What is Rolling Stone's Problem

[Shikedants]

Did Rolling Stone and Yes have some kind of falling out or is there a lawsuit pending or something? I can't figure out why they constantly ignore the band. Today on their website, they have "The Ultimate Summer Tour Guide". Everyone is mentioned but Yes.

I am convinced that they will let the greatest album cover poll fade away without any mention of who won. Does Yes' publicist not have good contacts at RS, or should that even matter?

If I've overlooked something, someone grab me in the PNC parking lot and say "Steve, your wrong, this is the real story about RS and Yes". But sometimes I think about all my Yes albums, all my ticket stubs, the packed houses at all the shows I've been to and I wonder if I'm dreaming. (sorry to vent on you all, but I've had it with Rolling Stone - and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)

[groovecake]

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/06/28/rollingstone/index.html

Don't hold your breath for any Yes features.

[gt76yesman]

I only got an advertisement when I went to that link.

I think that magazine has run it's course.

[illusion]

Well Melody Maker (the mag that voted Yes the best band in the world in 1973) shut down recently.

Luckily as I'm British I don't have to go anywhere near a RS issue.

[smatt]

I've really never cared for the mag. myself. They've always hated Yes. They've probably done 10 articles on the band in 30 years and 9 1/2 of them were negative. I've never bought one, and never plan to.



Matt

[YesNY]

I skimmed this issue at the newstand. Nothing about the upcoming Yes tour was mentioned. There was a passing mention of Yes in a sidebar or caption. I don't remember the exact context, but I do remember it was something extremely brief barely worth noting.

Rolling Stone is teeny-bopper junk and rock-elitist trash at the very same time. I haven't bought an issue in fifthteen or twenty years-- and, in retrospect, I was just waisting my money then.

[InverYes]

gt 76yesman, here's the text from that link.





The death of Rolling Stone
The magazine that invented rock journalism lost its reason to exist years ago. Now, with a British lad-mag editor taking the helm, it's time to pull the plug.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Sean Elder



June 28, 2002 | When Jann Wenner finally announced a few weeks ago that he had hired the British editor of a laddie mag to be the new managing editor of Rolling Stone, media critics heralded it as a sea change in American publishing. "The U.S. music industry bible is about to be re-written," brayed the Guardian, a left-leaning British daily, "and its purist followers already sense the whiff of betrayal."

The Moonie-owned Washington Times, ever ready to re-fight the culture wars of the '60s, painted the hiring of FHM editor Ed Needham as a potentially good thing, one that might sound a death knell to the writings of Hunter S. Thompson and his imitators: "It's probably too much to expect a change in the sort of drug-boosterism that inspires pot-friendly travel tips, non-judgmental post-mortems on overdosed rockers, and hysterical posturings against the drug wars." The Los Angeles Times was downright nasty. "Shove over, you middle-aged boys, with your Bics burning at Bruce Springsteen concerts, your thinning hair, your love of 6,000-word dispatches from Tom Wolfe and other gonzo authors," read the lead. "It's not about you anymore."


But for all the Chicken Little clucking (caused in part by Needham's own remarks of the who-has-time-to-read variety), there is no immediate evidence that the old guard is up in arms. As with the tennis-playing mimes at the end of Antonioni's "Blow Up" -- to really date myself -- there is no ball in the air. That movie is best remembered by rock cognoscenti for the nightclub scene: The Yardbirds are on stage performing "Train Kept A-Rolling" when Jeff Beck's guitar starts to distort. He smashes the neck into an amplifier, breaks it off and tosses it into the crowd, at which point a scrum breaks out. The hero (played by David Hemmings) fights for the guitar neck and, having secured the prize, walks outside and tosses it in the trash.

Which may be how those boomers mocked by media mavens feel about the magazine. It has been a shadow of its former self for so long that most of us have forgotten what its former self looked like. While most of the press reaction to Wenner's choice of editor -- which came after months of speculation and supposed soul-searching on his part -- referred to "long investigative" pieces, not many were mentioned by name. (T.D. Allman's long dispatch from Colombia, the second half of which appears in the July 4 issue, represents the last vestiges of that tradition.)

Mick Jagger, in Salon's new feature, 'Masterpiece' presented by Lexus

The sui generis writings of Thompson and P.J. O'Rourke are seldom seen in the magazine's pages now, and even those seem like pale imitations of the original. The truth is that Rolling Stone has been such an undistinguished hybrid -- part '70s-style journalism (investigative reporting, distinct voices and rambling interviews), and part any other entertainment magazine you can name -- for so long that most of its subscribers are probably unaware that they still get it. Why upset them by sending some tricked-up men's mag with the classic Rolling Stone logo emblazoned on the top?

It's demographically impossible to please both 49-year-old rock fans and the walking boners who buy FHM (or more to the point, Blender, the Maxim-derived music mag that got Wenner trembling in the first place), so why try? Rather than reintroduce the magazine with a new facelift, guaranteed to be as warmly received as Greta Van Susteren's, why not do something altogether more radical? Why not shut the mother down?

It may seem like an insane idea on the face of it. Any magazine with a million-plus circulation (compared to Spin's 525,000 and Blender's 350,000-and-growing) is sitting pretty in today's down market. It was Rolling Stone's declining newsstand sales that moved Wenner to fire managing editor Robert Love, a 20-year veteran of the magazine (Wenner lists himself as publisher and editor, while the managing editor actually puts out the magazine), and it is newsstand savvy that British editors are believed to possess. (New M.E. Needham has actually been in the U.S. three years now, and his FHM is as Americanized as an afternoon of MTV and about as thought-provoking.)

Indeed, it was the whirring caused by Blender's newsstand sales that put Wenner in motion in the first place. With only seven issues under its belt, Dennis Publications' foray into the rock biz -- which bills itself "The Ultimate Music Magazine" -- is leaping off the shelves. Its magic-bean numbers are reminiscent of the advent of its cousin Maxim (whose seeming overnight success turned nearly every men's magazine in the country into a frat party a few years ago) and the effect on the competition has been just as pronounced.

Next page | Needham: "It's not the end of Rolling Stone as you know it." No, because that happened already

[RobAdams]

ROLLING STONE is my favorite magazine - for killing bees with. It's not useful for much else.


"I have no time for Time Magazine - or Rolling Stone"
from BAKER STREET MUSE by Ian Anderson

[Squire*Fan725]

The only time I bought a copy was when they released the tribute issue to George Harrison shortly after his passing, and I have'nt wasted another dime on their other trash, since...

[Gustavo]

The magazine is so tired. I hardly ever agreed with their reviews. They never really talk about music. It seemed I was reading people magazine with a bit of music-related news thrown in. Not worth the paper its printed on.

[illusion]

Your all going to love this. Roger Taylor's (Queen) letter to Rolling Stone. RS called Queen the first facist rock band.

[RobAdams]

Thanks for posting that Illusion. Roger Taylor seems to hit the nail on the head there. I'm assuming the letter is from at least 20 years ago. ROLLING STONE is even worse now. It's like having MTV and VH1 on paper. They've become everything they once stood against in the beginning.

[illusion]

Queen were really big in South America in the early 80's, so probably around then. I'd guess 1985, I believe that was the year they played Rock In Rio. And I don't like the album "Jazz", but this review is a bit over the top http://www.rollingstone.com/recordings/review.asp?aid=26459&cf=1132

VH1 over here has gone crap. It boasts that it's "Music TV that's not for kids" - yet it has a Top 40 Sexy Women/Men! And plays the MTV crap too. They abolished the So 80's and 90's, which were actually good programmes.

Over here we also have six channels were you control what videos they play, from a list of about 60/70.

THE BOX plays the standard MTV crap.
KISS plays rap, garage and dance.
SMASH HITS plays Westlife, Britney and NSYNC.
MAGIC is the housewifes channel.
Q used to play a variety of classic rock, modern indie and metal, but has abadoned the classic rock and added garage and pop.
KERRANG! plays metal and punk.

I actually emailed Q TV to ask them about adding progressive rock, and the replied and declined.

VH1 CLASSIC ROCK is the only channel I listen to. It's only available after 9PM though. But it does play some good stuff, including Yes occasionaly. Lots of Floyd and Zep are played, but they play a LOT of crap too.

[yesskater]

Wow, I thought I was the only person who would use Rolling Stone artcles as lavatory items, rolling papers or other suitable purposes.
My opinion on the magazine, never high to begin with due to their continual slogging of YES, Rush, Genesis etc. (but for some reason they LOVED Pink Floyd - go figure), hit rock bottom when they became excessive political in the 80s and 90s. And because they were initially based in San Francisco, local bands like the Dead and Jefferson Airplane received disproportionate coverage.

Best music media? YESFANS.com.

[smatt]

That's scan of the Taylor letter was great. It's Rolling Stone allthe way. I've never liked their coverage and *crap*. I've never bought an issue and never will. This just validates my opinion of them a little more!