The Cultural Myopia of Rolling Stone

Photo: FineArtAmerica

EDITOR'S NOTE: Re-upping this piece from 6/7/16, in light of all the renewed attention to Rolling Stone co-founder, Jann Wenner via a scathing, new biography entitled Sticky Fingers.

These days, Rolling Stone reads like the house organ for popular culture; they love whatever they get for free, and that's all of it. But, back in the day, like Mikey from the legendary, 70s-era Life Cereal commercial, they hated everything.

Rolling Stone writers circa the mid 1970s were so vociferous in their disgust that I, a trained musician, began to question my own taste level. Only recently did I realize that provincialism was rampant at Rolling Stone. If it wasn't from the East Coast -- or possibly the Midwest, if they were feeling generous -- it was scorned.

Never mind that the Eagles; Crosby, Stills and Nash; and the infinitely-creative Joni Mitchell, whom RS once dubbed "Old Lady Of the Year," were writing about experiences as true and real to California as those of Lou Reed and The Ramones were to New York City.

As socially-progressive as the folks at Rolling Stone liked to think they were, the artists they championed were actually quite conservative. They sang about sticking with one's neighborhood, one's tribe, with all the entitlement of those whose tribes and communities hadn't shunned them.

By contrast, the exemplars of the California Sound sang about having to make their own way, choose their own families, make the long trek westward to live a dream that often turned out to be rotten to the core. Their families had turned them out, but Rolling Stone insisted that California rockers were solipsistic and self-involved.

Bruce Springsteen might burn rubber trying to get away from his old man, but he always came back. The Eagles didn't dare come back until they had won:

We're gonna hit the road one last time
We can walk right in and steal 'em blind
All that money
No more runnin'
And I can't wait to see the old man's face
When I win the race

These are the Eagles with "Bitter Creek".