Great, so now instead of 6 pages of endless, rambling drivel, I have to wade through 9 pages of it?

/i think we have a wenner

I like it when they write about music and musicians. I could do without the yellow journalism and glorification of drugs.

Rolling stone is to magazines what Hot Topic is to fashion

Print is dead.

CrankMyBlueSax: I like it when they write about music and musicians.

Yeah, their recent articles on the Jonas Brothers were AWESOME!

/hasn't read Rolling Stone in many a year

I'd prefer more glorification of drugs, personally.

Rolling Stone went brain-dead about 20 years ago (yes, I'm being charitable)...it's been on life support ever since.

The last positive change Rolling Stone made was when they started stapling in the 70s.

No real reason to check it out since Hunter S Thompson died.

For a magazine journalism class, I just wrote a 5-page paper on Rolling Stone. Dear god, I never realized how hard it sucks.

carmody: Rolling Stone went brain-dead about 20 years ago (yes, I'm being charitable)...it's been on life support ever since.


Yeah....the signal to noise on that fishwrap is astounding. Sometime around the early 90s, they went from covering bands that matter and interviewing icons of music to becoming the equivalent of TRL and putting stupid shiat like Mariah Carey and Staind and Good Charlotte on the cover.

Plus, print is dead.

I never really read Rolling Stone, but I always got the idea that it was never as important as it made itself out to be. This, I believe manifested itself, in the larger format among other things. The larger format made it clumsy and very difficult to thumb through.

It was all over when they gave four stars to Billy Idol's "Charmed Life"

"In two of Charmed Life's most potent and revealing numbers, "Prodigal Blues" and "Mark of Caine," Idol draws from biblical stories to uncover lessons or work through his paradoxes. "Prodigal Blues" is the album's first change-up, coming as it does after "The Loveless" and "Pumping on Steel," a pair of blustery, hypercharged rockers in the Rebel Yell mold. The latter two tracks are deliciously edgy, lustfully walking on the wild side in an adrenaline rush of surging, crypto-metal guitar and bellowing vocals. Idol is exorcising the rebel, but the rebel won't let go: "No control mama/One of the loveless baby," he shouts in "The Loveless." "T've got to ride/I might die tonight," he sings in "Pumping on Steel" - lines that proved eerily prophetic of his recent motorcycle crackup."

daneurysm: For a magazine journalism class, I just wrote a 5-page paper on Rolling Stone. Dear god, I never realized how hard it sucks.

You could only fill up 5 pages?

I let my subscription run out recently. Aside from the rare decent article on something that had nothing to do with music, it became a steaming pile of suck. Does anyone know when they got in bed with MTV? I wonder if there's a correlation there.

Even the covers, which used to be pretty good, have gone the way of the turd. Shame.

CityExile: Does anyone know when they got in bed with MTV? I wonder if there's a correlation there.



exactly. the freaking jonas brothers were on a cover not even a month ago.

That's sad in the sense that it's size became part of its identity, however, it will save them tons of dough in paper costs, so it seems quite sensible. In fact, two of our regional newspapers have done that too, shaving off some size and saving quite a bit.

BTW, Subby that was a clever line. You get a gold star today!

Dammit, I'll have to use two pages in my cat's litter box instead of one.

rickythepenguin: CityExile: Does anyone know when they got in bed with MTV? I wonder if there's a correlation there.



exactly. the freaking jonas brothers were on a cover not even a month ago.

I think it started long before that. It almost seems like they are forced to devote an entire section to the VMAs each year, which I'm pretty sure the people getting the "awards" don't even care about.

carmody: I'd prefer more glorification of drugs, personally.

Rolling Stone went brain-dead about 20 years ago (yes, I'm being charitable)...it's been on life support ever since.

Oh it's sucked since the late 80's for sure.

When my nephew was selling magazine subscriptions for some school fundraiser, I bought a one-year subscription to Rolling Stone. I hadn't read it in years, and I thought it would be good to get back in the loop, music-wise. When the first issue showed up with Panic! At the Disco (or was it Fall Out Boy? Is there a difference?) on the cover, I knew I was in trouble. When they later ran an interview with 50 Cent (or was it Kanye West? Is there a difference?) in which he flat-out admitted that he was more concerned with business than with music - and they put this joker on the farking cover - I knew it was over and I should have subscribed to something else. Man, that was a long year.

I bought a lifetime subscription to RS 8 years ago for 100 bucks.
According to the magazine address box, my subscription runs out on July 26 2056....
Does RS know something I dont?

I dont read every issue, sometimes I just thumb thru it, see the album reviews. It goes thru a crappy period, then redeems itself, goes thru a crappy period, then redeems itself again.

sararenne: It goes thru a crappy period, then redeems itself, goes thru a crappy period, then redeems itself again.

So does the music business.

CrankMyBlueSax: I like it when they write about music and musicians. I could do without the yellow journalism and glorification of drugs.

RS is one of those magazines that confuses "edginess" with "brattiness." They do cover interesting material, and definitely carry the anti-establishment banner well. They bash the GOP relentlessly and are staunchly liberal, but are also willing to castigate Democrats for failing on their promises. But that is about it... very little of the music coverage breaks out of top 40, and they use a lot of profanity and sophomoric prose to express their points. Matt Taibbi is the master of just such angry, ad-hominem-laced drivel. And, like CMBS said... they sure do love drugs and the culture around it. That may be unavoidable when dealing with musicians.

I recently let my subscription run out after five years. A good bathroom read, but it usually did little more than make me feel good about not being crazy.

rickythepenguin: ...(Rolling Stone is) the equivalent of TRL...

This is the most accurate description of RS I've ever heard.

Well done.

For some reason I got free copies of RS in the mail for a couple of months. Man what a POS rag. Nothing but fluff pieces on Obama and mainstream pop bands.

I was horrified looking at the Billboard Top 100. Has it always been this bad?

/Yes, GTFO my lawn.

CrankMyBlueSax: I like it when they write about music and musicians. I could do without the yellow journalism and glorification of drugs.

I enjoy the album reviews but it pisses me off when they write articles that condone terrorist acts against the US. In the words of one RS writer: "The attacks on 9/11 were beautiful, well deserved and long overdue."

What's Rolling Stone? I thought I had subsribed to Obama Weekly

FTA:"For years since I graduated from college, I have refused to buy a small messenger bag ... since it couldn't fit my Rolling Stone," said Ward, a publicist who lives in New York. "I never wanted to crease the pages or put cracks in the cover."

Douche.

Is it wrong that I don't know who the Jonas brothers are? And that I'm not really interested in finding out?

Madison_Smiled

"50 Cent (or was it Kanye West? Is there a difference?)"

I know you're probably just going through a fit of Old-Rage, but this is incredibly stupid. Kanye is on an entirely different level than 50 Cent could ever hope to be... you know, he's actually good.

Madison_Smiled: 50 Cent (or was it Kanye West? Is there a difference?)

There is if you're under 40. That's like confusing The Ramones with The Monkeys.

hammbone: What's Rolling Stone? I thought I had subsribed to Obama Weekly

No kidding. TFA: "Like the man we are featuring on the cover for the third time in seven months ... we embrace the idea of change,"

I'm an Obama supporter, but I'd be pretty damn sick of it after that much. God only knows how many articles that translates to.

I'd also like to add that in addition to being a crappy magazine, Rolling Stone has an AOL-like tendency to be impossible to unsubscribe from.

For a year in college, I kept getting it for free because they were still mailing it to the people who had rented that house a year before. When my roommate came back after a few months, I found that the packages he had been receiving from home were more copies of Stone, which he had unsubscribed from (and I assume stopped paying for) several months ago, that his dad had forwarded to him.

The week the suckulence of Rolling Stone became complete:

Anyone that read Evan Wright's "Killer Elite" series knows that RS can still be relevant.

/yes, it was years ago.
// but, hell, we're still there so it's still relevant.

Fawke those Guys.