The very notion of a "music magazine" is quickly becoming outdated, as is found simply by perusing through the articles and features through most of the print I purchase regularly. Compare it to other, older magazines, like the British NME and you will find that the Rolling Stone falls down in coverage simply because there is an overabundance of non-music advertisements. Even other contemporary magazines, like Blender, manage to advertise the actual music, while both sell the digital devices that are quickly becoming the mediums of music transferal.
If championing the music is the goal, which presumably it is, Rolling Stone has never seemed far from what we call "mainstream," so it hardly has the capacity to introduce new bands and compete with the growth of online services like Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s YouTube or News Corporation (NYSE: NWS)'s MySpace. Even other magazines quickly champion lesser known bands into mass-popularity. Consider NME, the magazine was a massive supporter of the Arctic Monkeys and they quickly became more popular than they had been, even with the online support. With the weekly issue NME prints, the publisher keeps a more up-to-date and consistent online news service, signaling that the move online is not contained to artists.
I hate to "bash" Rolling Stone while they celebrate their fortieth anniversary, but what is the point of the magazine anymore other than to celebrate itself basically and not the music inside. Thinking about the various images of the magazine in those 40 years, I am reminded of the first newspaper styled issue with John Lennon in his film regalia from 1967's How I Won the War. And then I am reminded of the cover from a few years ago with Jessica Simpson in a tank top and panties with a vacuum promoting her Newlyweds MTV television show. The stark difference in these images should be obvious and very nicely illustrates how banal the magazine and the culture it presents have become in those forty years.
Selling products and advertising easily make the production of the magazine cheaper, but for the consumer, where should we draw the line? Yes, Rolling Stone still features political commentary akin to the irony of John Lennon in an Army uniform, but it is surprising that a magazine that has been there since pop music was being defined and redefined radically would have shifted so much in its format and presentation. We all know how prominent and profitable sex has become in those years, but unlike the political commentary it won't make or let you think (I think). Of course, lamenting the fact that sex has taken over the industry (music, pop culture, all of it) omits the fact that John Lennon and The Beatles helped bring sex into the mainstream and made it less controversial (as compared to their contemporaries).
Celebrating the forty years Rolling Stone has been in the music and pop culture business is nice, but we need to think about where the magazine has been and what it means in today's market. In all of its lengthy advertisements, truly the only musical portion of the magazine is the album reviews. The anniversary issue provides nice interviews reflecting the past forty years, but even the insight of the individuals included point to the banality of the culture and the market today. Can a magazine that started in the sixties and still celebrates many of the stars of that time connect with a reader centered in the digital world? More importantly, will that reader buy music because of the magazine and commit growth to the record industry as it fights against its own digital growth?
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