Rolling Stone Cover

Last week, I wrote about the state of the music industry. After writing the post, I saw a magazine cover which crystallized things for me.

Nothing needs to be said about Rolling Stone and their immense influence on young music lovers. We can discover much about the music industry, just by looking at the cover of last week's issue.

First, notice that only 50% of the feature articles listed on the cover are about music.

Taylor Swift was to be expected, she's had the top selling album on the pop charts (which is selling dismally by record industry standards).

The other two bands are Rolling Stone cover standards, however. Green Day and U2 have been on the cover, in photos and print, ad nauseum for as long as I can remember. They also represent a dying breed of artists who can tour heavily and still play their own instruments and write their own songs. Seeing them together with no other musical mention besides Taylor Swift on the cover of Rolling Stone is an indication of the smaller and smaller range of traditionally "marketable" acts the record industry is producting.

The text and articles on the cover of RS can be interpreted and analyzed, but it is the picture of Taylor Swift and her guitar which jumps out the most. The guitar is beautiful but is missing a key musical element, a string. The contrast between the perfectly dolled-up Swift, and her guitar, is striking.

I'm well aware this is probably not even Swift's guitar. Maybe it is and she missed the implication of being the world's most famous new musician with an unplayable guitar.

The point is that Rolling Stone and their team have effectively demonstrated the dynamics of an industry, more focused on style than substance, in one photograph.