Comments on: Corporate Magazines Still Suck

Corporate Magazines Still Suck

psmealey — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 13:51:04 -0800

Happy 40th Birthday Rolling Stone. On this day in 1967, the first issue of Rolling Stone Magazine was published, and it came with a roach clip. It was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J. Gleason It embraced and reported on the hippy counterculture during the late 1960s and 1970s, and its rise to fame was synchronous with such bands and artists as the Grateful Dead, Beatles, Doors, Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. It is the magazine that trashed Eric Clapton, broke up Cream and ripped every album Led Zeppelin ever made!"

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:01:40 -0800

Well, to be fair, Zeppelin never did make it big.

By: Eekacat

Eekacat — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:08:30 -0800

Define big.

By: spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints

spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:08:49 -0800

Flagged for getting "White Room" stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

By: ericb

ericb — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:16:27 -0800

Anita Thompson, widow of Hunter, is not happy with Jann Wenner's new book: Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson.

By: ericb

ericb — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:16:41 -0800

From the current issue of Business Week:

The Last Tycoon of Print "Jann Wenner sits atop the Rolling Stone empire, all but thumbing his nose at the Web."

By: Sailormom

Sailormom — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:17:20 -0800

"We take all kind of pills to give us all kind of thrills But the thrill we've never known Is the thrill that'll get you when you get your picture On the cover of the Rolling Stone"

By: BitterOldPunk

BitterOldPunk — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:17:59 -0800

Fuck a bunch of hippies.

By: kuujjuarapik

kuujjuarapik — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:23:36 -0800

"Loser" and "Sellout" tags made my day.

By: Peter H

Peter H — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:26:18 -0800

Anita Thompson, widow of Hunter, is not happy with Jann Wenner's new book: Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson. The documentary BREAKFAST WITH HUNTER has a great scene where Wenner gets sprayed in the face by a CO2 fire extinguisher by Hunter while visiting RS offices.

By: octothorpe

octothorpe — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:38:36 -0800

Like the Rolling Stones, they probably should have packed it up after 20 years.

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:39:10 -0800

Fuck Rolling Stone. There are some things that I just do not forgive.

By: doctor_negative

doctor_negative — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:43:41 -0800

If RS had flamed out in the 70's and disappeared, it would be a pleasant memory, but no.

By: contessa

contessa — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:45:52 -0800

Like the Rolling Stones, they probably should have packed it up after 20 10 years.

By: agregoli

agregoli — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:52:47 -0800

They've been celebrating their anniversary with anniversary issues for at least this entire year. It's so boring I yawn when I get my monthly issue.

By: MiltonRandKalman

MiltonRandKalman — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:57:55 -0800

Rolling Stone: Everything you wanted to know about music 3 years ago.

By: ericb

ericb — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:03:38 -0800

Like the Rolling Stones, they probably should have packed it up after 20 10 years. Trailer for Shine a Light -- Martin Scorsese's upcoming documentary on the Stones. Previous thread.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:20:13 -0800

William Gibson: The Rolling Stone 40th Anniversary Interview 40 Albums That Rolling Stone Got Wrong Rolling Stone's 40 Years and 40 Songs all but thumbing his nose at the Web Except for having boards, some blogs, RSS feeds, videos, and music, sure. And they just did their first-ever digital edition. They've had some good political articles recently, too.

By: Tommy Gnosis

Tommy Gnosis — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:21:03 -0800

Spin was a good magazine for like 2 or 3 years, wasn't it? I imagine RS was too, but it was when I was 5.

By: brevator

brevator — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:35:06 -0800

Fuck Rolling Stone. They give every fucking record a 3 star review. Then a few years later, if the record in question happens to make money, they toss the review over to Winston Smith to be "corrected" and branded a classic. Then they put a bikini clad non-musician straddling a guitar on the cover and call it a music mag. /Fuck Rolling Stone.

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:38:09 -0800

People still buy magazines? People still print on paper? Oh, that's soo cute!

By: killy willy

killy willy — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:38:39 -0800

"don't trust anyone over thirty!"

By: donovan

donovan — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:47:57 -0800

Except for having boards, some blogs, RSS feeds, videos, and music, sure. RS doesn't manage/run any of that. About five years ago they licensed their name and many digital assets to RealNetworks which pays them a licensing fee but drives the programming/advertising, etc.

By: Eekacat

Eekacat — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:01:45 -0800

Rolling stone is more frequent than monthly, no? I have no idea, I quit reading it 15 years ago or so. They really went downhill once they started printing on glossy paper. I fondly remember the cheap newsprint days. You can talk about album reviews and whatever, I never really payed much attention to those since I have the ability to form my own opinion about music. I really did like many of the articles they had back in the day. Now it's really just another slick mag on the stand.

By: ericb

ericb — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:01:49 -0800

Lest we forget -- Circus, Crawdaddy! ("The Magazine of Rock") and Creem ("America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine").

By: ericb

ericb — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:05:02 -0800

Except for having boards, some blogs, RSS feeds, videos, and music, sure. -- RS doesn't manage/run any of that. About five years ago they licensed their name and many digital assets to RealNetworks which pays them a licensing fee but drives the programming/advertising, etc. Yep. From the Business Week article:

"Almost certainly, he is the last major print CEO to so blithely disregard the Web for so long. Up until early 2006 the Web page of Us Weekly consisted of a subscription coupon. Today the operations of Rolling Stone's Web site remain in the hands of digital-media company RealNetworks (RNWK), which nets the magazine around $2 million a year in licensing fees as well as, Wenner says, a share of ad monies. Wenner promises ramped-up Web moves, but he proudly reports 'we never lost tons of money chasing down ridiculous online ideas.' He remains the kind of sole proprietor who's happier to save money on the Web than make it, and professes contentment with Rolling Stone's Web deal. That opinion is not widely shared by company executives...."

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:10:47 -0800

From TechCrunch, April 12, 2007, Rolling Stone Says They'll Launch Social Network:

The best place to tell secrets may not be while speaking to a room full of journalism students at New York University. But that's how Keith Blanchard, Wenner Media's executive director for online media for Rolling Stone and other magazines, released the news that they plan to launch a MySpace-style social network around the Rolling Stone brand. Andrea Feczko, one of the students in the class, saw her chance to break a story and promptly did so. Her professor, Patrick Phillips, then emailed a bunch of major bloggers with the news. Feczko says the social network will be separate from the main Rolling Stone website, and will include "best of" lists with user voting. There may be one problem, though. The Rolling Stone audience may be too old to get into the social networking scene. Feczko says only one person in her class actually admitted that they ever read the magazine.

According to the post's comments, Rolling Stone won't gather much moss with this late-to-market concept.

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:43:18 -0800

Images:

Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone, 1967 [via]. Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone, 2007 [via].

It's the HDTV age, gentlemen. Time to rock.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:49:24 -0800

The Rolling Stone list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. list of celebrities who have appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine...Its May 18, 2006 issue marked Rolling Stone's 1000th issue. First cover with John Lennon, November 9th 1967

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 16:54:42 -0800

Heh. I remember roach clips.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:04:05 -0800

Rolling Stone is crap. Everyone knows that music journalism begins and ends with The Pit.

By: cazoo

cazoo — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:56:30 -0800

While we're all bashing Rolling Stone, I have to say that Creem magazine was my favorite of all the rock magazines. While Rolling Stone glossed over punk in the 70's, Creem embraced it. And their logo was created by Robert Crumb!

By: hellslinger

hellslinger — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 17:59:09 -0800

Rolling Stone was and still is the worst music journalism on the face of the planet. Every other page is a huge advertisement for something that has little or nothing to do with music and the others consist of bitter talentless hacks pontificating about art they couldn't produce if their lives depended on it. It has become a dynasty of shit. Rolling Stone was the precursor to MTV; it started out as music journalism and then expanded into a non-musical self-assumed culture-breadline when in actuality it is a diarrhea firehose trying to push products instead of music. They sold out and embody and proliferate everything that is unoriginal and superficial about the music industry. They think that they are the source of what is cool and hip but they don't really seem to know or care that the only people who read it are people who like the scene for the cool or sex appeal rather than music or the reasons why the scene became cool.

By: brain cloud

brain cloud — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:34:57 -0800

About five or six years ago, maybe more, I was idly watching one of those lameass shows that NBC puts on after Conan during the week. (No, not Carson Daly -- it was whoever succeeded him in that timeslot, so we're talking the bottom of the talent barrel here, folks.) One night their choice for a hip, timely interview was none other than Jan Wenner, who struck me immediately as a world class tool. One of the interviewer's softball questions to him was, who is his favorite current musician or band? Now, keep in mind, this is somewhere on or after the year 2000. Mr Wenner, the publisher of a storied magazine that obstensibly covers acts making music today, (though that is up for debate), should have not had any trouble naming one or even two of the many, many bands that had made music since, say, 1995 at least. His answer? "Chuck Berry." Swear to god folks. Not making that up. His favorite current musician, at least as of 2000 or so, was none other than Chuck fucking Berry. If that doesn't say everything you need to know about Rolling Stone magazine, I don't know what else does.

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:53:22 -0800

Metafilter: bitter talentless hacks pontificating about art they couldn't produce if their lives depended on it

By: Kinbote

Kinbote — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 18:56:16 -0800

Lester Bangs: "I was never on the staff at Rolling Stone. I freelanced for them from that point, which was like March of 1969, until about '73, I guess, when Jann Wenner threw me out for being, quote, "Disrespectful to musicians," end quote. I wrote a review of Canned Heat, an album called New Age, that said, "Why do we love Canned Heat? Let us count the ways. We love them because they did the longest boogie ever put on record. We love them because..." I mean it was making fun of them. I guess you're not supposed to do that. Well, obviously not in that magazine... I knew it was a piece of shit. The reviews I did for them really stuck out like sore thumbs. And I never did get along with Jann, because he really likes the suck-up type of writing. He doesn't like people that are stylists unless it's somebody he wants to suck up to himself, like Norman Mailer or Truman Capote or someone like that."

By: Kinbote

Kinbote — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:01:04 -0800

Bitter talentless hacks pontificating about art they couldn't produce if their lives depended on it See above for a more valid perspective, I guess.

By: brain cloud

brain cloud — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:06:46 -0800

And I never did get along with Jann, because he really likes the suck-up type of writing. He doesn't like people that are stylists unless it's somebody he wants to suck up to himself, like Norman Mailer or Truman Capote or someone like that. And therein lies the key to teh suck of RS, I think. If you can't have fun while writing about music, something's fucking wrong with you. I mean that sincerely. The only music-related journalism I had any faith in was written in 1980's Britain, because at least they could crack a damn joke once and again.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:51:31 -0800

Man, when I see something taking a drubbing like RS is here, I wanna defend it. But I haven't bought a copy in years. I'd even buy Spin prior.

By: Peter H

Peter H — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:07:18 -0800

I think the greater argument is that Rolling Stone has sucked since HST left it, and not the other way around.

By: rfs

rfs — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:09:38 -0800

Their 2 record review paperbacks I bought in the mid 70's were worth reading, but I didn't like how they trashed the Stooges. I haven't read RS since the 70's, and I agree with cazoo that Creem was the best - I still have my Boy Howdy! tee shirt. Trouser Press was pretty good, too.

By: Ber

Ber — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:11:29 -0800

Rolling Stone went into the tank by the time of Zeppelin's reign if I recall (and I do, cuz I'm old). Their critics were still enamored with the 60s icons like Dylan and the Beatles, the San Francisco scene, CSN, etc. Most of their staff were journalism majors would couldn't read a note of music let alone evaluate it but could pontificate for paragraphs on lyrical content. And so when the 60s imploded and hard rock, art rock, glam rock, metal all took over - they were ill-equipped to take evaluate it and hated it all, especially Wenner. Hence the feud with Zeppelin and ever other band that the teens of the early 70s listened to. Which is why magazines like Creem and Circus flourished because they understood Zep, Aerosmith, Yes, Sabbath, Mott the Hoople, etc. RS panned 'em all and was frustrated that these bands succeeded despite them.

By: Ber

Ber — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:14:50 -0800

As for Mendelsohn, his distate for Zeppelin endures, and he too wears it like a badge of honor. "I discovered YouTube in the last months and I've been watching a bunch of videos by old bands," he says. "I was relieved to discover that I felt the exact same way about them I did when I was twenty-one. I like melody, wit, vocal harmony and expressiveness, all of which are lacking from Led Zeppelin. It's all just showing off." He just discovered YouTube in the last months. That's Mendelsohn, as out of touch as he ever was.

By: cenoxo

cenoxo — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 20:37:39 -0800

...pontificating about art... RS is not about art. Like any slick fashion rag, it's about gathering an audience and selling them to advertisers. It's all about the money, boys.

By: Senor Cardgage

Senor Cardgage — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:14:03 -0800

Jann WEINER. Get it? Get it?

By: Poolio

Poolio — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:27:52 -0800

Since the "Rolling Stones" link in the FPP is broken... Sympathy for the Devil (live at the Rock & Roll Circus in 1968)

By: emf

emf — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:33:32 -0800

I gave up RS for Sounds, the brilliant UK mag, sometime in the 80s. Here's some Roscoe Moscow for you.

By: blucevalo

blucevalo — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:37:26 -0800

Did Rolling Stone (after circa 1977) ever understand anything that wasn't corporate rock? Sure, they published some adulatory reviews of some of the most important albums of the last 30 years ..... 10 or 15 years after the albums were originally released.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:37:44 -0800

On the subject of music magazines, I heartily recommend Wax Poetics.

By: padraigin

padraigin — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:54:47 -0800

blah blah blah blah mojo blah blah.

By: Ian A.T.

Ian A.T. — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 01:08:51 -0800

I know that today it just seems normal that there's a magazine called "Rolling Stone," but back in 1967, wasn't it odd that the magazine shared a name with the second biggest band in the world? It would be like if I started a music magazine today and called it Radiohead. I don't even mean from a copyright issue so much as a common sense problem of having to explain again and again that your magazine isn't a Rolling Stones fanzine. Just a really curious decision on Wenner's part.

By: psmealey

psmealey — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 04:49:33 -0800

I think I bought the Cobain suicide issue (which was rife with errors and general cluelessness even then), but I don't recall ever buying another issue. It was always, in my view, a tired Baby Boomer (of which I am not a member) staple, until it morphed into a ridiculous mainstream pop rag. Neither of those things were remotely interesting to me. I spend my teen years reading Creem and Circus, moved to Spin for a bit later, then to MaximumRocknroll, BAM, and "'zines" and the Rocket (for whom I worked for a bit). True story: I took a job managing web operations for a prominent publishing company in 2000. When the CEO met me, he tried to establish his hipster bona fides with me by saying that he and Jann Wenner had worked together back in the day. I didn't say it, but I am pretty sure I gave him the "aw, dude, Rolling Stone sucks, man" facial expression/body language. He never brought it up again. The comments on this thread have been awesome. I never could quite put my finger on why RSM sucked so much, but now I never have to wonder again. To me, it was always the work of Mr. Ben Fong-Torres that embodied the magazine to me. That guy's taste in music and his writing can only be described as beige. Not tan, not taupe, but beige. Bland and oppressive beige.

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 08:46:52 -0800

At the time, Rolling Stone was an important magazine that discussed contemporary music with a focus on rock and roll, politics and society. It was the first magazine that went mainstream to seriously discuss rock and roll, which was unheard of way back then. Its existence stated that even though people were young, they carried political and societal clout. That had never been done on such a popular scale before. It was innovative and, as society has changed since the 60's, it's quite accepted that, of course, youth have societal power, rock and roll is here to stay in whatever form it has morphed and regenerated. And now, there is a whole new style of music/political/social critique...more online in the form of blogs...a rolling stone gathers no moss. If the Rolling Stone were to stay relevant, in the spirit in which they began, they would focus less on the moss behind them.

By: kalimotxero

kalimotxero — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 10:10:17 -0800

Rolling Stone always struck me as music journalism for people who don't like music. Or journalism.