Rolling Stone - 6 Month Auto Renew Print Magazine

I used to read Rolling Stone off and on back in the 1980s, when frankly I was probably too young to really appreciate it. Recently I got an offer for six months for a dollar as a promotion due to some purchase or another I made, so I decided to give it a try.I've been relatively impressed, and have found myself reading the issues almost cover to cover. I do skip over quite a bit in the music news section in the front. The music coverage tends to be geared toward people who are selling a lot of records now, and those might not be the people I'm most interested in. But even there, I admit I found a recent cover feature on Lady Gaga pretty interesting.A more recent cover story on Roger Waters' upcoming tour of "The Wall" is more my speed, and I found it pretty good. I'm looking forward to reading the current issue at this writing, featuring Conan O'Brien, as I didn't keep up with the details of his ouster from the Tonight Show and this will give me a chance to catch up a bit. So the cover stories have all been top-notch since the subscription started.The editorial policy is without a doubt left-wing, so if you are a Rush Limbaugh fan or a tea party type, you might bust a nut reading it. This probably isn't for dedicated conservatives unless they want something to get upset about.But even if you can accept the basic editorial standpoint, the coverage can be less than inspiring -- I found a recent story on the potential for an even bigger upcoming financial crisis far too facile and sensationalist. On the other hand, there was a fantastic recent piece on the melting of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, for example.Rolling Stone is now a 60% music-and-culture, 40% left-wing political and news magazine aimed at a younger audience. It can oversimplify the complexities of political and social issues -- although still much less so than most mass media television outlets. If you enjoy keeping up with music and pop culture, and if your politics are not firmly conservative, you could do worse than give it a try.

Rolling Stone is practically an American institution. While many people think it only focuses on music, there's actually a lot more to be found in the magazine: some of the best movie reviews around, political news, social issues, occasionally book and technology reviews. The music side of the magazine often tends to focus on older and/or more mainstream artists - e.g. you'll always find the latest news and reviews about artists such as Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead and so on - think Rock and Roll Hall of Fame artists. There's also plenty of news about younger artists, but if you want to track the newest and/or less mainstream artists, you may also want to check out Spin magazine (I read both) or of course any number of excellent music blogs. The music review section of RS is not as comprehensive as Spin's, but offers a solid selection - plus it's a biweekly magazine rather than monthly, so it makes sense that they'd publish fewer reviews in each issue. I also want to highlight the very high quality of the photography in RS, including some of the most iconic covers in music journalism. One note: RS doesn't try to hide the fact that it's pretty left-leaning in terms of politics, so if that type of political opinion offends your sensibilities, you may want to skip the "National Affairs" section or any of Matt Taibbi's excellent articles. On the other hand, I consider some of their investigative journalism articles must-reads for everyone. If, like me, you're into the history of rock music, check out the RS archive DVD's, which contain scanned, searchable versions of every single page RS has printed in its 40+ year history -- a real treasure trove of information (not included with a subscription, but fairly affordable and highly recommended). RS is one of 3 or 4 magazines I plan to subscribe to for life, and I highly recommend checking it out.Note: even though the label on this review says I purchased this subscription at Amazon, I actually just took advantage of one of their specials to renew my subscription, which I've had for many years.

Rolling Stone is a good magazine, if you like left of center news items that get missed in other publications, like music news about older and some newer artists, plus fun TV and Movie coverage, this is the magazine for you. However, RS is a love it or hate it thing, you know where you stand.As for the actual subscription, great price, first issue came five weeks after my order, all well and good. The first issue I received was the new issue just hitting news stands so I was pleased. However, the following week, I received the issue before that one, an issue I had already purchased because it was too early to recieve that issue yet, right? I have hadRS subscriptions through Amazon before, and the same thing happened, I received the current issue first, then in the next few weeks some back issues arrived. Surely the subscription should start from the first issue you recieve and not be retroactive. This seems like a cheap way to get out of sending one or two new issues. I am not pissed or anything, it is a great rate and I love the magazine, I just think that Amazon and/or RS should state that you may recieve back issues as part of your sub, that is all. One star off for that little nonsense!