Why Rolling Stone Magazine Is Irrelevant

I read Rolling Stone in the bathroom and in the bathroom only. I’m not sure why this is an important piece of information but it is somehow.

When I was a kid i’d read Rolling Stone to read articles about the bands that I liked and learn about new bands too. I imagined when I was a young adult, my apartment would look really cool with issues of RS fanned out on my coffee table. This never materialized itself.

I now grab Rolling Stone right before I go to the bathroom, from the chair where I pile all of the mail that doesn’t look important . Here is a list of magazines I subscribe to or steal from the communal mail pile that I prefer over Rolling Stone:

Newsweek (subscribe)
Fast Company (Subscribe)
Maxim (man-bot weekly, but informational and steal from the common mail area when the risk factor is low)
Wired (I think my neighbor receives a double subscription to this magazine, so I consider it a gift, although Wired isn’t what it used to be I don’t want to hurt his feelings)
The New Republic (A fairly centrist liberal magazine that is sometimes interesting; steal)
The Economist (this is the magazine equivalent of leaving your best bank statement ever out; dry and boring as hell; only need one copy)
The Modern Drunkard (rather funny but repetitive. Hard to find. Attempted to steal a copy from a weekend retreat in the mountains. The owner made a big deal of it and I removed it from my bag ala “oh, here it is”)

Rolling Stone is the suckass ladderclimbing friend we all wish we had. Rolling Stone thinks of itself as cutting edge and hip, but probably hasn’t taken a chance since the 60’s or 70’s, if even then. I don’t trust Hippies’ recollection since they all seem to have the same story. “Yeah man we were all doing drugs and freaking out squares and fighting the man and having sex all over the place”. Yeah, sure you were.

To better show how RS is a thrill seeking risk taker , have a look at this shot from their very own website. Look at these cutting edge covers of 2005:

Who is this band called U2?
Gwen Stefani, eh?
Who doesn’t love the musical Stylings of one of Hollywood’s most bankable Actors, Johnny Depp?
Green Day: hey its punk, right?
Young fella outta Jamrock named Bob Marley. Maybe you’ve heard of him in every dorm room at every college in the world?
Hunter S. Thompson, RS gets to play with themselves while telling you they gave HST his start.
A bunch of young kids who have aging rocker parents
A bunch of Aging Rockers who have young bastard kids
Weezer: a band your parents will like too
Two Issues sucking off the upcoming Star Wars movie
Dave Matthews Band, thanks RS these guys almost slipped under the radar!

You really start to get the feeling that Rolling Stone believes that the only answer to selling magazines is to put someone overexposed on the cover. Hey morons, ever consider that people buy magazines to learn NEW stuff?
If this wasn’t enough, enter their star reporter who reminds you of that douchebag in your dorm who always handed you badly photoshopped fliers telling you to come get pissed about some bullshit in the quad: Matt Taibbi.

It’s a restfull issue of RS when you don’t have to read about why George W Bush is a bastard—- and greedy too. Of course its common knowledge that people become the President of the US go into office to make money, because lets be honest, most people who run for President are practically destitute, right? Right? Oh wait, no they are just endlessly greedy. Ok, yeah after being President of the US you have a lot of chances to spend all kinds of money with the secret service following you everywhere, being internationally famous, reputation to uphold. etc etc.

Any article about a different political issue I should be wetting my pants over usually turns into a six degrees of George W Bush game, this is to say, G-dub is busy messing things up on so many fronts we should really just kill him now.

Let’s read some more about why terrorism isn’t anything to be worried about, and why terrorists are generally misunderstood, shall we? The secret here is that liberals, especially the RS brand of liberal, sees terrorism not as a social problem (which it is) but as a political issue of which they have no dominion over— it’s a Republican issue, so they’ve abandoned it altogether. It’s not that they don’t care their ass getting blown off, or my ass getting blown off, it’s just not politically expedient for them to care about it.

What Rolling Stone forgets is that pants-wetting liberalism isn’t as cool as they think it is. They forget this every single issue. They’ll never realize that if your politics are the same as the average minivan driver, or the average school teacher, that isn’t cool.

cool liberals

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Date

June 26th, 2007

Author

andyfox1979

7 Comments

kaley78

1

In an effort to save a buck (read I’m cheap), I signed up for what must have been a 10 year subscription to this piece of garbage, so I still flip through it. Every time it arrives at my doorstep, there is an inevitable wince when I glance down and see who’s gracing the new issue’s cover. I actually once called in sick to work so I could continue posting comments on the Rolling Stone message board about how angry I was that Clay Aiken was on the cover.
The only interesting articles in the last 2 years (probably the only ones NOT about Bush) were the exposes on Scientology and the pot stores cropping up around California.
Such a travesty.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
andyfox1979

2

haha. It’s funny, i’ve also been so riled up about something message board related that i’ve called in sick. This isn’t saying that much since i’ve called in sick for just about every reason.

I don’t know why I keep getting these Rolling Stones, really, I think they need to audit their circulation and accounting departments because believe me if I got an invoice in the last year or two I would’ve used it to light this art project: http://flickr.com/photos/andyfox/516046763/

Another horrible piece of shit, that Rolling Stone probably loved, David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest”.

Yeah, I love reading in-depth stories on topics that are too narrow for the major magazines to cover. The kind of stuff they sometimes make weird documentaries about. Instead, rolling stone flies Boy Taibbi around to attend political conferences and make snide remarks. Fuckers.

If anyone knows a better magazine please suggest.
June 26th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
kaley78

3

For music, I like to read Blender. They cover a pretty nice variety of genres, and because the stories aren’t that long, they cover a lot of ground in one issue. Plus they don’t take themselves too seriously, which Rolling Stone is hugely guilty of.

I used to read Spin religiously, mostly during the time I was carrying on a fake love affair with Chuck Klosterman, but its gotten pretty annoying of late as well.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Mark Chu Cheong

4

As loathe as I am to admit their influence and how overtly pretencious and snobby they can be at times, nobody even touches Pitchfork in terms of coverage and influence at this time. They are usually spot on although, I feel their are misguided in their hatred for Ryan Adams, who despite being arrogant beyond belief is one cool fucker.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
tyesavag@mines.edu

5

Awesome post! “Rolling Stone” is definitely one lame-ass magazine. I personally would not be caught dead with it. Among other things, it is totally stuck back in the 1960s. They seriously need to get with the times.
August 19th, 2007 at 2:27 am
H.S.

6

How true, all above statements. I too receive seemingly endless free copies of RS. Normally, I wouldn’t read this rag of drivel, but hey, it makes you feel good that something “trendy” and “cutting edge cool” circulated in mass media can be so undeniably insignificant. I read an artical by Mark Taibbi who seems obsessed beyond nauseum in bashing everything perceived as pro-American and right-wing. I thought to myself that this guy sounds more like a “Great Satan America” hater from Ahmadinejad’s inner circle than a blowhard from Boston. RS should stick with music and leave out politics. They should concentrate on music coming out of satellite radio and internet than pop crap out of Disney and Universal studio training camps..not to mention the so beyond old rap gangstah scene.
August 29th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
a girl

7

I randomly started getting rolling stone about six months ago, even though I never ordered a subscription and definitely didn’t pay for it. It pretty much sucks as far as music goes, although I do enjoy the sections on festivals. If you want up and coming bands you’re not going to find them in most music magazines, because magazines are about making and money and so have to appeal to the general American public. Have you heard “popular” music lately? Miley Cyrus, All American Rejects, John Mayer, etc… these people all suck. Mayer is actually an awesome guitarist, but his pop songs are the epitome of douchebaggy. Websites are the best way to find out about up and coming, or just plain talented bands. Personally, I like jambase and padora, which plays songs based on your musical tastes.
September 5th, 2008 at 5:50 pm