fff said:
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain
Ah, yes, another highly credible source from the master of credibility herself. Keep 'em coming. I find this hilariously entertaining. :lol: :lol:
One major criticism of Rolling Stone involves its apparent generational bias toward the 1960s and 1970s. One critic referred to the Rolling Stone list of the 99 Greatest Songs as an example of "unrepentant rockist fogeyism." In further response to this issue, rock critic Jim DeRogatis, a former Rolling Stone editor, published a thorough critique of the magazine's lists in a book called Kill Your Idols: A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsiders the Classics, which featured differing opinions from many younger critics.
A perhaps related critique is that the left-leaning magazine goes beyond its musical roots to dabble in liberal politics, with Jonah Goldberg opining that "Rolling Stone has essentially become the house organ of the Democratic National Committee."
In more recent years, Rolling Stone has been criticized for reconsidering many classic albums that it had previously dismissed. Examples of artists for whom this is the case include, among others, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, and Nirvana. For example, Led Zeppelin was largely written off by Rolling Stone critics during the band's most active years in the 1970s. However by 2006, a cover story on Led Zeppelin honored them as "the Heaviest Band of All Time." Nirvana's album Nevermind was awarded three stars out of five by Rolling Stone upon its release, with the reviewer writing that "If Nirvana isn't on to anything altogether new, Nevermind does possess the songs, character and spirit to be much more than a reformulation of college radio's high-octane hits." Years later, the magazine ranked the album number 17 out of its top 500 greatest albums of all time, surpassing hundreds of 4-star and even 5-star albums.
Another criticism of Rolling Stone is that it failed to acknowledge both the newly emerging hard rock movement in the 1970s, giving negative reviews to such seminal albums as Black Sabbath's Black Sabbath, and Master of Reality, as well as early hip hop. One critic writes, "Some argue that Rolling Stone had began to lose touch with rock's vital pulse as early as 1971, when the magazine put its weight behind folk rock singer-songwriters such as Carly Simon, Jackson Browne, and Joni Mitchell and mostly ignored the heavy rock acts then filling arenas across America." Rolling Stone has reconsidered many of its reviews of early hip hop and rap albums, most of which had previously been dismissed. The magazine has since upgraded its original reviews of albums by artists such as Jay-Z, the Wu-Tang Clan and De La Soul. A critic for Slate magazine described a conference at which the 1984 Rolling Stone Record Guide was scrutinized. As he described it, "The guide virtually ignored hip-hop and ruthlessly panned heavy metal, the two genres that within a few years would dominate the pop charts. In an auditorium packed with music journalists, you could detect more than a few anxious titters: How many of us will want our record reviews read back to us 20 years hence?"
Like MTV, Rolling Stone has been criticized for "selling out" in order to succeed financially. Longtime readers have complained that the magazine has strayed from its traditional focus on music toward a new focus on film stars. The hire of former FHM editor Ed Needham further angered critics who alleged that Rolling Stone had lost its credibility.