Audio engineer
An audio engineer helps to produce a recording or a live performance and adjusting sound sources using equalization and audio effects, mixing and reinforcement of sound. Audio engineers work on the "...technical aspect of recording—the placing of microphones, pre-amp knobs, the setting of levels. The physical recording of any project is done by an engineer... the nuts and bolts." It's a creative hobby and profession where musical instruments and technology are used to produce sound for film, television and video games. Audio engineers set up, sound check and do live sound mixing using a mixing console and a sound reinforcement system for music concerts, sports games and corporate events. Alternatively, audio engineer can refer to a scientist or professional engineer who holds an engineering degree and who designs and builds audio or musical technology working under terms such as acoustical engineering, electronic/electrical engineering or signal processing. Research and development audio engineers invent new technologies and techniques, to enhance the process and art of audio engineering.
They might design acoustical simulations of rooms, shape algorithms for audio signal processing, specify the requirements for public address systems, carry out research on audible sound for video game console manufacturers, other advanced fields of audio engineering. They might be referred to as acoustic engineers. Audio engineers working in research and development may come from backgrounds such as acoustics, computer science, broadcast engineering, acoustical engineering, electrical engineering and electronics. Audio engineering courses at university or college fall into two rough categories: training in the creative use of audio as a sound engineer, training in science or engineering topics, which allows students to apply these concepts while pursuing a career developing audio technologies. Audio training courses give you a good knowledge of technologies and their application to recording studio and sound reinforcement systems, but do not have sufficient mathematical and scientific content to allow you to get a job in research and development in the audio and acoustic industry.
Audio engineers in research and development possess a bachelor's degree, master's degree or higher qualification in acoustics, computer science or another engineering discipline. They might work in acoustic consultancy. Alternatively they might work in audio companies, or other industries that need audio expertise, or carry out research in a university; some positions, such as faculty require a Doctor of Philosophy. In Germany a Toningenieur is an audio engineer who designs and repairs audio systems; the listed subdisciplines are based on PACS coding used by the Acoustical Society of America with some revision. Audio engineers develop audio signal processing algorithms to allow the electronic manipulation of audio signals; these can be processed at the heart of much audio production such as reverberation, Auto-Tune or perceptual coding. Alternatively, the algorithms might carry out echo cancellation on Skype, or identify and categorize audio tracks through Music Information Retrieval. Architectural acoustics is the engineering of achieving a good sound within a room.
For audio engineers, architectural acoustics can be about achieving good speech intelligibility in a stadium or enhancing the quality of music in a theatre. Architectural Acoustic design is done by acoustic consultants. Electroacoustics is concerned with the design of headphones, loudspeakers, sound reproduction systems and recording technologies. Examples of electroacoustic design include portable electronic devices, sound systems in architectural acoustics, surround sound and wave field synthesis in movie theater and vehicle audio. Musical acoustics is concerned with describing the science of music. In audio engineering, this includes the design of electronic instruments such as synthesizers. Psychoacoustics is the scientific study of. At the heart of audio engineering are listeners who are the final arbitrator as to whether an audio design is successful, such as whether a binaural recording sounds immersive; the production, computer processing and perception of speech is an important part of audio engineering.
Ensuring speech is transmitted intelligibly and with high quality. A variety of terms are used to describe audio engineers who install or operate sound recording, sound reinforcement, or sound broadcasting equipment, including large and small format consoles. Terms such as "audio technician," "sound technician," "audio engineer," "audio technologist," "recording engineer," "sound mixer" and "sound engineer" can be ambiguous; such terms can refer to a person working in music production.
Record producer
A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performer's music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has varying roles during the recording process, they may gather musical ideas for the project, collaborate with the artists to select cover tunes or original songs by the artist/group, work with artists and help them to improve their songs, lyrics or arrangements. A producer may also: Select session musicians to play rhythm section accompaniment parts or solos Co-write Propose changes to the song arrangements Coach the singers and musicians in the studioThe producer supervises the entire process from preproduction, through to the sound recording and mixing stages, and, in some cases, all the way to the audio mastering stage; the producer may perform these roles themselves, or help select the engineer, provide suggestions to the engineer. The producer may pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record label's budget.
A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording and production of a band or performer's music. A producer has many roles that may include, but are not limited to, gathering ideas for the project, composing the music for the project, selecting songs or session musicians, proposing changes to the song arrangements, coaching the artist and musicians in the studio, controlling the recording sessions, supervising the entire process through audio mixing and, in some cases, to the audio mastering stage. Producers often take on a wider entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules and negotiations. Writer Chris Deville explains it, "Sometimes a producer functions like a creative consultant — someone who helps a band achieve a certain aesthetic, or who comes up with the perfect violin part to complement the vocal melody, or who insists that a chorus should be a bridge. Other times a producer will build a complete piece of music from the ground up and present the finished product to a vocalist, like Metro Boomin supplying Future with readymade beats or Jack Antonoff letting Taylor Swift add lyrics and melody to an otherwise-finished “Out Of The Woods.”The artist of an album may not be a record producer or music producer for his/her album.
While both contribute creatively, the official credit of "record producer" may depend on the record contract. Christina Aguilera, for example, did not receive record producer credits until many albums into her career. In the 2010s, the producer role is sometimes divided among up to three different individuals: executive producer, vocal producer and music producer. An executive producer oversees project finances, a vocal producers oversees the vocal production, a music producer oversees the creative process of recording and mixings; the music producer is often a competent arranger, musician or songwriter who can bring fresh ideas to a project. As well as making any songwriting and arrangement adjustments, the producer selects and/or collaborates with the mixing engineer, who takes the raw recorded tracks and edits and modifies them with hardware and software tools to create a stereo or surround sound "mix" of all the individual voices sounds and instruments, in turn given further adjustment by a mastering engineer for the various distribution media.
The producer oversees the recording engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as "the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record", like a director would a movie. Indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation is music director; the music producer's job is to create and mold a piece of music. The scope of responsibility may be one or two songs or an artist's entire album – in which case the producer will develop an overall vision for the album and how the various songs may interrelate. At the beginning of record industry, the producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live; the immediate predecessors to record producers were the artists and repertoire executives of the late 1920s and 1930s who oversaw the "pop" product and led session orchestras. That was the case of Ben Selvin at Columbia Records, Nathaniel Shilkret at Victor Records and Bob Haring at Brunswick Records.
By the end of the 1930s, the first professional recording studios not owned by the major companies were established separating the roles of A&R man and producer, although it wouldn't be until the late 1940s when the term "producer" became used in the industry. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1960s due to technology; the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously. All of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio where the performance was recorded. With multitrack recording, the "bed tracks" (rhythm section accompaniment parts such as the bassline and rhythm guitar could be recorded first, the vocals and solos could be added using as many "takes" as necessary, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. A pop band could record their backing tracks one week, a horn section could be brought in a week to add horn shots and punches, a string section could be brought in a week after that.
Multitrack recording had another pro
Soundgarden
Soundgarden was an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1984 by singer and rhythm guitarist Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, bassist Hiro Yamamoto. Matt Cameron became the band's full-time drummer in 1986, while bassist Ben Shepherd became a permanent replacement for Yamamoto in 1990; the band dissolved in 1997 and re-formed in 2010. Following Cornell's death in 2017, Thayil became the last remaining original member. Soundgarden was one of the seminal creators of grunge, a style of alternative rock that developed in Seattle, was the first of a number of grunge bands to sign to the record label Sub Pop. Soundgarden was the first grunge band to sign to a major label, though they did not achieve commercial success until they popularized the genre in the early 1990s with Seattle contemporaries Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Nirvana. Soundgarden achieved its biggest success with the 1994 album Superunknown, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and yielded the Grammy Award-winning singles "Spoonman" and "Black Hole Sun".
In 1997, the band broke up due to internal strife over its creative direction. After more than a decade of working on projects and other bands, Soundgarden reunited in 2010, Republic Records released their sixth studio album, King Animal two years later. Following Cornell's suicide in 2017 and a year of uncertainty of the band's future, Thayil declared in an October 2018 interview with Seattle Times that they would not continue as Soundgarden; as of 2012, Soundgarden sold more than 10.5 million records in the United States, an estimated 25 million worldwide. VH1 ranked Soundgarden at number 14 in their special 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. Soundgarden's origins began with a band called the Shemps, which performed around Seattle in the early 1980s, featured bassist Hiro Yamamoto and drummer and singer Chris Cornell. Following Yamamoto's departure, the band recruited guitarist Kim Thayil as its new bassist. Thayil moved to Seattle from Park Forest, with Yamamoto and Bruce Pavitt, who would start the independent record label Sub Pop. Cornell and Yamamoto stayed in contact, after the Shemps broke up Cornell and Yamamoto started jamming together, were joined by Thayil.
Soundgarden formed in 1984 and included Cornell and Thayil. The band named themselves after a wind-channeling pipe sculpture titled A Sound Garden, on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration property at 7600 Sand Point Way, next to Magnuson Park in Seattle. Cornell played drums while singing, but in 1985 the band enlisted Scott Sundquist to allow Cornell to concentrate on vocals; the band traveled around playing various concerts with this lineup for about a year. Their first recordings were three songs that appeared on the 1986 compilation album for C/Z Records called Deep Six—"Heretic", "Tears to Forget" and "All Your Lies", it featured songs by fellow grunge pioneers Green River, Skin Yard, the U-Men, the Melvins. In 1986, Sundquist left the band to spend time with his family. Skin Yard's drummer Matt Cameron replaced him. A Soundgarden performance one night impressed KCMU DJ Jonathan Poneman who said: "I saw this band, everything rock music should be." Poneman offered to fund a release by the band, so Thayil suggested he team up with Bruce Pavitt.
Poneman offered to contribute $20,000 in funding for Sub Pop turning it into a full-fledged record label. Soundgarden signed to Sub Pop, the label released "Hunted Down" in 1987 as the band's first single; the B-side of "Hunted Down," "Nothing to Say," appeared on the KCMU compilation tape Bands That Will Make Money, distributed to record companies, many of whom showed interest in Soundgarden. Through Sub Pop, the band released the Screaming Life EP in 1987, the Fopp EP in 1988, a combination of the two, Screaming Life/Fopp, in 1990. Though major labels were courting the band, in 1988 they signed to the independent label SST Records for their independent album, Ultramega OK, released on October 31, 1988. Cornell said the band "made a huge mistake with Ultramega OK" because they used a producer suggested by SST who "didn't know what was happening in Seattle". According to Steve Huey of AllMusic, Soundgarden demonstrates, a "Stooges/MC5-meets-Zeppelin/Sabbath sound" on the album. Mark Miremont directed the band's first music video for "Flower," which aired on MTV's 120 Minutes.
Soundgarden supported Ultramega OK on a tour in the United States in the spring of 1989, a tour in Europe, which began in May 1989—the band's first overseas tour. Ultramega OK earned the band a Grammy Award nomination for Best Metal Performance in 1990. After touring in support of Ultramega OK the band signed with A&M Records, which caused a rift between Soundgarden and its traditional audience. Thayil said, "In the beginning, our fans came from the punk rock crowd, they abandoned us when they thought we sold out the punk tenets, getting on a major label and touring with Guns N' Roses. There were fashion issues and social issues, people thought we no longer belonged to their scene, to their particular sub-culture." The band began work on its first album for a major label, but personnel difficulties caused a shift in the band's songwriting process, according to Cornell: "At the time Hiro excommunicated himself from the band and there wasn't a free-flowing system as far as music went, so I ended up writing a lot of it."
On September 5, 1989, the band released its debut major-label album, Louder Than Love, which saw it take "a step toward the metal mainstream," according to Steve Huey of Allmusic, describing it as "a slow, grinding
JG Thirlwell
James George Thirlwell – known as JG Thirlwell, Clint Ruin, Frank Want, Foetus, among other names, is an Australian singer and record producer. He is known for juxtaposing a variety of different musical styles. Thirlwell was born in Australia, he studied Fine Art at Melbourne State College before moving to London, England in 1978, where he played with the post-punk band prag VEC and formed the first of his numerous musical projects, Foetus. In the 1980s, under the pseudonyms Clint Ruin and Frank Want, he contributed to various releases by Nurse With Wound, Marc Almond, The The and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, he co-wrote "Wings Off Flies" on From Her to the first Bad Seeds album. Longtime Nick Cave associate Mick Harvey would report that Thirlwell's time in the band was cut short, in part, by a clash between Thirlwell's structured studio routine as contrasted with Cave's at-the-time habit of "shambling through it" while recording. Thirlwell released his first 7" single, OKFM/Spite Your Face, in 1981, on his own Self-Immolation record label in his first incarnation as Foetus.
Over the next few years, he would release two more singles, a 12" EP, four full-length albums, Ache and Nail. After visiting the United States during a live stint with the Immaculate Consumptive Thirlwell settled in New York City, where he is still based. Since his move he has released several singles, fourteen EPs, seventeen full-length albums. In addition to being a prolific artist in his own right, Thirlwell has remixed and produced numerous pieces for artists including Faith No More, Nine Inch Nails, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The The, Zola Jesus and Swans, he has done voice-over work for MTV and other entities. Since 2000 Thirlwell has become more active as a composer, having written commissions for Bang on a Can, League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots, the Kronos Quartet, scoring cartoons The Venture Bros. for Adult Swim and Archer for FX. He revived his primary instrumental project, Steroid Maximus, initiated a more experimental instrumental project in Manorexia, he continues to write and perform as a solo artist and with various ensembles.
He is a member of the freq_out sound art collective, has created solo sound installations in Kaliningrad and Vienna. Throughout the span of his career, Thirlwell has toyed with his own identity by releasing music in the guise of numerous alter egos. During the earliest phases of his recording, Thirlwell's "groups" were composed of a plethora of fictional characters: Foetus Under Glass consisted of Frank Want, Phillip Toss and two Brazilian statistics collectors. Furthering the confusion, Thirlwell adopted these personas outside of his own recordings. Thirlwell's persona of Clint Ruin was notable. During the mid-1980s and early-1990s Thirlwell went by this pseudonym conducting interviews as Ruin; as Ruin, Thirlwell was a member of Wiseblood with Flesh Volcano with Marc Almond. He recorded two collaborative EPs with Lydia Lunch, starred in and scored films of Richard Kern under the Ruin alias. Ruin is credited on numerous releases for a variety of roles with Boss Hog, Fur Bible, Annie Hogan, Nurse With Wound, Sonic Youth and others.
This practice seems to have been discontinued since 1995, "JG Thirlwell" is credited on all subsequent musical recordings. Thirlwell's music—released under his various project names of Foetus, Steroid Maximus, Baby Zizanie and others—includes elements of 20th century classical music, big band, jazz, punk rock and Cuban percussion, epic/horror film soundtracks. Much of Thirlwell's aural output is built on a percussive, rock music-type structure, though to call it rock music would be inaccurate, his music employs elements of many genres: with an frenzied aesthetic, Thirlwell's music combines percussion, distortion, electric guitars, electronic sounds and voice. Recurring lyrical themes include destruction, anxiety, incest, angst, self-destruction, self-abuse, prejudice, murder and machismo expressed using American colloquialism and black humour. Foetus: Thirlwell's main project. From 1981's single'OKFM' until 2013's'Soak', most Foetus songs featured lead vocals. Though popularly known as "Foetus", Thirlwell released albums under diverse variations of the name, including: Foetus Art Terrorism.
Steroid Maximus: Primary instrumental project. Manorexia: Experimental instrumental project. Wiseblood: Collaboration with Roli Mosimann. Flesh Volcano: Collaboration with Marc Almond. Baby Zizanie: Collaboration with Jim Coleman. Hydroze Plus: Collaboration with Electronicat. Garage Monsters: Collaboration with skater artist the P!zz. The Immaculate Consumptive: Touring ensemble with Lydia Lunch, Nick Cave, Marc Almond The Venture Bros.: Musical score by Thirlwell. Archer: Musical score b
Music genre
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Academics have argued that categorizing music by genre is inaccurate and outdated. Music can be divided into different genres in many different ways; the artistic nature of music means that these classifications are subjective and controversial, some genres may overlap. There are varying academic definitions of the term genre itself. In his book Form in Tonal Music, Douglass M. Green distinguishes between form, he lists madrigal, canzona and dance as examples of genres from the Renaissance period. To further clarify the meaning of genre, Green writes, "Beethoven's Op. 61 and Mendelssohn's Op. 64 are identical in genre – both are violin concertos – but different in form. However, Mozart's Rondo for Piano, K. 511, the Agnus Dei from his Mass, K. 317 are quite different in genre but happen to be similar in form."
Some, like Peter van der Merwe, treat the terms genre and style as the same, saying that genre should be defined as pieces of music that share a certain style or "basic musical language." Others, such as Allan F. Moore, state that genre and style are two separate terms, that secondary characteristics such as subject matter can differentiate between genres. A music genre or subgenre may be defined by the musical techniques, the style, the cultural context, the content and spirit of the themes. Geographical origin is sometimes used to identify a music genre, though a single geographical category will include a wide variety of subgenres. Timothy Laurie argues that since the early 1980s, "genre has graduated from being a subset of popular music studies to being an ubiquitous framework for constituting and evaluating musical research objects". Among the criteria used to classify musical genres are the trichotomy of art and traditional musics. Alternatively, music can be divided on three variables: arousal and depth.
Arousal reflects the energy level of the music. These three variables help explain why many people like similar songs from different traditionally segregated genres. Musicologists have sometimes classified music according to a trichotomic distinction such as Philip Tagg's "axiomatic triangle consisting of'folk','art' and'popular' musics", he explains that each of these three is distinguishable from the others according to certain criteria. The term art music refers to classical traditions, including both contemporary and historical classical music forms. Art music exists in many parts of the world, it emphasizes formal styles that invite technical and detailed deconstruction and criticism, demand focused attention from the listener. In Western practice, art music is considered a written musical tradition, preserved in some form of music notation rather than being transmitted orally, by rote, or in recordings, as popular and traditional music are. Most western art music has been written down using the standard forms of music notation that evolved in Europe, beginning well before the Renaissance and reaching its maturity in the Romantic period.
The identity of a "work" or "piece" of art music is defined by the notated version rather than by a particular performance, is associated with the composer rather than the performer. This is so in the case of western classical music. Art music may include certain forms of jazz, though some feel that jazz is a form of popular music. Sacred Christian music forms an important part of the classical music tradition and repertoire, but can be considered to have an identity of its own; the term popular music refers to any musical style accessible to the general public and disseminated by the mass media. Musicologist and popular music specialist Philip Tagg defined the notion in the light of sociocultural and economical aspects: Popular music, unlike art music, is conceived for mass distribution to large and socioculturally heterogeneous groups of listeners and distributed in non-written form, only possible in an industrial monetary economy where it becomes a commodity and in capitalist societies, subject to the laws of'free' enterprise... it should ideally sell as much as possible.
Popular music is found on most commercial and public service radio stations, in most commercial music retailers and department stores, in movie and television soundtracks. It is noted on the Billboard charts and, in addition to singer-songwriters and composers, it involves music producers more than other genres do; the distinction between classical and popular music has sometimes been blurred in marginal areas such as minimalist music and light classics. Background music for films/movies draws on both traditions. In this respect, music is like fiction, which draws a distinction between literary fiction and popular fiction, not always precise. Country music known as country and western, hillbilly music, is a genre of popular music that originated in the southern United States in the early 1920s; the polka is a Czech dance and genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the early 1950s, developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and particular
Lung Leg
Lung Leg is an American pin-up girl and actress best known for appearing on the cover of the Sonic Youth album EVOL. During the 1980s, she gained fame as a star of films made by the transgressive movement. Lung Leg appeared in several Richard Kern films, notably starring in one of his longest features, the 1985 film You Killed Me First, as well as appearing in Worm Movie and Fingered, she appeared in two music videos directed by Kern, "Concubine" by Butthole Surfers and Sonic Youth song "Death Valley'69". After her film career in the 1980s, Lung Leg left the public sphere for several years. Nick Zedd wrote in his autobiography, Totem of the Depraved, that she relocated to Minneapolis, before moving back to New York City after a short romance with German musician Blixa Bargeld of Einstürzende Neubauten and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, she resumed her film career in 2005. In it, she played a bartender dealing with Tiny Tim, various monsters, special effects and a primordial dwarf. In 2011, Lung Leg appeared in a film directed by Jon Springer.
In 2010, Lung Leg appeared in the documentary Blank City featuring interviews with participants in the no wave cinema and transgressive cinema movements. There are few known interviews with her. An excerpt of a now lost video interview of her appears in IDN4. Lung Leg on IMDb Film Threat A synopsis of Film Threat issue No. 12, which featured the only known Lung Leg interview. Sewer Baby trailer on YouTube – The official trailer for Mike Etoll's Sewer Baby, featuring Lung Leg. Crepuscular Planet WCCO 4! – A goofy prank played live and on the air during a Minneapolis news broadcast in 2002, featuring Lung Leg, Mike Etoll and others. You Killed Me First on YouTube You Killed Me First on YouTube Submit to Me on YouTube I Was in a Richard Kern Movie on YouTube — Lung Leg and Cruella DeVille discuss their roles in Richard Kern's Super 8 films
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is an American monthly magazine that focuses on popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California in 1967 by Jann Wenner, still the magazine's publisher, the music critic Ralph J. Gleason, it was first known for political reporting by Hunter S. Thompson. In the 1990s, the magazine shifted focus to a younger readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film actors, popular music. In recent years, it has resumed its traditional mix of content. Rolling Stone Press is the magazine's associated book publishing imprint. Straight Arrow Press was the magazine's associated book publishing imprint, Straight Arrow Publishing Co. Inc. was the publishing company that published Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone magazine was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Ralph Gleason. To get it off the ground, Wenner borrowed $7,500 from his own family and from the parents of his soon-to-be wife, Jane Schindelheim; the first issue carried a cover date of November 9, 1967, was in newspaper format with a lead article on the Monterey Pop Festival.
The cover price was 25¢. In the first issue, Wenner explained that the title of the magazine referred to the 1950 blues song "Rollin' Stone", recorded by Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan's hit single "Like a Rolling Stone": You're wondering what we're trying to do. It's hard to say: sort of a sort of a newspaper; the name of it is Rolling Stone which comes from an old saying, "A rolling stone gathers no moss." Muddy Waters used the name for a song. The Rolling Stones took their name from Muddy's song. "Like a Rolling Stone" was the title of Bob Dylan's first rock and roll record. We have begun a new publication reflecting what we see are the changes in rock and roll and the changes related to rock and roll."—Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone, November 9, 1967, p. 2 Some authors have attributed the name to Dylan's hit single: "At Gleason's suggestion, Wenner named his magazine after a Bob Dylan song." Rolling Stone identified with and reported the hippie counterculture of the era. However, it distanced itself from the underground newspapers of the time, such as Berkeley Barb, embracing more traditional journalistic standards and avoiding the radical politics of the underground press.
In the first edition, Wenner wrote that Rolling Stone "is not just about the music, but about the things and attitudes that music embraces". In the 1970s, Rolling Stone began to make a mark with its political coverage, with the likes of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson writing for the magazine's political section. Thompson first published his most famous work Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas within the pages of Rolling Stone, where he remained a contributing editor until his death in 2005. In the 1970s, the magazine helped launch the careers of many prominent authors, including Cameron Crowe, Lester Bangs, Joe Klein, Joe Eszterhas, Ben Fong-Torres, Patti Smith and P. J. O'Rourke, it was at this point that the magazine ran some of its most famous stories, including that of the Patty Hearst abduction odyssey. One interviewer, speaking for a large number of his peers, said that he bought his first copy of the magazine upon initial arrival on his college campus, describing it as a "rite of passage".
In 1977, the magazine moved its headquarters from San Francisco to New York City. Editor Jann Wenner said San Francisco had become "a cultural backwater". During the 1980s, the magazine began to shift towards being a general "entertainment" magazine. Music was still a dominant topic, but there was increasing coverage of celebrities in television and the pop culture of the day; the magazine initiated its annual "Hot Issue" during this time. Rolling Stone was known for its musical coverage and for Thompson's political reporting. In the 1990s, the magazine changed its format to appeal to a younger readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film actors and popular music; this led to criticism. In recent years, the magazine has resumed its traditional mix of content, including in-depth political stories, it has expanded content to include coverage of financial and banking issues. As a result, the magazine has seen its circulation increase and its reporters invited as experts to network television programs of note.
The printed format has gone through several changes. The first publications, in 1967–72, were in folded tabloid newspaper format, with no staples, black ink text, a single color highlight that changed each edition. From 1973 onwards, editions were produced on a four-color press with a different newsprint paper size. In 1979, the bar code appeared. In 1980, it became a large format magazine; as of edition of October 30, 2008, Rolling Stone has had a smaller, standard-format magazine size. After years of declining readership, the magazine experienced a major resurgence of interest and relevance with the work of two young journalists in the late 2000s, Michael Hastings and Matt Taibbi. In 2005, Dana Leslie Fields, former publisher of Rolling Stone, who had worked at the magazine for 17 years, was an inaugural inductee into the Magazine Hall of Fame. In 2009, Taibbi unleashed an acclaimed series of scathing reports on the financial meltdown of the time, he famously described Goldman Sachs as "a great vampire squid".
Bigger headlines came at the end of June 2010. Rolling Stone caused a controversy in the White House by publishing in the July issue an article by journalist Michael Hastings entitled, "The Runaway General", quoting criticism by General Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of the International Security Assistance Force and U. S. Forces-Afghanistan commander, about Vice President Joe Biden and oth
