Reviews For Rolling Stone Magazine

At the age of 12, it was my dream to write for Rolling Stone magazine. I am now 33 and the mag is a rag. If you want a magazine that truly cares about the best in music, you'll have to shell out the money to pay for the air mail and subscribe to Mojo and Q from the UK. Rolling Stone is now nothing more than boy bands, barely dressed bimbo chicks, and men's fashion.

rolling stone used to be THE magazine to read for music fans....
for the last several years,all it's done is to cover what's currently popular.

in other words,it just follows the trends,giving more coverage to teen groups and other fly by night bands that no one will care about in five years.

for example:they used to be all over the grunge rock scene and when it died out,you never saw it mentioned(thank goodness).

the real musicians and entertainers who have been around for years and are still out there making music barely get a mention,and that's why i'll never buy a subscription or a single issue.

haven't bought either in years,and don't plan to do so now,and i really wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.

There's no question about it - this magazine has definitely gone downhill since its inception. Once an informative, level-headed publication, Rolling Stone now spends too much time pandering to the liberal media while at the same time featuring such rubbish musical acts as Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera on their covers incessantly. Not that I am particularly offended by the political articles (I would classify my political orientation as moderate), but Rolling Stone's biggest problem, as indicated by the combination of their obvious political agenda along with a focus on popular music (with too much of a slant toward teen pop, natch) is that it makes the magazine difficult for any person to read straight through. What audience are they trying to attract anyway? An issue of Rolling Stone is the equivalent of buying a box of Laffy Taffy that comes with a copy of the Communist Manifesto. Maybe they're trying to mold the minds of the youth of America, but truth be told, this magazine is about as superficial as an MTV program - and just about as one-sided as well.

In summary: Rolling Stone makes an attempt at being both a pop culture periodical and a political news magazine, and fails miserably at both. If their articles were a bit less biased and they started covering less teen-oriented fare (i.e. less time devoted to T & A and dumb action flicks and their stars), they might be worth looking into, but as it stands, Rolling Stone isn't worth your time or money.

Unlike RS editors, I don't need to waste a lot of words on it... Sadly, this isn't the quality magazine it once was. Worse yet, it is no longer relevant. That's the saddest statement of all!

This isn't The Rolling Stone. The Rolling Stone has been dead for a while. What we have here is a magazine-sized ad for our decayed pop music scene. It goes to show that our culture (sic) can always find a way to make things even more superficial and inane.

Dear Rolling Stone,

There is more to music than Chingy and The Strokes, but I guess you wouldn't know that being a music magazine and all.

Thanks,
Heidi Kakes

Okay I've been getting Rolling Stone now for 2 years ( I signed up for a two year deal, unfortunately) and I absolutely loath it! I used to subscribe to SPIN, a far superior music magazine and I thought I would try Rolling Stone instead, assuming (and you know what they say about that)that it would be a much classier magazine. Well, I was wrong. The interviews are disgusting send ups and praises of every celebrity that thinks they know anything about politics (e.g. George Clooney was determined to be the second coming in one issue). The music reviews pretty much cator to mainstream crap and politically correct leanings. Basically anything you wouldn't ever buy will mostly likely get 5 stars. Finally, the so called politics section is usually a disgusting rant on the moral equivalence of dislking one's president and living in a dictatorship. Are much to be desired president is regulary compared to Hitler and Stalin while terrosits and suicide bombers are praised. Viva la Brainwashing! Needless to say, I can't wait for my subscription to run out!

At least I didn't pay much. Awful magazine, but it'll make for great paper to help burn firewood this winter.

one need only look at RS's recent "women of rock" cover to realize how far the mighty has fallen - a celebration of such corporate, novelty flash in the pans like "pink" and "avril lavigne" alongside majestic performers of yesteryear like aretha and joni mitchell. truly interesting, dues-paying artists like nelly furtado and kasey chambers got half-page side mentions in this issue; lavigne got several pages of pictures and long-winded interview / drivel.

if you enjoy having your intelligence insulted on a routine basis, this is the magazine for you.

What else can I say that other reviewers haven't said already? I can add that I used to love this magazine back in its heyday and when I read it, the publishers seem to care about music & serious subjects but instead we get lame synthetic pop thats forcefed to people and R.S. seems to be going along with it. In this case, I think the old adage "Let the buyer beware" fits epecially well.