Rolling Stone 1,000 Covers: A History of the Most Influential Magazine in Pop Culture 
asked by orla on November 20, 2006 3:18 PM
For the past 39 years, the covers of Rolling Stone have depicted the great icons of popular culture, from John Lennon, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and Madonna to Steve Martin, Uma Thurman, and Richard Nixon. Often it was an appearance on the cover that launched a performer's legendary status in the first place. An enormous hit when it appeared in 1997 as Rolling Stone: The Complete Covers, 1967-1997 (nearly 100,000 copies sold in all editions), this fantastic collection has been revised and updated to include the covers since 1997 up to the much-publicized 1,000th cover, slated to hit newsstands in May 2006.
With an updated introduction by Jann S. Wenner as well as new excerpts from the magazine and quotes from photographers and their celebrity subjects, this nostalgic journey down the memory lane of pop music, entertainment, and politics is irresistible.
With an updated introduction by Jann S. Wenner as well as new excerpts from the magazine and quotes from photographers and their celebrity subjects, this nostalgic journey down the memory lane of pop music, entertainment, and politics is irresistible.
Reviews
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If you have the original large 1998 edition this latest book is just a continuation, though smaller in size, up to the thousandth edition in May/June 2006. I was rather impressed with the earlier book except for the silly tiny type dates and photo credits for each cover, amazingly set in four point. Fortunately someone has realised that tiny type is not really readable in a domestic lighting environment so the cover dates and photo credits have been upped to just over five point, still rather small though. Apart from this all the other text is readable and combined with the excellent design and printing makes this a wonderful book to look at.
Like the first book it is not just a memory jogger of covers, there are plenty of sidebar excerpts from the magazine. It is the covers though that are the five stars plus. Not many consumer publications manage to consistently retain a quality cover look over so many years and in the Stone's case with the same logo since January 1981. Look through the index of photographers and illustrators and you'll see why the covers look so cool: Annie Leibovitz shot 142 of them, Herb Ritts has forty-six, Richard Avedon eighteen. With this sort of quality no wonder it always looked good. Even the early issues in the rather inflexible newspaper format had a distinctive cover style.
I think this beautiful looking updated book will be a strong seller (not least because of Amazon's bargain price) for those who lived with rock for the last thirty-nine years.
Quirky observation: the book's title is on a wrap-around strip of paper (rather bizarrely called a belly band in the trade) and I can't see it staying in one piece for long as this is just the kind of book that will enjoy a lot of handling.
Like the first book it is not just a memory jogger of covers, there are plenty of sidebar excerpts from the magazine. It is the covers though that are the five stars plus. Not many consumer publications manage to consistently retain a quality cover look over so many years and in the Stone's case with the same logo since January 1981. Look through the index of photographers and illustrators and you'll see why the covers look so cool: Annie Leibovitz shot 142 of them, Herb Ritts has forty-six, Richard Avedon eighteen. With this sort of quality no wonder it always looked good. Even the early issues in the rather inflexible newspaper format had a distinctive cover style.
I think this beautiful looking updated book will be a strong seller (not least because of Amazon's bargain price) for those who lived with rock for the last thirty-nine years.
Quirky observation: the book's title is on a wrap-around strip of paper (rather bizarrely called a belly band in the trade) and I can't see it staying in one piece for long as this is just the kind of book that will enjoy a lot of handling.
reviewed by janmueller on November 20, 2006 11:52 PM