One of the cool things about being a music journalist is that you get free copies of albums that aren't out yet — a perk that was particularly cool before streaming, back when owning a copy of an album had a price tag attached to it. Being a music journalist used to be so cool, in fact, that the members of the Lonely Island once created a fake magazine to try to get free albums.
The group's Jorma Taccone reminisced on the latest episode of The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast (which premiered Tuesday, June 3), "Do you remember that when we were in high school and we were trying to get free records that you figured out that if we had a publication that we could get free records? So we made a hip-hop magazine called Up in the Cut, and designed it, and then put fake articles in. It was like a pamphlet."
"I don't think it really worked, though," Akiva Schaffer admitted. "We attempted it."
The fake magazine may not have worked, but Schaffer recalled that he briefly worked as an unqualified show promoter who put on shows for tha Alkaholiks, the Pharcyde and Freestyle Fellowship.
It's worth pointing out that every magazine is just a fake magazine that writers use to get free stuff — until you get your first reader, at which point it becomes a real magazine.