandy Hook Bay, Westchester County, New York City, Long Island, and...
at the end of 1972 and worked with a local newspaper and then an Ocean City based magazine by the sister of the city's famous writer
Gay TaleseGay Talese is an American author. He wrote for The New York Times in the early 1960s and helped to define literary journalism or "new nonfiction reportage", also known as New Journalism...
. He left in the summer of 1976 to work with a free
Long IslandLong Island is an island located in southeastern New York, United States, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City, and two of which are mainly suburban...
rock weekly called
Good Times. He received only about $200 a week. After meeting a fellow "music geek", David Fricke,
"the two of us began driving into Manhattan virtually every night to wallow in the flourishing punk rock scene at CBGB's, Max's, etc. This was, fortunately, cool with the wives. I mean, we'd still be sitting upright at four in the morning through fist fights, mass nod-outs, and sets by bands with names like Blinding Headache, played to audiences of three people, of which we'd be two-thirds. I don't think I can quite convey how great days those were.
They both joined
CircusCircus was a monthly American magazine devoted to rock music. It was published from 1966 to 2006. In its heyday the magazine had a full-time editorial staff that included some of the biggest names in rock journalism, including Paul Nelson, David Fricke, and Kurt Loder, and rivaled Rolling Stone in...
in 1978 and moved to
ManhattanManhattan is one of the five boroughs of New York City, located primarily on Manhattan Island at the mouth of the Hudson River.New York County, which has the same boundaries as the Borough of Manhattan , is the most densely populated county in the United States, with a 2008 population of 1,634,795...
. Loder went on to become one of its official
editorsEditors are a British indie rock band based in Birmingham, who formed in 2002. Previously known as Pilot, The Pride and Snowfield, the band consists of Tom Smith , Chris Urbanowicz , Russell Leetch and Ed Lay .Editors...
. The staff had a fun, relaxed atmosphere and considered the magazine to be second or third tier. Loder later said that "Whatever was said to be 'happening' in commercial pop music was... on the cover of Circus. Disco? Run with it. Shirtless teen popsters? Put 'em on the cover... a, shall we say, ardent enthusiasm for pix of nubile youths.) Metal, of course, was really the mag's meat." He also remarked that "it was a foregone conclusion that writing of any technical ambition, about new acts of any real excitement or interest, would make it in the mag only by the sheerest accident." Loder briefly experimented with
inhalant basedInhalants are a broad range of drugs in the forms of gases, aerosols, or solvents that are breathed in and absorbed through the lungs. While some inhalant drugs are used for medical purposes, as in the case of nitrous oxide , this article focuses on the non-medical use of inhalants, as recreational...
drugsRecreational drug use is the use of psychoactive drugs for recreational purposes rather than for work, approved medical or spiritual purposes, although the distinction is not always clear ....
at
Circus; he stopped after experiencing a "gushing"
nosebleedEpistaxis is the relatively common occurrence of hemorrhage from the nose, usually noticed when the blood drains out through the nostrils. There are two types: anterior , and posterior . Sometimes in more severe cases, the blood can come up the nasolacrimal duct and out from the eye...
without any feeling left in his face.
Later years
Loder started his nine-year run at
Rolling Stone in May 1979.
RockCritics.com has called him "one of Rolling Stone's most talented and prolific feature writers".
ReasonReason is a libertarian monthly magazine from the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 60,000 and has twice been named one of the "50 best magazines" by the Chicago Tribune.- History :...
has called his tenure "legendary". While at
Rolling Stone, Loder co-authored singer
Tina TurnerTina Turner is an American singer and actress whose career has spanned more than 50 years. She has won numerous awards and her achievements in the rock music genre have earned her the title "The Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".Turner started out her music career with husband Ike Turner as a member of the...
's 1986
autobiographyAn autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
I, TinaI, Tina is a 1986 autobiography by rock singer Tina Turner, co-written by MTV news correspondent and music critic Kurt Loder. It described Turner's story from a girl born and raised in Nutbush, Tennessee , to her initial rise to fame under the leadership of famed blues musician Ike Turner and her...
. He then contributed to the screenplay adaption for the film
What's Love Got to Do with It.
Loder joined
MTVMTV is a cable television network based in New York City and launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs...
in 1987 as the host of their flagship music news program,
The Week in Rock. It was later expanded and renamed to
MTV NewsMTV News is the news division of MTV, one of the first and most popular music television network in the U.S., as well as some of MTV's related channels around the world. MTV News began in the late 1980s with the program The Week In Rock, hosted by Kurt Loder, the first official MTV News correspondent...
in which he was an anchor and correspondent. Loder was one of the first to break the news of
Kurt CobainKurt Donald Cobain was an American musician, best known as the lead singer, guitarist and songwriter of the rock band Nirvana....
's death; he interrupted regular programming to inform viewers that Cobain
was found deadKurt Cobain was found dead at his home in Seattle, Washington, United States on April 8, 1994. Cobain, the lead singer of the American grunge band Nirvana, had checked out of a drug rehab facility and been reported suicidal by his wife Courtney Love...
. Loder authored a 1990 collection of his
Rolling Stone work called
Bat Chain Puller.
Kurt has guest-starred as himself on
Kenan & KelKenan & Kel is an American television sitcom that originally aired on Nickelodeon from 1996 to 2000. The show starred two friends and former All That cast members Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell. Sixty-two episodes and a made-for-TV movie were produced over four seasons...
, an episode of
The SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated television sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its eponymous family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie...
,
GirlfriendsGirlfriends is an American sitcom that premiered on September 11, 2000 on UPN and aired on UPN's successor network, The CW, before being cancelled in 2008.The final episode aired on February 11, 2008. The theme song to Girlfriends is sung by R&B musician Angie Stone...
,
DuckmanDuckman: Private Dick/Family Man is an animated sitcom that aired from 1994-1997, created by Everett Peck and developed by Peck, Jeff Reno and Ron Osborn. The sitcom was based on characters created by Peck in his Dark Horse comic...
, and
Saturday Night LiveSaturday Night Live is a weekly late-night sketch comedy and variety show filmed in New York City. It made its debut on October 11, 1975, under a slightly different title. The show features a regular cast of comedy actors, joined by a guest host and musical act...
. He has also appeared in the films
Who's the Man?Who's the Man? is a 1993 comedy film, directed by Ted Demme. The film stars Yo! MTV Raps hosts Doctor Dré and Ed Lover as its two main protagonists...
, The PaperThe Paper is a 1994 comedy-drama film directed by Ron Howard and starring Michael Keaton, Robert Duvall, and Glenn Close. The movie depicts 24 hours in a newspaper editor's professional and personal life.-Plot:...
, Fear of a Black HatFear of a Black Hat is a film satire on the evolution and state of American hip hop music. The film's title is derived from the 1990 Public Enemy album Fear of a Black Planet...
, AirheadsAirheads is a comedy film released on August 5, 1994. It was written by Rich Wilkes and directed by Michael Lehmann.It stars Brendan Fraser, Adam Sandler, and Steve Buscemi as a group of loser musicians called The Lone Rangers who take a radio station hostage, just so that their song would get...
, Dead Man on Campus, BellyBelly is a 1998 movie, the feature film debut of music video director Hype Williams. Filmed in NYC as an urban drama, the film stars rappers DMX and Nas, alongside with Taral Hicks, rappers Method Man and Vita, dancehall artist Louie Rankin and R&B singer T-Boz from TLC...
, The SuburbansThe Suburbans is a 1999 drama that satirizes the 1980s revival hype around the turn of the century. It stars Jennifer Love Hewitt and Donal Lardner Ward, who also co-wrote and directed the movie....
, EntropyEntropy is a movie directed by Phil Joanou, starring Stephen Dorff and featuring the Irish rock band U2. The film is largely autobiographical, covering his early film career, his relationships and his pet cat....
, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is the sequel to the film The Blair Witch Project, directed by Joe Berlinger. Another sequel was planned but never materialized...
, Sugar & SpiceSugar & Spice is a 2001 teen comedy/heist film directed by Francine McDougall. It was filmed entirely in the Minnesota cities of Anoka, Apple Valley, Eagan, and St Paul.- Cast :*Marla Sokoloff - Lisa Janush*Marley Shelton - Diane Weston...
, Pauly Shore Is DeadPauly Shore Is Dead is an American comedy/Mockumentary motion picture released in 2003 starring comedian Pauly Shore. It is a cameo-filled movie in which Shore fakes his own death in order to revitalize his fading career....
, Tupac: ResurrectionTupac: Resurrection is a 2003 Academy Award-nominated documentary about the life and untimely death of rapper Tupac Shakur. The film, directed by Lauren Lazin and released by Paramount Pictures, is narrated by Tupac Shakur himself. The film was in theaters from November 16, 2003 to December 21, 2003...
, and Ramones Raw. Loder currently resides in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
.
Dispute with Sebastian Bach
In a 1989 show, Loder caught
Skid RowA skid row or skid road is a run-down or dilapidated urban area with a large, impoverished population. The term originally referred literally to a path along which workingmen skidded logs. Its current sense appears to have originated in the Pacific Northwest...
frontman
Sebastian BachSebastian Bach is a Canadian heavy metal singer, best known as ex-frontman of Skid Row....
wearing a
T-ShirtA T-shirt is a shirt which is pulled on over the head to cover most of a person's torso. A T-shirt is usually buttonless, collarless, and pocketless, with a round neck and short sleeves. The sleeves of the T-shirt extend at least slightly over the shoulder but not completely over the elbow...
reading the anti-gay slogan "AIDS Kills Fags Dead". Loder wrote an article saying that "In the land of homophobia, if Axl Rose owns the restaurant and Public Enemy are the diners, we have a new bus boy."
Sebastian BachSebastian Bach is a Canadian heavy metal singer, best known as ex-frontman of Skid Row....
considered Loder's words "complete bullshit", saying that he had only used the shirt to dry himself off and strongly opposes the message on it, and he later issued several public apologies.
Politics
Loder is a libertarian. He summarizes his position as “
Free LoveFree Love may refer to:*Free love, a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage, especially for women*"Free Love," a song by Morphine from their 1995 album Yes...
and
Free MarketsA free market describes a market without economic intervention and regulation by government except to regulate against force or fraud. The terminology is used by economists and in popular culture. A free market requires protection of property rights, but no regulation, no subsidization, no single...
”. He has called
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States, and the center of the New York metropolitan area, which is among the most populous urban areas in the world. A leading global city, New York exerts a powerful influence over worldwide commerce, finance, culture, fashion and entertainment...
Mayor"Mayor" is a modern title used in many countries for the highest ranking officer in a municipal government....
Michael BloombergMichael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. He was listed as the eighth-richest American, with a net worth of US $16 billion, in the Forbes 400 on September 17, 2008, making him the richest resident of New York City, ahead of David H. Koch...
"a scary guy" and called it "amazing that people don’t rise up with pitchforks." At the same time, Loder opposed President
George H. W. BushGeorge Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st President of the United States . He was also Ronald Reagan's Vice President , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence....
in the
1992 electionThe United States presidential election of 1992 had three major candidates: Incumbent Republican President George H. W. Bush; Democrat Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, and independent Texas businessman Ross Perot....
and he believes that
MTV News played a small role in Bush's loss. Loder believes that his views came from his
childhoodChildhood is a broad term usually applied to the phase of development in humans between infancy and adulthood.-Age definition of a child:...
experiences, saying:
I grew up on the Jersey Shore, on a little barrier island. The Atlantic Ocean was on one side, the bay was on the other. Everyone there hunted and fished and clammed and got crabs out of the bay. And one day my brother told me someone had come down from the Bureau of Petty Harassment or something and they measured the temperature of the water and had decided it was a little too warm and a certain type of bacteria might incubate in it and there was a chance that might harm the clams. And so, from now on, no one was supposed to take clams out of the bay anymore. Which everyone ignored. And no one died. That was before the government got tenacious about this stuff. So I thought that was pretty stupid right there.
Loder was highly critical of
Michael MooreMichael Francis Moore is an American filmmaker, author and liberal political commentator. He is the director and producer of Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Story four of the top six highest-grossing documentaries of all time...
's documentary
SickoSicko is a 2007 documentary film by American film maker Michael Moore. The film investigates the American health care system, focusing on its health insurance and pharmaceutical industry. The film compares the for-profit, non-universal U.S...
, saying it was "heavily doctored." He argued, “When governments attempt to regulate the balance between a limited supply of health care and an unlimited demand for it they’re inevitably forced to ration treatment.”
Media
Loder defines news as "anything that's interesting". He's critical of the idea of
new journalismNew Journalism was a style of 1960s and 1970s news writing and journalism which used literary techniques deemed unconventional at the time. The term was codified with its current meaning by Tom Wolfe in a 1973 collection of journalism articles he published as The New Journalism, which included...
and argues that it has been used as a rhetorical shield for lazy journalism. He believes that new technology has
fragmented-In biology:* Fragmentation , a form of asexual reproduction* Fragmentation * Habitat fragmentation-Other:* Fragmentation a phenomenon of computer storage* Fragmentation , a process of globalisation...
American culture to the extent that no cinematic or musical success can unify it, as with past
rock bandRock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
s such as
The BeatlesThe Beatles were an English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960 who became one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed bands in the history of popular music...
. He also strongly supports copyright laws. He generally considers himself to be supportive of
new mediaNew media is a term meant to encompass the emergence of digital, computerized, or networked information and communication technologies in the later part of the 20th century...
despite his role at MTV, once joking that "MTV is part of
ViacomViacom , short for "Video & Audio Communications", is an American media conglomerate with various worldwide interests in cable and satellite television networks , and movie production and distribution with Paramount Motion Pictures Group. Paramount is also the distributor of movie studio DreamWorks...
, which controls
ParamountParamount Pictures Corporation is a Worldwide American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, California. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is the world's oldest existing American film studio; it is also the last...
, and so on and so forth. It’s the
evil empireThe phrase evil empire was applied especially to the Soviet Union by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and American and Canadian conservatives, who took an aggressive, hard-line stance that favored matching and exceeding the Soviet Union's strategic and global military capabilities.-British House of...
".
Loder's philosophy on the people he reports on is that:
"You shouldn't make friends. It's not a good thing to be friends with people you're covering. There's just no point in doing it. It's tempting, but they're not going to consider you their friend anyway. They just know that you're somebody that can do something for them. So you shouldn't really flatter yourself that they want to be your buddy. They don't... They want you for some reason or other, and you just have to fend that off all the time. And you can't really cover people critically that you're friends with. How would that work? That would be bad. So you always have to keep that in mind".
External links