I have been a faithful reader of Rolling Stone magazine for over twenty years. Although it has started as a reliable rock and roll journal in the late 1960s, I have seen it transforming into the magazine of the bourgeoisie. Not necessarily a bad thing, but if you think that once Rolling Stone was the summit of music journalism, it is discouraging to watch it becoming MTV on paper.
In the 1980s, Rolling Stone was a magazine passionate about music that featured insightful articles to cutting edge artists such as U2, The Cure, REM, Clash, Echo & The Bunnymen and many others. Today, it remains a cultural icon, but since the culture has deteriorated, inevitably Rolling Stone attempts to sell copies of people, who get more and more distressed like Britney. On the other hand, pop culture sells quite good being a reference point for over 13 million young adults.
Although the good days of REM and Clash on the cover are long gone, Rolling Stone still features good music reviews written in excellent way. My overall impression is positive and there is no doubt that Rolling Stone features good journalism. Particularly, some of its editorials are top notch providing interesting information on contemporary music scene.
One more plus is that, Rolling Stone’s sphere of influence includes entertainment, television, movies, technology, and national affairs. In addition to its dominant position in music, Rolling Stone covers anything significant, trend-setting, and remarkable with excellent photographs or illustrations that make the overall tone of the magazine visually powerful. Rolling Stone has been awarded with the National Magazine Award for General Excellence in 2007 and with editorial excellence in reporting and photo essay categories in 2006, while it has earned over fifty nominations and twelve awards.
On the other hand, there are reviews that are dubious and not trustworthy at all. Personally, I feel that they belong to the past and they reflect the reviewer’s personal opinion and not the objective view they should reflect. Also, how can a magazine’s publisher consider that Mick Jagger is as good in his solo career as in the years of “Let It Bleed”? How can middle-age reviewers catch the palm of contemporary music and get overcompensated for their lack of knowledge?
There was a time when Rolling Stone was THE music magazine championing the great countercultural music of their era. Being truly underground and innovative, Rolling Stone was doing something really important. Today, the magazine has a consistent inability to seriously criticize anything that might have an influence on the rock audience.
If you care about rock music or, simply for, decent writing, unfortunately Rolling Stone is not the proper magazine to choose. To my view, a better path to respectable music would be British music magazines. Unfortunately, Rolling Stone has become mostly useful for criticism.
