The Rolling Stones Music Magazine

The History and the Typical Content 

Rolling Stones music magazine was founded in 1967, by Jann Wenner. He was a music journalist and aspired to meet some of the most famous rock legends, including John Lennon and Mick Jagger. So he decided to gather $7500 to start the first issue of "Rolling Stones."

Its main focus is on rock 'n' roll and alternative music, however it contains political views. The title "Rolling Stones" was said to be influenced by the 1950s blues song "Rollin Stone" by Muddy Waters. The magazine was said to be 'countercultural', it was a different sound to what was usually heard in that era. However Wenner didn't want the magazine to be just about the music but "everything that embraces it."

Many writers have made their name by publishing their work in the magazine, such as Hunter S. Thompson, Cameron Crowe and others.

However one of the most controversial magazine cover was the nude cover featuring John Lennon. But it was the first to sell out of the magazine. This made others pose nude for some issues, including singer Christina Aguilera, Janet Jackson and Jennifer Anniston.

Since 1970, Rolling Stones has already been different, by changing the frame to all the other magazines. They've done this by increasing the size of a typical magazine being 8.5 by 11 inch, to 10.5 to 15 inches. It stayed this size for the next 30 years, however after extensive research they found that the readers did not approve of this size and so they changed it back down to the regular size in 2008. The rock magazine sales have fallen from 189,000 to 132,000, it is still recognised as an iconic music magazine.

The types of people that this magazine relates to is mainly people that enjoy rock 'n' roll music, the statistics show that 52% of men purchase the magazine with the remain of 48% being female. The general age is about 38 years old. This doesn't surprise me as this genre of music was particularly popular when this generation was young, and have therefore they have stuck to what they enjoy listening to.