I'm not about the wretchedness of today's current magazine.
I'm talking from the beginning until now.

crap.

edit: not crap for hiring hst though.


all else, crap.

CRAP: deified rock stars from the get-go.

NOT CRAP: had cool articles with cool rock stars.

CRAP: started sucking come the '80s. The suckfest came full circle in the '90s.

NOT CRAP: cool photography!


This one is a toss-up, but I say not crap (a lowercase NC). The magazine has been on the side of the bad guys for many, many years now.

Even in the CRAP years, I have still found a lot to enjoy about this magazine...it's like People...but for music geeks. A guilty pleasure...perfect for an airplane or a dentist's office.

Since the mid-'70s, this magazine has fired/replaced writers whose opinions ran counter to those of the industry lifers entrusted with keeping musicians on pedestals.

It should not be a taboo to admit that a lot of phenomenal musicians are completely shitty human beings.

And yeah, they published HST, and a few other great writers, but that's supposed to make up for nearly 40 years of dick-suckery?

Rolling Stone is crap.

Rolling Stone Is Switching to a Smaller, Rack-Friendly Size

Gary Armstrong, chief marketing officer for Wenner Media, pointed to Vanity Fair, which has lower overall circulation than Rolling Stone, but nearly three times the single-copy sales. With a standard format, he said, it should be possible to raise newsstand sales significantly.

"The consumer we want to reach watches Lost on a big TV screen, on a computer screen and on an iPhone," he said. "They're agnostic on format."

Smaller Crap

dabrasha wrote:Rolling Stone Is Switching to a Smaller, Rack-Friendly Size

Gary Armstrong, chief marketing officer for Wenner Media, pointed to Vanity Fair, which has lower overall circulation than Rolling Stone, but nearly three times the single-copy sales. With a standard format, he said, it should be possible to raise newsstand sales significantly.

"The consumer we want to reach watches Lost on a big TV screen, on a computer screen and on an iPhone," he said. "They're agnostic on format."

Smaller Crap

They were already rack-friendly.

I learned a lot of what I know about music from always getting Rolling Stone magazines whenever I went to the store with my mom as a very young boy. My mom was a pretty cool lady.

I haven't opened one in years except when having a stubborn shit at a friend's house. The Scott 1000-sheet was more interesting to read.

Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas was first published in Rolling Stone. (So was The Bonfire of the Vanities, which I have not read. Someone else can judge the cultural significance of this one.)

Lester Bangs was first published in Rolling Stone.

Matt Taibbi and David Rees can be fun to read on occasion.

Two of these facts are significant and great. The third fact is merely all right. These facts do not excuse Rolling Stone's pathetic, decades-long rock star cumgargling.

This is a magazine that hired and published that outrageous, bloviating, pompous sack of wind, Jon Landau, who gave Sticky Fingers one of the most smug and infuriating reviews I will ever read in my life. This is a magazine that continues to publish the often unreadable drivel of Rob Sheffield. This is a magazine that trashed Zeppelin's first four albums when they were originally released. This is a magazine that tries to stay hip and with it and deifies shit that will never last in an effort to make it stay around longer.

Crap.

SecondEdition wrote:Lester Bangs was first published in Rolling Stone.

and then fired for being disrespectful to musicians or something like that...

SecondEdition wrote:These facts do not excuse Rolling Stone's pathetic, decades-long rock star cumgargling.

crap...

robert thefamilyghost wrote:

SecondEdition wrote:Lester Bangs was first published in Rolling Stone.

and then fired for being disrespectful to musicians or something like that...

Yup, Jann Wenner fired him for exactly that reason. Bangs referred to him afterwards in this passing mention about David Bowie: "He's a bigger groupie than Jann Wenner!" Which says lots about Wenner himself (check out his review of Mick Jagger's solo album Goddess In The Doorway for a real, true laugh riot) and about the way that Wenner has run Rolling Stone for decades.