Remember that adorable teen from “Almost Famous,” who dreamed of writing cuting-edge rock articles for Rolling Stone? No way. Not now, anyway. Once an edgy herald of music and rebellion, Rolling Stone has lurched gracelessly into its old age, filled with a mess of stars du jour and frenetic MTV coverage.
Rolling Stone keeps an eye on the music industry — scandals, controversies, concert coverage and reviews of the latest albums. They cover quite a bit of movie stuff as well, interviewing/covering directors like Peter Jackson and Quentin Tarantino, as well as (always attractive and usually young) actors. And there’s also political commentary, stubbornly one-sided and lacking in subtlety and brains.
Long ago, Rolling Stone was a force to be reckoned with. But now it’s the magazine equivalent of a paunchy, wrinkled guy who buys a toupee and sports car, in a futile attempt to convince the world that he’s still young and cool. Newer, wittier, more musically interesting magazines like Filter, Under the Radar and the online Kludge have slipped into the place that Rolling Stone once occupied.
It certainly doesn’t help that Rolling Stone is having an ongoing personality crisis. Is it a music mag? A political mag? A movie mag? It tries to be all three, and succeeds at none. Their politics is ridiculously one-sided, lacking any complexity. And the music coverage is too mainstream to be terribly interesting. Yes, some of the bands covered — like the White Stripes — are good. But up-and-coming bands, not to mention most of the rich indie music scene, are left to languish in the shadows.
Certainly Rolling Stone can’t be commended for many of their choices — it was a welcome relief when they put rock great Jimi Hendrix on the cover. But every cover of Jimi or the Beatles is outweighed by shirtless pictures of Timberlake or Usher, or naked pictures of Britney or Christina. Even the ones wearing clothes (like wannabe-rebel Avril) seem to be appealing to fetishes. Yep, many of the covers are eye-catching mainly for the skin factor.
Even those things might be acceptable, were the writing good. But save a handful of insightful movie reviews, the writing comes across as strained and painful. Attempts at wit and jokes fall flat. And some of the “human interest” stories border on revoltingly tasteless.
Creaking and covered in dust, boomer mag “Rolling Stone” passed its prime long ago. Let the gossip and pop coverage rest. Instead, check out mags like Filter, Kludge and Under the Radar, with their rich music coverage and insightful writing. (E. A Solinas “ea_solinas” – MD USA)

Two years ago, Rolling Stone and MTV teamed up to create a list of the “top 100 pop songs of all time.” According to that list, the number 10 song OF ALL TIME is, I kid you not, “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys. It was then that I started to suspect the once-great Rolling Stone was losing it.
In 1967, Rolling Stone started with a simple idea: a “real” music magazine to counteract trendy teenage fluff like “Tiger Beat.” As the years wore on, they stayed true to their mission despite the inroads of disco and the MTV pretty boys of the ’80s. Sure, artists like Duran Duran appeared on a few covers, but on the whole Rolling Stone worked hard to maintain its credibility, giving much-needed exposure to then-cutting-edge acts like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, U2 and Nirvana.
Then, through a series of mergers and acquisitions, Rolling Stone eventually became part of the Vivendi Universal empire. Soon, pressure to increase circulation and “appeal to a younger audience” escalated. The people at Vivendi, a French water company that knows nothing about entertainment, seem to think “a younger audience” doesn’t want to read anything about artists they’ve never heard of. In fact, “a younger audience” probably doesn’t want to read at all; they just want to see a sexy pinup photo of Britney’s boobs or Justin’s pecs, whatever you prefer.
Now here’s where I lost my last shred of respect for RS: All those Britney/boy band covers and the MTV Top 100 fiasco were bad enough, but what gave them the nerve to put CLAY AIKEN on the cover?! Any magazine with a reality-show contestant on its cover instantly loses all “music” credibility. They might as well hold their own “American Idol”-style contest to pick their next cover boy/girl. (You can see where that kind of strategy has gotten Vivendi; now they’re desperate to sell off their entertainment assets so they can get back to what they know best, preventing cholera and dysentery among the French.)
In its heyday, Rolling Stone was a rallying point for those who truly appreciate great music. Today it’s a glorified pinup fanzine with slightly better writing and production values than “Tiger Beat.” Come on, Clay Aiken on the cover? Imagine the Rolling Stone of 1967 with an Ohio Express cover. (Ben Collins – Ventura, CA United States)

Despite the gluey name, Paste Magazine is a satisfactory music mag that focuses on the chords, not the bods. They have a pleasantly even, serene outlook, covering good band/singers from Loretta Lynn to Guided by Voices to Grandaddy, although it’s somewhat hampered by bland writing.
Paste covers a wide range of music, including jazz, country, folk, rock, and a few dashes of alternate pop (like Eisley and the Polyphonic Spree). A lot of their smaller articles are rather bland and shallow. But the longer interviews are more in-depth, asking intelligent questions to people like Damien Rice and Jack White.
Paste also includes concert reviews, cinema studies and movie reviews; these also tend to be deeper than the small music articles. DVDs and books are reviewed as well as music, even including a translation of Dante’s “Inferno” in one issue. Perhaps the most impressive is a CD tucked into every copy of Paste, with an array of selected songs by various bonds they’ve reported on.
Don’t expect MTV-ized coverage and nalf-nude pop stars — the best word to describe Paste is “wholesome.” It’s best appreciated when sitting at a coffee shop, studying the assorted artists that you’ve probably never heard of. It doesn’t have much edge, although it verges on it at times with its reviews (such as Chun Sue’s too-hot-for-China-to-handle “Beijing Doll”).
The writing doesn’t tend to be too great. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t make you sit up and take notice. The articlettes feel a little too strained; the reviews, by comparison, are quite relaxed. While they have articles on well-known artists like Norah Jones, Dave Matthews and Wilco, they also have bands which are not so well known like Earlimart. And though it has a rather American-music slant, it keeps tabs on bands like Starsailor and Elbow.
Paste has some writing wrinkles to be ironed out before it can be a really, really good magazine. But this earnest music mag has quite a bit to offer to a serious music fan. (E. A Solinas “ea_solinas” – MD USA)

I bumped into paste magazine when browsing through Borders looking for something other than the usual pop-peddling tat found on the UK newsstands today. The cover (for issue 5) grabbed my attention – Joe Henry, Emmylou Harris, Guided By Voices – people already populating my music collection. Great, I thought, at last a magazine that fits my tastes. This should be a good read.
So I bought it, sat down with a large cup of joe & started reading. I couldn’t put it down! As well, as the artists above, there were articles on people I’d never heard of; articles on people I’d always wanted to hear something by, but never gotten around to; and articles on artists that made me want to go out & buy their music there & then. The copy I picked up didn’t have a sampler CD (someone had nabbed it from the inside before I got there!), but it made me want to read more by these guys.
I’ve since subscribed and find paste to provide wide-ranging content, not particularly genre-based (but if you were really into pigeonholing I’d probably say they covered Americana singer-songwriter artists most of all), and not always favourable. This is not a sycophantic bow to all things underground & trendy (as someone else mentioned, they know when to put a megastar on the cover), neither is it afraid to shout about music it loves from the proverbial rooftops. They’ve even gone so far as to set up their own label.
The sampler CD is a revelation as they cram it full of artists covered in that particular issue and as another reviewer wrote you will spend a lot of money trying to track down the individual CDs discussed within the magazine.
In short, this is great writing about great music, with no preconceived ideas about what great music is. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in music & culture today. (Paul Wade – Gravesend, Kent, UK)