History of Music Magazines

Rolling Stone magazine was founded in 1967 in San Francisco, California by Jan Wenner - who today is still the magazine chief editor and the magazine moved locations to New York City in 1977. The main content of the magazine focuses on Politics and popular culture and is published every two weeks. In the 1990's the magazine changed the set up due to a younger generation having a bigger impact on which bands became popular.  The name "Rolling Stone" was originally named after the blues singer Muddy Waters song "Rollin Stone" produced in 1950. The first issue was published on November the 9th in 1967 and inside was a message from Jan Wenner which read that "The Rolling Stone is not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces." Print format of this magazine has changed over periods of time. The first copies (1967-72) were initially in the form of tabloid newspapers with black ink and a higlight colour which changed each issue. In 1973, it had a different newspaper size which was done on a four-colour press and by 1979 there was now a bar code on every edition. It then became a glossy paper in 1980 and by October 2008, Rolling Stone was a standard format size so decreased in size.

 Various artists have been featured on the magazine more than once and some of these covers have

become iconic such as The Beatles who have featured on the front cover over thirty times as a band and individually. It has also had appearances from political figures and actors such as Bill Clinton and Blake Lively.
The first ten issues had appearances from people like John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding
 and had an issue on the Monterey Pop Festival. The typical reader of the 'Rolling Stone' varies depending on who is on the cover. A lot of the older generation read it due to it being a magazine that has been well known for many years and the politics within the magazine reaches out more to older readers.

'Rolling Stone' magazine has a similar housestyle in every edition with the image taking up most of the space on the cover. The colours fit together and the title is always in the same place (across the top) which makes the magazine look organised.

The social groups presented within the magazine are unique and some bands that are displayed inside are only listened to by people that like a certain genre of music. They tend to put someone on the front cover who is popular at that time because that makes more people want to buy it widening the target audience.