Can You Dig It?

I have been a subscriber for about one year now, and as I far as I'm concerned, my life began one year ago. I had not bought and read a copy of Rolling Stone until I turned 18, and it opened my eyes like nothing else. I had never paid attention to Rock & Roll before; I had listened to it, but I never listened to it. Now, some people in my hometown call me -- ME! -- Mr. Rock & Roll because I'm obsessed with it, and this magazine.

I do not like to compare RS to other rock and music magazines, because that doesn't do it justice. Rolling Stone is more than just music, and that's why I like it. Yes, they may put somebody like Britney Spears on the cover, but hidden inside there is always an article to enlighten you on some matter of National or Foreign Affairs. The writers and editors are excellent and the design is the best I've ever seen; and this is coming from a student journalist who is a self-made expert in design.

And for the naysayers still, I offer up Issue No. 880 as my Exhibit A for how much Rolling Stone can still offer. That issue was a special issue, entirely dedicated to the 9.11 Attacks. I cried, I raged, I gasped, but most of all I understood while reading that magazine. And, right in the middle of the magazine, their coverage hit home: an article about the ironworkers who are helping with the clean-up. My father is an ironworker, and after reading that piece, I felt closer to him and his line of work than ever before. Nowhere else have I seen anything close to the complete, remarkable coverage that Rolling Stone did. I have two copies of that issue, and I will keep both for as long as I can, so that my kids and grandkids can read it. In 50 years, Rolling Stone No. 880 will be the definitive account of this fateful time in our nation's history.

And why not? After all, if Rolling Stone is respected for one thing, it is the complete, exhaustive coverage they give to an artist who has died. RS has even gone so far as to print short bios of readers and subscribers who died in the World Trade Center.

Yes, Rolling Stone may be 'trendy' as if that's supposed to be bad; they may 'market music'; and they are unabashedly liberal in their views and language. But they still do one thing better than any other magazine; they can be Rolling Stone.