There's a jealous appeal of any journalist watching the movie Almost Famous — it's not just the bands, the glamour, the groupies and the drugs... it's the fact that this 15-year-old kid swindled Rolling Stone into giving him a job. These days, however, I don't think I'd take any pride in making them give me a job; I lost all respect for Rolling Stone when they published The Hills' girls in their underwear on the cover. At that moment, and really many others before, I realized that Rolling Stone was no longer a pedestal reserved for the true celebrities known for their talent, or at least their pre-crafted music. These were reality TV stars... no acting, no singing, just their money and their looks had graced the cover of the industry's most admired publication of 40 years.

Despite my depleted opinion of the magazine, my will to read them was completely subdued last year, when I went to a magazine stand and couldn't find an issue. Where was it? The oversized cover and flimsy pages that turned so easily - what made it the largest staple magazine in the entertainment section - was missing from view. Eventually, I found it... beside SPIN. Why did it blend in so well? Apparently even big-time magazines felt the recession, because their pages were the same size as every other magazine. Gasp! I know, it's a small thing, but it was one thing I always enjoyed about Rolling Stone; I loved how their magazines wouldn't fit in my magazine rack, how I had to have a separate shelf and how the pages wouldn't fit into a normal page protector (yes, I collect stuff). Now, Rolling Stone has a proper spine for their magazine, instead of relying on three inefficient staples. I always saw it as prestige to be featured in RS — “Oh cool, you're in, literally, the biggest music magazine around.” Now it's just another magazine.

I can't place all the blame on them, it's more and more entertainment magazines. The calibre of what they're willing to write about has just gone downhill since the introduction of reality TV (or worse, scripted reality - because reality was clearly TOO real). Even SPIN Magazine has made a habit in the past couple of years by being predictable when it comes to their “Artist, Band, Album etc. of the Year” issue - they more or less choose the same thing anyone else would. If they want to be different, fine, second place.

I sort of want to blame the Internet. As I've stated before, it's near impossible to find true music news online without being lumped in with the Perez Hiltons of the world. So why should there be anyone writing quality material about quality artists when 60 per cent of the population only cares about who they're sleeping with? I'm assuming this is the rationale anyway, how else would tabloids survive?

Like many other glamorous aspects of the music industry (except for the sex and drugs part), the joy of being written about in Rolling Stone has been tarnished. Not by much it seems; I sure wouldn't turn down an interview with them. You know what they say about publicity.