Rolling Stones Magazine

The Rolling Stones Magazine is a bi-weekly publication that was founded in 1967 by Jann Wenner, who is still the publisher and editor, along with Ralph Gleason, who is a music critic. Founded in San Francisco during a time when it was popular to combine politics and music, it has evolved from reporting on the hippie-era interests to a mixture of in-depth political coverage, music icons, television actors and pop culture stories, with a circulation of 1.4 million people. In the very first edition, it was written that "Rolling Stone is not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces."

Perhaps many people started reading Rolling Stones Magazine because they liked the famous person on a certain cover. In fact, many people can remember who was on the cover of the first Rolling Stones Magazine they bought and many people collect them for that same reason. Some of the famous artists that have graced the covers include The Beatles, John Lennon, Tina Turner, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Paul McCartney, Donovan and Otis Redding and Jack Goldman. Some of them have appeared more than once for a variety of reasons.

Of course, stories are another reason that people bought their first copy, and stories like the Patty Hearst abduction, was one of the most famous stories covered by Rolling Stones Magazine. In the 60's and 70's the magazine was also known for stories on how to grow marijuana and buy the supplies to do it. Later, it was criticized for turning its back on marijuana and becoming more mainstream, but many people learned about "grow-lights" and "hydro-growing" from the Rolling Stone Magazine stories, however.

Other reasons that people enjoy reading the magazine are the lists, such as The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The magazine has drawn criticism for being biased on the lists they have compiled in the past because they weren't a very diverse mixture of styles and some contained hardly any female artists.

The history of the magazine has been filled with criticism for bias, especially in the early years when the 21 year-old Wenner first founded the magazine. As it has progressed and aged through the years, the purely rock music, hippie revolution reputation has become more relaxed mainstream and other popular artists and styles of music have been included. The political views aren't quite as slanted as they used to be and the magazine is enjoying a resurging popularity, especially among the crowds that are interested in current events and pop culture.

The Rolling Stones Magazine has been published in the International arena, with many different countries involved. For 2010, a Rolling Stones restaurant is going to be opened in Hollywood, but it will have no musical entertainment ties. The magazine's name originally came from the 1948 Muddy Waters song by the same name. Of course, the Rolling Stones and Dr. Hook's song, "The Cover of the Rolling Stone" has made the magazine an American icon that most people really like or have some kind of criticism of. It has been a survivor in the pop culture reporting arena, even though there have been many changes over the past few decades.

Graeme Olsen writes for http://www.magazinesubscriptions.net.au, specialising in magazine subscriptions for popular titles.