Rolling Stone mag celebrates 1000th issue

Rolling Stone magazine's 1000th issue is on sale now. The magazine features a 3-D cover which is a pastiche of the Beatles' 1967 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band album cover, featuring faces from the past 50 years of rock and roll, including Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, as well as dozens of others. Publisher Jann Wenner told the Associated Press that, "The cover is iconic. The cover, more than any other thing we do, resonates in people's minds. By and large the greatest things we've done, the greatest stories, have had the greatest covers."

Wenner, who co-founded the magazine in 1967 with journalist Ralph J. Gleason, added that, "The average age of our audience is 28 years old. When I started (the average age was) 21. In 40 years, it's aged like seven years. We keep bringing in new readers and holding the old readers."

He went on to say that over the years, the quality of the photographs and articles have always been heads above the other magazines on the newsstand: "Our competitors -- God bless them all -- you can't think of one memorable article, interview or issue they've ever done, whereas Rolling Stone keeps knocking them out of the park. Can you think of one great Blender issue?"

In 2004, while inducting Wenner into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Mick Jagger spoke of Wenner's commitment to covering rock in a professional and intellectual manner: "When we first came to America, things were very different. There was magazines called 16, Tiger Beat was another one, and they would ask you really deep questions like, 'Do you like blondes or brunettes?' 'Do you like Italian food or Chinese food?' 'What kind of socks do you like?' But this innocent triviality was swept away when, in 1967, Rolling Stone magazine was launched in San Francisco. And it was Jann's magazine that put the current music scene into the limelight."