Tell me why RollingStone sucks

[emdasher]

I am not out to defend RollingStone, it's just that every complaint I hear about how terrible it is seems to have more to do with personal opinions of the present state of pop culture than with journalistic aptitude of any sort. It's either the "look who they put on the cover" argument or the "how could they give a Britney Spears album three stars" argument.

As best I can tell, the people whining to me about RollingStone want it to be a magazine that ignores the aspects of pop culture that don't appeal to them.

For my part, I've always appreciated that the magazine has an extremely wide appeal. And--I'll say it--I actually like their reviews section. I consider their music reviews a reliable alternative to inflated, sensationalistic reviews from music websites desperate to break the next big band and eager to shit on whatever it deems this week's pariah. It doesn't bother me that RollingStone gives positive reviews to artists whose albums I would never buy anyway--I find that they're usually on-target with the bands I do care about.

Granted, I usually don't read the feature articles. And I am aware of the general jackass-ery of all those involved. But I'm at a loss to find a resource that casts as big a net over every corner of pop culture as RollingStone does.

(I'm a little young to remember the "glory days" of RollingStone, so it's possible that present-day RS hate has more to do with the magazine's history than I am aware of. Still, every rant I hear against RS seems to incorporate one of the arguments I mentioned above.)

[<<<<<]

Been a long time since I thought about it.  I certainly don't dislike the magazine.  They cover what they cover, college radio is college radio, the underground is underground, all is fine in the world as far as I'm concerned.  The niches not filled in by RS are filled in by other publications often enough.

[Andy]

Too much politics and they absolutely TRASH anyone who is not Obama. They wrote more vile shit about Hillary than any other publications I've read.

[erika]

They put Shakira on the "Women of Rock" cover one month.

[dave from knoxville]

When I loved it, in the early 70's, there were just as many teeny-bopper trash bands as there are now, but the magazine didn't feel an obligation to put every one of them on the cover.

I think the problem can be summarized really simply; when it was good, it was about a robust combination of music and politics; now it's about serving as an adjunct to the marketing wing of the Disney channel.

[dave from knoxville]

Or:

Then, it was about Jann Wenner and company sticking it to the man.

Now, it's about Jann Wenner and company sticking it into his portfolio.

[Gilly]

It's still better than Spin.

[yesno]

I wish there were more shows like Sound Opinions where you can actually hear the music.  But with better music.  I can't stand music magazines anymore for that reason.

[Andy]

sound opinions is great, but they make some weird decisions about what to spin.  i've found out about the best and worst music via that podcast.

[AllisonLeGnome]

It's still better than Spin.

That's hardly a great achievement.

[dave from knoxville]

Maybe it's the easy way out, but I think All Songs Considered does a pretty good job, unless you only want to hear angry buzzing music.

[yesno]

With music I basically just "procure" what makes people's top whatever lists nowadays.  And I make a note of good tracks I hear on FMU for later procurement.

I was on the mp3 blog kick for a while, but I just ended up with a bunch of decontextualized tracks; to really get to know a band I need the whole album.  Peel.app is awesome though.

When something is good I will actually fork out cash money on amazon mp3 or for a cd which I rip.

Which is a long way of saying that magazines like RS serve basically no purpose anymore.

[Shaggy 2 Grote]

I agree that it's mostly a problem with the general direction of pop culture, but I'd also say that it's emblematic of problems with the baby boomers generally (I know I'm generalizing here). 

I'm not naive, I know that RS was always a moneymaking exercise, and there was no "golden age."  But in the 60s and 70s it seemed as if they took their jobs as cultural arbiters seriously and were writing about cool and interesting people (bloated, self-important hippie-ness notwithstanding).  Now it just seems like a naked commercial enterprise, but still with all of the pretentiousness intact.  I can agree or disagree with whether or not someone likes The Decemberists or something, but there's no reason to put, say, Christina Aguilera on the cover except to sell copies, or to be an organ of the music business.

I actually like the political reporting much better than the music reporting, though.  Matt Taibbi is full of shit sometimes (but he's massively entertaining), and the Obama sycophancy is a little embarrassing.  But there's usually one really solid piece of investigative journalism per issue.

I would never read the thing except that I got a subscription with some concert tickets and I can't figure out how to make it stop.  I don't think I'm even paying for it anymore.

Fun fact: about a decade ago I cater-waitered a party at Jann Wenner's house where everyone was famous.  I got drunk in the kitchen with a co-worker and got yelled at by Wenner for misidentifying one of the guests as Bianca Jagger.  He's obscenely rich and has a whole bunch of Picassos.  Art Garfunkel smoked pot in a guest bedroom and make a funny joke when I walked in on him, Senator Chuck Schumer has a pregnancy belly, and Harrison Ford is just like his character in Regarding Henry.  I considered calling in about this during the celebrity sightings show.

[Beth]

Maybe it's the easy way out, but I think All Songs Considered does a pretty good job, unless you only want to hear angry buzzing music.

I don't know. That guy likes EVERYTHING on the college music charts, good or bad. Plus, he's the most awkward interviewer I've ever heard. His interview with Joanna Newsom made me feel like I was on a date with my dad, or something.

[jamesp]

I don't mind the politics (although I'm not a Matt Taibbi fan). My problems are that they focus on teenage pop culture trends instead of rock. I've been disappointed that in the past year, they've done cover stories on The Hills, The Jonas Brothers, and Zach Efron. At least they finally canned Rob Sheffield (the poor man's Chuck Klosterman).