And of course the true crime no one wants to discuss is the airbrushing.
When I was a child, about a month after John Lennon was murdered (almost live on TV, I was watching football with my parents when it was announced), Rolling Stone Magazine published an issue with John Lennon, naked, cuddling with his avant garde artiste wife, Yoko Ono. I was too young to know anything about art, but I knew who the Beatles were, and I knew John Lennon was the frontman of the group. I didn’t know much more than that, other than it was this great tragedy that he had died. As the decade whipped by, I noticed more and more this huge tabloid size magazine and when I was in Journalism class my Freshman year, my Newspaper Advisor bought me a year subscription because he asked me if I had my choice, which one would it be? I wrote every music review for my school newspaper the last three years I was there, and Peter Travers helped me write them.
Rolling Stone was known for doing stupid shit along side thier above par music journalism. As I learned how to play guitar as a twelve year old, their decade long bashing of Led Zeppelin was infamous. Their first four albums did not get anything close to what you would call good reviews. Every issue, I would shake my head at some bullshit assessment of Frank Zappa, or read what I assumed to be racially biased material as the white world pondered the threat of hip hop. During the 90’s, when touring seemed to reach a zenith in the States, there was a shocking lack of coverage of the Dave Matthews Band, which was known for tearing up the circuit and allowing anyone with a 3.5 patch cord to jack into their board and record. The biggest thing that would make me hold my nose though, was the politics. Given it was originally a magazine born out of the San Francisco ‘Summer of Love,’ it goes without saying that it was a liberal rag, and they would be proud of that. None of this bothered me. I expected a publication that covered pop and rock music to be way left of center, and a tad bit more for me since I was on the right. It was part of the experience. Every once in a while you got tired of the idea that Reagan was just as bad as Nixon and roll your eyes. You got over it. There was no sense in getting upset at every slight you read since it was filled with bias. Their covers were the biggest target, though most of the time, I couldn’t tell you what for. The Red Hot Chili Peppers had socks over their dicks in ‘92, and Janet Jackson had someone hold her tits in ‘93. This was nothing new, and it rarely bothered me. John and Yoko were nude on the cover in one of their first issues, and Charles Manson, a would-be singer that has a song credit with the Beach Boys, was featured during his trial in 1969. Jar-Jar pissed a lot of people off, but that neither the near childporn like image of Alica Silverstone, or the inlay ‘spread’ of her sent me over the edge.
But every once in a while, Rolling Stone would piss me off. The first time Marilyn Manson was on the cover, it was paired with an article in which he joked about pedophilia. I didn’t care to write a diatribe to the editor. I just cancelled my subscription. If they had just left that part of the interview out, it would have been fine. I didn’t think it was appropriate given the reading base of Rolling Stone was more than likely exposed to child abuse to some degree. If I were a survivor, that would upset me. A few years went by. I resubscribed. That went on until about a month before the Second Gulf War. Rolling Stone had decided, in some process of thought, to give Tom Morello a page on the Bush Administration and their push to invade Iraq. I expected Rolling Stone to be against the invasion. In fact, I expect Rolling Stone to be against PEPFAR as long as it is attached to the name of George W. Bush. The same goes for Tom Morello. It doesn’t bother me that he is a Marxist. It doesn’t bother me that he was wrong. What I did not expect was for Morello, a man much more highly educated than his background with Rage Against the Machine would suggest, to lie so frequently in an opinion piece that Rolling Stone had presented as fact. It was actually quite shocking. I made a transparency of the single page diatribe, put it on the overhead, and offered ten extra credit points to any student who proved anything wrong in Morello’s article, per infraction. I had to hand out so much extra credit, I knew it was the last time I would do that exercise. It didn’t bother me that Morello described the Bush Administration as “the Enron Presidency” or characterized the ruling ‘regime’ as a group of people wringing their hands together in blood. What was amazing was a long list of stunning inaccurate facts which apparently Rolling Stone, under the auspices of op-ed protections, thought was okay. Just one that I will share was Morello claiming that the Second Gulf War was the first war the United States was involved in which an anti-war protest movement started before the war. This was so false as to be completely laughable. I actually felt bad for Morello when I read it. That would be news to Charles Lindbergh, who led a pro-Germany, pro-Fascist, anti-Semetic, anti-war group called the America First Committee that for three years tried like hell to stop Roosevelt from lifting a finger to help Brits fight off Nazis. You’d think Morello, an avowed Communist, would know something like that. Every single war in American history has had an anti-war movement before the war occured. If you want to get ‘technical,’ half the population of the colonies were loyalists, and wanted no part of a war with Britain - just read anything by Gordon Wood to fact check that. The Mexican American War was seen, before it started, as an out and out land grab and close to a racial genocide, and that was what officers in the army like Ulysees S. Grant wrote when they sent letters to their wives. Most emphatic of all, and most insulting of all, was the denial that the Vietnam War did not have a huge movement trying to stop the war well before the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. I bet Morello’s article was HUGE news to Mario Savio and the Students for a Democratic Society at Berkeley - not in 1965, but in 1964, and 1963. In this light, the article wasn’t just wrong on American History, it was insulting to its readers. I cancelled again.
Then I was a poor school teacher. Then I was a poor grad student. Then I worked in the oil patch for ten years and never had the time to subscribe to anything except my children’s attention when I could get it. When I moved to Canada in 2010, one of my direct reports was an RS nut. He had every issue going back to 1976, and even brought me several special copies to take a look at. I resubscribed, sending my wife into hysterics. Sometimes I was in Newfoundland for six weeks and would come back to see two issues that I couldn’t finish before the next one came in. I really didn’t have time for it, but the Tegan and Sara coverage was stellar north of the 49th Parrallel. But then...it happened again.
RS decided, in a fog of whatever, to put Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Bomber who murdered among several people before and during the bombing, Martin Richard, a four year old who was spectating with his father at the Marathon. The minute I saw the cover, I knew it was bad news. They made Tsarnaev to look like Jimi Hendrix, or Bono, or any number of rock stars. The image was deliberately selected and softened. Not even the cover title, which asked why a kid had been radicalized and turned into a monster, could explain why RS had chosen a murderer to put on the cover. Manson, you could argue, didn’t actually kill anybody. But Tsarnaev killed a lot of people, including a cop. Including a toddler. And RS’s excuse was… he was in the demographic of their readership. Hard hitting journalists, the staff of RS might be. They could be called the best depending on what you’re looking for. But apparently when it comes to covers they’re shit for brains. I immediately cancelled. I read the article. It explained a lot about how the nation's domestic and international policy was leading to the radicalization of youth. What it didn’t explain was how that justified making Tsarnaev a sex symbol. I wasn’t having it, and that’s fine with RS I’m sure. They don’t want me buying their rag.
The years ticked by. Occasionally I would check out the RS website. About once every 18 months, I’d swing by the library and read a copy in the mag section while my kids were looking at books or taking extra English or French lessons. I still have back issues going to the ‘80s. I have the RS Cover Book, and several hardback special editions, including a history of the 60’s and a great collection of famous photography. But for the very longest time, I couldn’t push myself to actually subscribe again. Forget it, I told myself. I quit three times, just like smoking.
But last year I saw an exciting run: Travis Scott, Jordan Peel, Willie Nelson, Halsey…with this line up I could tolerate the GOT cast getting head space in a music magazine, or worse ‘The Squad’ from Capitol Hill, a viewpoint I had no use or time for. But, I decided, I’ll take the good with the bad like I did before and give it a shot. So I did. And boom, next issue. Billie Eilish. This issue wasn’t just leading with a lady, it had a drop jaw article on how RS intended on ranking music sales in the era of streaming alongside the interesting teenager that I had never given the time of day. Cover to cover, it was gold. It’s true, I wasn’t a fan of Taydolf Switler being on the next issue given her notorious reputation in the industry which no one, including RS, seems to want to talk about. But then, boom, Lana Del Ray, Elton John. Not every issue was nearly as interesting as what I remember them to be in the 80’s or 90’s, but that’s alright. We live in a different time. Print is in danger.
But the next five issues would put my decision to the test. Every ‘news’ rag has a candidate to push, and RS decided to put Elizabeth Warren on the cover in January, whose candidacy for President did not survive until the next issue. Lizzo followed, with Megan Thee Stallion leading a trio, then an issue on Greta Thunberg which followed the media pattern of using that poor girl. I expected more judgement, really. Then the world changed, and Andrew Cuomo, another politician I can’t stand, garnered a sympathetic article only because he’s not nearly as detestable as the dickhead at 1600. It was almost six months of shit. And the ‘music’ coverage wasn’t even that good. I could stand all the bullshit politics as long as it had at least a halfway decent section on what I missed and what I should check out. And let’s face it, though I love the Weeknd, I do not think I’m in the demographic to be a Megan Thee Stallion fan. I got an email from RS saying they’d cut me a deal if I signed on. I felt strongly like passing. No, RS didn’t piss me off like they had in the past, but I could feel them warming up to a giant finger fest sometime soon. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hang on until then.
Finally, June’s cover of Bad Bunny got the issue back on track with some very good industry news of life for our nation’s musicians ‘during these trying times.’ The historic Black Lives Matter cover in July was exceptional, and only had one rage filled article aimed at the populace RS doesn’t want to take money from. Then Lil Baby. But what really did it was The Beatles in September. It’s like the editors knew a large segment of their population was on the edge of dropping them. There hadn’t been a halfway decent issue in half a year before the Black Live Matter issue. And now The Beatles. So we’re full circle. Or are we? I still have the renewal card from the last issue on my desk. I’m thinking of biting the bullet for another twelve months. But I know, whether it’s next month or next year, I just know it’s going to happen. I’m going to get an issue in the mail, and I’m going to look at the cover, and read the article, then toss it in the trash and ask myself “Why the fuck do I still read Rolling Stone?” Then I’m going to type up that cancellation letter and send it in again. Because I’m not going to be able to answer that question to my satisfaction. I guess this is what it’s like to be a Rolling Stone reader. But should it be like this as a music fan?