by Art Chantry:
after much heated consultation and debate among noted experts, i have decided that this is the single greatest cover of rolling stone magazine ever made.
issue 191/july 17, 1975/glimmer twins.
---it even still has the old rick griffin masthead!---AC
…nothing so great except it’s perfect in every single way. iconic. unmatched. the master plan. even though this came late in comparative history, it’s where it was totally nailed. every other RS cover seems to be an offshoot of this classic design. every other rolling stone mag cover seems to be less than this one. look past the subject matter and look at the design and art direction and sheer artistry of this thing. mick and keith? well, the name of the magazine is ROLLING STONE. so, even that is perfect in it’s own way.
…it’s not about taste at all. i am first and foremost NOT a ‘taste’ designer. you just have no idea what goes in to the creation of something like this. this is the most CONTROLLED and art directed cover and carefully designed cover imaginable. it’s perfection. it’s so classically refined and exactly “RS”, that it got no more clearly perfected. this cover was a pivot point, the ‘black monolith’ of RS design. beyond this was backtracking and parody. one of the greatest achievements in magazine art direction of the last half-century…this cover is DEFINITION…. i think this was at the very height of his addiction phase. i think the dude is SWACKED. mick looks fed up, too. i saw them on this tour and they were a mess. they sound good on recordings, but, man, did they even plug keith in? dunno….annie liebowitz caught them at a perfect “stones” moment in history.
…i’m generally pretty sick and tired of the pretentiousness of annie liebowitz’s style. it’s exhausted and it is now going through it’s ‘cliche’ phase. it will take a few years to shake that burden. but, all that said, she was pretty goddamed great at her art. there is no denying it….
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