When 'Rolling Stone' Was Right , When 'Rolling Stone' Was Wrong

I never follow the recommendation of any magazine.

FYI, I thought this thread was about the band - The Rolling Stones. I am disappointed that it is not.

 

FYI, I thought this thread was about the band - The Rolling Stones. I am disappointed that it is not.[/QUOTE]
I was just on the phone with Keith. He said the same thing and was pissed about it.

 

It got lucky with me for over three decades. In 2o16 I said "Buh-bye" in the David Spade sense--"Oh, look at you, you have so much to say -- buh-bye."

 

Sometimes they had well thought out and memorable reviews. Close, even if not quite right.
On The Corner and Caravanserai.

As opposed to their review of Close To The Edge, which was an utter stream of consciousness mess
https://reelharmonies.wordpress.com...ng-stone-magazine-had-the-balls-to-publish-3/

 

I subscribed to RS for a couple of years in the late '80s / early '90s. There was a lot of crap to sift through, but their record reviews did occasionally point me to some gems that I might never have encountered otherwise: a few that come to mind that are still among my favorites from that era are World Party's Goodbye Jumbo, Prefab Sprout's Jordan: The Comeback, and Julian Cope's Peggy Suicide. Also, younger me enjoyed P.J. O'Rourke's articles, but I'm guessing find them insufferably immature if I were to re-read them today.

 

Where did they go wrong? Just about every word they wrote about Rush.

 

It really irked me when Robin Green (who wrote David Cassidy's infamous "naked lunchbox" article) said that he had done nothing to "deserve" being on the cover of RS.

I guess Harry Styles has done something to "deserve" this honor all these years later? (and more than once!)

 

Rolling Stone....look how far they've fallen.

 

I don't even know who this guy is.

 

Like Jon Anderson's lyrics.

 

Let’s keep it that way!

 

They missed by panning Bjork’s Debut.
They lauded Prince’s Graffiti Bridge with ****1/2 which I agree with but is wildly out of step with its reception.

 

I actually liked "GB" a lot back in 1990, but I can't say I still feel that way. It's better than its reputation but still not very good.

IMO, Prince was unassailable from 1980-1987, then "pretty good" from 1988-1992, and "extremely spotty" from 1994-death.

"Gold Experience" is really the only post-"0+>" album I truly enjoy!

 

"Over across the tracks in the industrial side of Cream country lie unskilled laborers like Black Sabbath, which was hyped as a rockin' ritual celebration of the Satanic mass or some such claptrap, something like England's answer to Coven. Well, they're not that bad, but that's about all the credit you can give them. The whole album is a shuck – despite the murky song titles and some inane lyrics that sound like Vanilla Fudge paying doggerel tribute to Aleister Crowley, the album has nothing to do with spiritualism, the occult, or anything much except stiff recitations of Cream clichés that sound like the musicians learned them out of a book, grinding on and on with dogged persistence. Vocals are sparse, most of the album being filled with plodding bass lines over which the lead guitar dribbles wooden Claptonisms from the master's tiredest Cream days. They even have discordant jams with bass and guitar reeling like velocitized speedfreaks all over each other's musical perimeters yet never quite finding synch — just like Cream! But worse." –Lester Bangs

 

Did you cite this as an example of when Rolling Stone was right or when they were wrong?

 

Lol, good question.

Lester's writing was always enjoyable to me even if I disagreed with his assessment. I'll leave it at that for now.

 

Everybody is just going to say Rolling Stone missed the mark when negative reviews were written about someone's fave artist/band. What is not being mentioned is that it's impossible to please everyone. You think it's easy to hire a bunch of writers and review current music? What's easy is to look back with decades of experience and see what rose to the top and what sunk to the bottom. When it's current and happening right now, it's a bit more difficult to guess what a band's reputation will be in years to come. And since there were tons of writers coming up with reviews all the time there wasn't really any continuity with regards to opinions. Having said that however, it's amusing how every Zeppelin album seemed to get panned by the magazine no matter who wrote the piece. But then, very few of the rock critics of the time liked the band. Christgau still looks down his nose at them. The kids loved Zeppelin though and grew up to write reviews of their own - and now it's almost impossible to find a negative review of the band online.

Rolling Stone didn't carry too much cache after the '70s ended. Wenner ruled the roost, and while he didn't so much look over every single review, he definitely wanted good reviews written about acts he liked or was personal friends with. Thus a five-star review of a Mick Jagger album. It's good to be the king, I guess.

 

It's worth noting that Lester himself decided he was wrong in his earlier dismissal of Black Sabbath.

 

Yeah. The fact is, critics were more critical in the 70s. When today's critics look back at 60s or 70s albums by "classic" bands, pretty much every album is either an undisputed classic or an unappreciated cult album worthy of reassessment. Good luck finding a negative retrospective opinion about anything released by any classic band. In the 70s, the assumption was that critics were there to criticize, not coronate, and they did. And as I've noted before, the goal of a critic isn't to predict what the popular consensus about an album will be in 50 years... it's simply to express an opinion in the here and now.

It's a myth (perpetuated by Almost Famous) that every Zeppelin album got a negative review in Rolling Stone. Far from it. The breakdown is:
I- negative
II- negative
III- mixed
IV- positive
HOTH- negative, but with several retrospective positive comments about the first two albums
Physical Graffiti- positive
Presence- positive
In Through the Out Door- negative

 

I liked RS reviews before they adopted the star rating system. Something about ratings that didn't always jibe with the nuances of a good album review.

 

I actually bought Arcade Fire's album Neon Bible after reading a rave review in Rolling Stone back in 2007. Turned out to be my favorite album of the year. But the days of that happening are long gone for the most part. I still keep my subscription going, mainly for the interviews and political coverage. I take their album ratings with a large grain of salt these days. If I want album reviews, that's what I subscribe to Mojo for.

 

My subscription to "RS" expires in a few weeks, and that's it for me. I don't like the new format, and they've jacked up subscription rates to absurd prices.

Even at $20/year I'd probably bail, but they want much more than that.

Makes me sad - I subscribed for precisely 35 years and I used to really enjoy the mag! But even without the price increase, it just doesn't speak to me like it used to, so it's time to move on!

 

I bought a five year subscription for $19.99 about 2 months before the format change. I like the new format because it allows for longer interviews and articles. But it'd have to be a really good deal in 2 years when my subscription expires to keep me on.

 

Honestly, I just hate the "unfoldability" of the format. It's too big to fold and read comfortably!

And I admit I simply don't have my finger on the pulse of current artists, so the music discussions mean little to me.

I don't even think I've opened an issue for months!

 

I must admit I skip over the articles about the latest mumble rappers but a couple months ago they had an article/interview with Billie Eilish, who I already liked, that really made me appreciate her as a person and an artist much more.