In March, the publisher of Guitar World magazine announced that they’d no longer be featuring bikini-clad models on the cover of their annual Buyer’s Guide edition, a longstanding tradition for the supplementary guide that frequently drew ire over the unnecessary objectification and diminishment of female guitarists. Bill Amstutz, VP and general manager of the music group at NewBay, which publishes the annual Buyer’s Guide, explained at the time that they’d been grappling with shunning the sexist cover style for a while. “We want to reach female readers and cultivate them,” he told Reverb. “And we can do a better job, as all guitar media can do.”
Guitar World magazine, which is also published by NewBay Media, is set to release its first St. Vincent cover story this January, and though Guitar World itself has never printed a near-naked woman on its cover, St. Vincent decided to take bro-centric guitar media to task with a knowing nod to the Buyer’s Guide’s former style. “I did a quick Google search of women on the cover,” St. Vincent — a.k.a. Annie Clark — told the mag, “and all I really saw was girls in bikinis holding guitars like they’ve never held a guitar before. I started thinking about that and just wanted to make my own absurdist comment on it. I couldn’t really let it slide without poking a bit of fun and taking the piss a little!”
