Rolling Stone has just published their 1000th issue, and has released an issue celebrating themseles to mark the occasion. They are well within their rights to do so, though they may not still be as on top of their game as this Washington Post story would have you believe. The magazine is still entertaining, as long as you don't expect it to be revelatory or even groundbreaking, (or sometimes to even have articles about music in it), it makes a good beach or bathroom read. That alone shows how lowered the bar is for Rolling Stone in the Pitchfork-era.
But the magazine once was great, and as you peruse the collection they've assembled of the 100 greatest covers of all time, there are some impressive shots. There are the ironic. The iconic. The just plain awesome.
But they'e also made some interesting choices:
Jakob Dylan and The Wallflowers. So bland, so forgettable. What puts this cover in the top 10% of Rolling Stone covers of all time? The historical oddity of it? It is kind of like looking at old,
no longer used denominations of money and thinking, wow! People actually used to USE a $10,000 bill! I mean, it doesn't make sense. I know
I certainly wouldn't want to walk around with one. I wouldn't really mind if other people did...But as a minor, insignificant historical footnote, I guess it is interesting that both A) Former Secretary of the Treasury
Salmon P. Chase appeared on the $10,000 bill and that B) Bob Dylan's son appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone.
And then there's this...The description of it in the magazine is written in a way that is just dripping with unintentional negative things about the subject, Gaving Rossdale. "These days he is best known as Gwen Stefani's baby daddy." That's right, he has been rightfully forgotten, until you just annointed him one of your top 100 covers, thus reminding me of him. "Critics had covered the band with a level of opprobrium not seen since the Stone Temple Pilots were made the whipping boys of the alternative nation." At least the Wallflowers had critical acclaim. Pointing out that critics, of which the magazine ostensibly belongs, think something sucks, seems like a lame way to cover your ass towards anyone with musical knowledge while you play the "We're just giving those stupid kids who buy magazines what they want!" card. "That, to me, is the real fantasy of being a rock star. Everybody wants to be that guy." From someone who was in eighth grade when Bush came out and still somehow knew better, I can assure you that nobody
ever wanted to be that guy.
Then we have some covers which were evidently deemed in the top 100 of all time, but which pretty much look like the subject was just photoshopped in over and over again. Interestingly enough, the Dave Matthews one appeared in 2004, but the covers with Bono, Bille Joe Armstrong, and Jay-Z appeared were on three out of four consecutive issues in 2005. Some might call that boring or lazy, but evidently Rolling Stone calls it three of the top 100 covers their magazine has ever had. This is the equivilent of the Rolling Stones Greatest Hits albums that are "Career Spanning," which is code for "Contains as many songs from Steel Wheels and Bridges to Babylon as it does Exile on Main Street and Let It Bleed."
But it could be worse. They could have picked more irrelevant, more forgotten covers. For example, the above two. "The Girls of Scream 2" and "Laura Dern: The Spark in Jurassic Park." I guess your magazine needs to have a cover every week, but jesus, how defeating must those meetings have been? Walking out of a meeting at one of America's premiere magazines having just decided on Scream 2 or Laura Dern to shine forth from newstands on your magazines cover for the next two weeks? Who were other people pushing for? What band, movie, TV show, or political cartoon lost out to those two covers? Is Laura Dern still making movies?
But at least you remember both of those movies, or at least you remember Scream 1. As opposed to the above to pillars of irrelevance, I believe that the last cover is the most irrelevant Rolling Stone Cover of all time.
Bear in mind that's not just some random "We assembled two hot chicks and one chick that once kissed a hot chick in a movie" cover. No, those three ladies are there because their movie "The Sweetest Thing" that was due to hit theaters. The Sweetest Thing was given an abysmal 24% at Rotten Tomatoes. This isn't like a Pretty Woman type movie, where half the population loves it and half hates it. This was a movie that noboy liked, nobody cared about, and evidently nobody went to see. It puzzled me then and it puzzles me more now. Who owed who a favor? Was there confusion in the offices when these ladies showed up for the shoot? Were people fired becaus of this cover? Maybe someone was trying to drive the magazine into the ground like the Indians in Major League, and they just made it waaaaay to obvious with this cover and got fired.
There's an interesting story behind it, there's just got to be.
. I stand by that recommendation from my 18 year old self.
