My Love/Hate Relationship with Rolling Stone

The first Rolling Stone I ever purchased.

Growing up with "hippie" parents and with "Rhiannon" as my first name, it was pretty much always a given that I would be very passionate about music. And I didn't disappoint. Although my taste in music has evolved and varied over the years, one thing remains true...if I love it, I LOVE it; and if I hate it, I HATE it. 

I started subscribing to Rolling Stone when I was around 13 years old. I had turned to the iconic magazine as my tool for discovering new music. As discussed in a previous post, I'm a total nerd who loves to research things I am in to and Rolling Stone was a fantastic source that allowed me to do that. I loved reading interviews with new bands, as well as musical legends. I loved that the magazine didn't hold anything back, and artists could speak candidly about their music or other projects, and they cursed a lot too! I was in heaven! I couldn't wait for the new issue to arrive in my mailbox every two weeks.  My mom would bring it in with the rest of the mail and roll her eyes as she handed it to me because inevitably I would lock myself in my bedroom for the entire evening, and also would discover a new perverse word that I would later ask her the meaning of, causing her skin to flush red and tell me she would talk to me about it later, which she never did.

Some bands that make the cover deserve it!

However, around the time I turned 19, I noticed a change in the magazine. Every issue's cover was plastered with some goofy boy band, or a  bimbo pop princess holding a Teletubby, or some gangsta rap artist who had been shot 119 times and now rapped about it in every song. In my frustration, I "broke up" with Rolling Stone after a 6 year relationship. It was hard at first, but as they say, "time heals all wounds," and I eventually quit looking for it in my mailbox. 

Time went on, and so did I, until one day years later, I realized what I was listening to on the radio.  To my absolute horror, what did I find myself singing along with?  Goofy boy bands, bimbo pop princesses, and gangsta rap. WTF? Was this who I had become?  I refused to believe that I had allowed myself to fall into the trap of the corporate music world. But I had. The song lyrics I had been singing along with had no meaning, no substance.  It was crap. Total and utter crap.

Others...not so much...

So, I bit the bullet and begrudgingly sent in my subscription card to Rolling Stone. First of all, I was shocked when the first issue came. It was no longer the grungy, dull tabloid sized magazine that I was used to. It was a full blown magazine, wrapped in a slick, shiny cover. I rolled my eyes and thought, "here we go again." But I owe everything to that issue of that magazine, because inside was a review on the Deer Tick album, War Elephant. I thought they sounded interesting and so I went immediately to Itunes and downloaded the album. I instantly fell in love with what is now my favorite band of all time; and thus starting me back down this path of great independent music.

So while I still have some contempt for the magazine and their desire to promote their pop stars and push their political opinions onto everyone who reads it (if I wanted to read about politics, I would subscribe to Newsweek), I hold a special place in my heart for them for introducing me to Deer Tick, and for that tiny section in the back of reviews of the unknown artists I hold so dear.