Pros: The reviews, the personality interviews, the pictures.
Cons: The fashion articles, the teen tendencies.
The Bottom Line: For a youth magazine approaching 50, RS is ageing gracefully. Reviews and interviews remain top quality and they are still worth the price of admission.
I know that there have been over 100 reviews in epinions about the magazine already. But the most recent one was written last year. And there is an offer for a lifetime subscription. That gives me a reason to pitch in my 2 bits. A cursory view of the reviews suggests that the opinion on the magazine is either LOVE IT 5*, or HATE IT 1* with disagreements over everything from the articles to the reviews. Not much in the middle. As a long time reader, I’ll declare that I fall into the LOVE IT camp.
OK, I’ll agree. The Rolling Stone Magazine is not anything like the magazine that it used to be. I’m not even talking about their fabled heydey during the counter-culture 60’s or the glamorized “Almost Famous” days of the anti-disco 70’s. It’s not even as good as its fashion oriented 1980’s version, when I first started reading it in college. To my older relatives, the 1980’s is when it started to go down hill.
So what’s gone wrong?
This list is not exhaustive, but here are the major gripes:
(1) the magazine is no longer the voice of the counter culture. Of course, since the 1990’s there’s been very little counter culture---that is, until the recent jingoists took government. Thanks to King George, the magazine is coming back around;
(2) the articles are not as incisive as they used to be, and they tend to be more focused on personalities than issues. (Yeah, but there’s always Playboy…but seriously,) The articles are now shorter and punchier, and the focus is more on newsmakers. But the personalities that they capture are fascinating. Who can forget that portrait of Al Gore before the election? So the focus has changed, but a magazine has got to move with its audience;
(3) its reviews suck. I remember when I first started reading the magazine almost 24 years ago, Dave Marsh was always criticized for his reviews, for being too conservative and punk oriented, and we could always start a fight in the house by debating its latest ratings. So nothing’s changed except its reviewers. If there are more pop reviews, it’s because that’s what’s out there more. If the reviewers are reviewing ageing stars, that’s because there are more of them still out there, too. They are reviewing new stars, too. I won’t forget that the Rolling Stone magazine was one of the first to give a big 4 star review to The Strokes’ Is This It?;
(4) it is no longer the voice of rock and roll. Hey, wake up! In case you haven’t noticed, until recently, there’s been precious little rock and roll out there in the mass market. Rock is just one of a dozen music genres these days, and not even the dominant one anymore (that crown belongs to r&b and hip hop). Rolling Stone has to keep with the times and cover all the genres, or it won’t be able to pay the bills. Sticking to just rock is suicidal. However, for the rock artist, making the cover of the Rolling Stone is still the landmark that takes them from almost famous to “arrived”
(5) its audience has changed. Hey, we’ve gotten older. While lots of college kids still read it, I’ll bet that the magazine has one of the widest demographics for a music magazine. There are probably readers who are 60 and readers who are in their teens. Thankfully, it doesn’t try to be everything to everyone, and focuses on the reader in the 25-35 demographic;
So is this a great magazine or what?
Actually, no. While RS still remains a great source of gossip for your favorite music artists, its news is frequently scooped by publications as uncool as People. It’s movie reviews also tend to be out of step with its music demographic, being 35-45 oriented more than 25㬟 oriented. There are also those annoying fashion pages.
Many of these changes were precipitated by the magazine’s sharply declining sales figures, as their original readership no longer has time for rock, or just die off.
What it needs is more reviews, more medium length interviews, and a return focus to moderate left politics.
So why the lifetime subscription?
Because I believe that a magazine, like its readership, evolves over time. While I don’t agree with all of the changes over the years, I think that RS is essentially the link to my youth. I find the politics appealing. And I intend to subscribe for the next 3 or 4 years anyway---so why not spend that money up front and get it for life?
Besides, I still like reading those reviews. The RS reviews, more than anything else, helped shape my critical perspective of music and popular culture. Happily, given that I will never again be able to buy or have the time to listen to all of its top recommendations, I remain confident that (unlike recommendations from hipper magazines like Q or Uncut) if I pick up a 4* or 5* recommendation, there is still a very high chance that I will love it.
To me, it’s about who to trust. And in my dotage, I still trust the voice of my youth.
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