At the helm of a once relevant, thought-provoking and edgy magazine is a man who is oblivious to his own uselessness. Jann Wenner — a grasping, preening, simpering, disingenuous aging pseudo-hippy — has clung to his publisher's post at Rolling Stone as though it were the last life vest on the Titanic.
I have subscribed to Rolling Stone on and off for the last 20 years. I realize of course that the magazine was past its prime even then, but to the young and impressionable, the stories, covers and glossy texture were the fumes that fueled my burning desire to become a journalist; a dream I cleaved to in lieu of any real talent, opportunity, or connection to reality.
Despite RS's continued slide into obscurity and irrelevance, I have tried to remain loyal with the hope that eventually the magazine would find its voice, direction, passion for journalism. But instead I find silly insipid writing that is childish, biased, and uninsightful.
The latest issue, featuring a caricature of our country's leader wearing a dunce cap on the cover, looking more like a chimp than a world leader, really offends my journalistic sensibilities. Not to put too fine a point on it, but who do they think they are fooling with that kind of cover?
Don't get me wrong — there are times when I am sure that President Bush is Captain of the Crazy Ship, steering us down the river of doom — but RS's depiction is beyond the pale, and I didn't even vote for Bush.
The piece, "The Worst President in History?" by historian Sean Wilentz, is a diatribe on how Bush has mismanaged the presidency, a claim in and of itself I don't necessarily disagree with; but it tries to disguise itself as an objective analysis of his policies, his leadership, his character, his vision in the context of the greatest and worst presidents of all time.
Wilentz' central pillar for basing his all-too-obvious feelings is poll results "conducted by those perceived as conservative as well as liberals." He cautions us that "lopsided decisions of historians should give everyone pause" and that "historians do tend, as a group to be far more liberal than the citizenry as a whole," but we shouldn't let that distract us from the overall ineptitude and incompetence of the President.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mat Brewster
Thanks for reminding me why I let my RS subscription run out months ago.
2 - Dawn
Yeah, if only I had been so smart I could have saved myself the anguish.
3 - Michael Heumann
RS jumped the shark years ago, back when they put a Billy Joel song on a "Greatest Singles of All Time" list just because Joel is a friend of Wenner's. Anyone who takes the magazine seriously--or even reads it--should, by now, already know what's in store. Calling Bush names, however juvenile the writing might be, is certainly not the "last straw" you make it out to be.
4 - Dawn
Well, I guess it was the last straw for me. If you can suggest an alternative music magazine that I can read, please feel free to do so.
5 - Scott Butki
Oh I think RS jumped the shark long ago.
I prefer Spin but even that has sucked lately.
Other than that, good piece, Dawn.
Hi Mike.
Dawn, what type of music do you like? Part of the problem RS and Spin is they try to appeal to too many markets when the best music magazines these days are more specialized, with some for rap, some for punk, etc.
6 - Dawn
I like electronic/industrial, punk, british alterna-pop. It's really an eclectic mix. I am willing to like and listen to anything done well and that is tuneful.
I don't want to hate Rolling Stone, because there just isn't that much out there to choose from. Culturally speaking RS is still the standard for rock and culture, which is why I was so offended by their abusing the privilege of my readership.
7 - Hunter
Rolling Stone lost it for me when they gave like five stars to Mick Jagger's last solo album, just because he and Rolling Stone are BFF.
Me, I agree entirely with the Bush article, but I ask the question: "Yes, I agree, but what the f' does that have to do with music?"
Paste Magazine is pretty good, as an alternative, it's bimonthly, and it comes with a CD, and it provides a good overview of a lot of different music, with good pop culture coverage, without being snotty like Pitchfork Media.
8 - Glen Boyd
As far as rock journalism is concerned, Spin sucks worse than Rolling Stone does. Spin reads like an ultra trendy, hipper than thou rag sheet written by college kids constantly trying to one up each other as to who can write about the most obscure band.
The state of music journalism in general jumped the shark quite some time ago. This is not a situation unique to Rolling Stone at all.
Today's so called "critics" seem to have lost all sense of integrity...instead whoring themselves out for the most part for the "perks" that come with the job...the promo CDs and concert tickets...(and let's face it, writing insightful stories about music never has paid particularly well).
Ninety percent of what I read in music magazines these days reads like a glorified press release from the band's PR guy.
Personally I long for magazines like Trouser Press and Musician Magazine. These days I settle for the most part for British mags like Uncut and Mojo...who cover the American scene surprisingly well, in addition to the British stuff.
The last time I trusted a record review enough to try out a new CD...in Rolling Stone interestingly enough...was after reading one critic pee his pants over Sufjan Stevens vastly overated "Illinoise".
Big mistake. I returned the CD the same day I bought it.
So no, the decline of music journalism is nothing new. That goes back to the mid-nineties (and even, some would argue, the eighties)...when rock music itself began it's artistic decline.
Both forms of expression basically exist in a state of life support today.
Good piece Dawn.
9 - Paul Roy
Well put Dawn. Rolling Stone has long been the admiral of the liberal fleet, so that issue doesn't suprise me. They don't even attempt to provide opposing points of view. A few years ago I accepted a lifetime subscription offer to this rag and now I almost dread getting each issue in the mail. A man can only take so many four and five star rap album reviews too.
10 - Michael J. West
I haven't read Rolling Stone in...I don't even remember how long. If it hadn't lost me long before, it would have when did a Britney Spears photo shoot around, what, '99?
And Glen,
Spin reads like an ultra trendy, hipper than thou rag sheet written by college kids constantly trying to one up each other as to who can write about the most obscure band.
As an ultra-trendy, hipper than thou former-college-radio-DJ, I wouldn't touch Spin with a ten-foot pole. It's not nearly so much a hipster rag as a rag done by fortysomethings who were "alternative" kids in the mid-80s and want desperately to prove that they are still hip. And assume that the only bands worth a shit are from Manhattan. You don't really think that anyone but that niche would give a shit about the Strokes, do you?
11 - Dawn
I like the idea of the free cd overview thing - I wonder how much the cost of providing that is? I found this really interesting site - Norwegian or maybe Icelandic - that had a yearly round up of the best new music/bands. That was the last time I felt truly exposed to new music that was worth listening to.
Maybe I just don't fit the target demographic and therefore the pandering of the RS piece just struck me wrong.
Honestly, I feel completely betrayed by mainstream media. I am a moderate/centrist with conservative views on some things, and liberal views on others. I have to think their are people like me who want to know what's happening in music, culture and politics, without all the friggin' bullshit brainwashing.
Doesn't anyone just tell the truth?
I can handle the truth. I think.
12 - Michael J. West
Oh, and I back Hunter's assertion. Who the fuck gets Rolling Stone to read about politics? If I want to read about how Bush is the worst president ever, I can read the paper. There's plenty of evidence there.
But it's still bullshit (and, if I may, really funny) when Bill O'Reilly refers to RS as "an ultra-left publication."
13 - Dawn
ps. thanks for the nice comments. I hardly ever have time to really work hard on a post, and I did try to put some real effort into this one, so thanks for all your input.
14 - Mat Brewster
If it hadn't lost me long before, it would have when did a Britney Spears photo shoot around, what, '99?
Ah, come one. That's the only reason I kept my subscription go for so long. I mean they didn't give out free cds of her crappy music, just took nice pictures of her mostly naked.
And that's a mag worth subscribing to.
15 - Barry Stoller
"The collegiate twenty-somethings who read RS are most likely blissfully unaware that the 'progressive magazine' they are absorbing, is nothing more that propaganda pamphlet of liberal bias at its most stereotypical - one-sided, cartoonish propaganda in the guise of objective analysis. These are surely not the same people reading the Wall Street Journal..."
Criticizing RS ... from the right?
"Not the same people reading the WSJ"?
Do recall RS legitimized itself by criticizing Nixon early and with more force than every other mag back in the day. Fear and Loathing was something to behold. What's sad about RS now - since '74, really - isn't its liberal bias (that was its original selling point) but that it's so MOR. (As Abbie Hoffman said, "Wenner is the Benedict Arnold of the Sixties.") Articles like the one you criticize are worth criticizing primarily because they are such a pale imitation of the great days; you, on the other hand, seem to expect 'unbiased' reportage a la Time mag - and that's a pointless critique. If you want to criticize RS - I know I do - please do it from the left, that's where it counts.
16 - Rodney Welch
Glen, As music goes, you have a hair-trigger temper: if a CD doesn't lick your ass clean in the first ten seconds, you throw it in the trash. That Sufjan record is super multi-layered, and it isn't problem-free, but if you didn't stick around long enough to get the depths of the disc, it's hardly the critic's fault.
By the way, while just about everyone else loved Illinoise, the Rolling Stone review of that record was actually rather even-handed praise.
It reads in part:
"For a musician like Stevens, going too far and trying too hard is the point, the way to get beyond where a more austere songwriter could get with a more naturalistic pose. So the most pleasurable music here is the most ambitious."
Hardly a "pee his pants" rave.
Your friends at Trouser Press, interestingly, liked it about as well.
17 - Triniman
I've been a subscriber of RS's for about twenty years now. It's the non-music articles that I enjoy the most. Sure, they have a constant lefty perspective, but I don't limit myself to one point of view before making up my own mind about what to believe. RS ties to appeal to everyone, but they often leave me cold with their coverage of hip-hop , and the shallow celebrities they have on the cover disappoints me. I wonder if they are seeing a slide in readership, in this increasingly "multi-channel" universe? I really wonder if putting Brittney on the cover so often really helps sales?
I subscribe to Paste, which also gives you a dvd with short films, trailers and videos, in addition to their free sampler cd. Uncut, Word, New Music Monthly are monthlies I purchase or subscribe to that have samplers, as well. Magnet is bi-monthly and covers more obscure indie music but I sometimes discover great music from their sampler cds.
As flawed as RS is, I like the mix of entertainment and current affairs coverage. I follow plenty of other media outlets to gain a broad enough perspective on the issues that I'm interested in, so RS's biased perspective doesn't bug me as much.
18 - Glen Boyd
Micheal...your comment about the Strokes...too freaking funny.
When SPIN was first started by porn peddler Bob Guccione's kid, it was actually a pretty decent mag. I actually wrote a few things for them back then, including a lead review of Public Enemy's "It Takes A Nation of Millions" that actually got me a phone call from Chuck D himself.
Still I have to admit reading about "200 pounds of pure pussy repellent" gave me a pretty damn good laugh.
But anyway...before I totally digress into blowing my own horn here...what I liked about SPIN back then was the way they championed artists no one else would touch. And by that, I don't just mean the most obscure band on the block or the flavor of the minute. Guccione was one of the first guys to give John Mellencamp a break for example...and this was at a time when other rock journalists dismissed him as a third rate Springsteen.
SPIN these days...as you correctly point out Micheal...is more concerned with it's own pseudo-hipness than it is with anything having to do with the music itself.
And that's regardless of who writes the crap in the magazine...be it ultra trendy, hipper than thou college kids, or aging forty something hacks trying to pass themselves off as one and the same.
As for RS, about the only stuff I do read from them is actually the political stuff. As biased as it is...and I'm a card carrying Democrat myself...that kind of voice from the left is sorely needed to balance out all of the crap you hear from the likes of FOX news and right wing talk radio.
Back to the point Dawn makes in her article though...the name calling does get pretty tiresome. From both sides.
Rock journalism is in a very sorry state these days, no doubt about it.
19 - Glen Boyd
Big error in my comment above.
That sentence about the "pussy repellent" giving me a laugh should have gone at the very end.
So how does one edit a comment once it's been posted anyway?
20 - nugget
hasn't "rock journalism" always been in a sorry state, glen? ya know, cause it's "rock journalism" and all?
21 - Glen Boyd
Not back in my day it wasn't Nugget. No sir, by gum!
(Sorry, showing my age here...LOL)
Glen
22 - Glen Boyd
Rodney,
Contrary to what you may think, I'm usually more than willing to give a new CD more than one chance to "lick my ass clean" as you put it.
As I recall, (and I no longer have the actual review at my disposal as you do) the RS reviewer made me want to check out Sufjan Stevens precisely because he made it sound like this wildly adventurous record from a brilliant new songwriter.
Now maybe I'm confusing that review with the dozens of others I later read from writers who indeed were basically peeing their pants and falling all over themselves over this guy.
Well there is "adventurous" and then there is that which is merely ponderous and meandering.
The record, at least to my ears, was virtually unlistenable...and I wanted to give the guy a chance, I really did. I actually had it playing that afternoon when a friend came over for a barbeque.
His first question to me upon arrival was "Glen what in the holy fuck are you listening to"?
Like I said, it went back to the CD store that same day.
23 - Rodney Welch
Well, in that case, I guess we're poles apart on every fucking issue on the planet.
24 - Glen Boyd
Aw come on Rodney...we both like Neil Young right?
(Living With War is starting to grow on me by the way)
Glen
25 - Triniman
Also, Dawn you said,
"The collegiate twenty-somethings who read RS are most likely blissfully unaware that the "progressive magazine" they are absorbing, is nothing more that propaganda pamphlet of liberal bias at its most stereotypical - one-sided, cartoonish propaganda in the guise of objective analysis."
If that's truly the case, then surely you will agree that this is symtomatic of bigger problems among the college and twenty-somethings, beginning with our educational institutions. These are precisely the people who should be learning to intelligently filter the media and think for themselves. RS is not the problem here.