who was on the supposedly famed Rolling Stone cover...

I was at this trivia contest last night I've gone to the past few years. Our team had won two out of the previous three years. Not this time.

There was a question about which person had been on the cover of Rolling Stone the most times. I'm basically there for music, movies, and baseball, so I'm not supposed to miss these questions. I did. Without checking (there's a full list of every cover ever on Wikipedia), what would your guess be? I bet most have the same incorrect answer as me.

Bob Dylan or maybe Bruce Springsteen? I'm going on how many five star albums they seem to give them.

lennon

I'm guessing it all probably breaks down on how they count - i.e. can you count individual covers and band covers? Because I would guess Lennon in that case.

Madonna?

https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSba7-6jWfXv9N49Tg1jbOWS_JrvtFUZeHgf2k7jCiEOrFabHG1

(answering thread question, not clem's)

Most appearances by one individual, regardless of context.

Dylan was my guess, and I told everyone I was 100% sure. No--he's second. (Also thought of Madonna...didn't think of Springsteen, for some reason, but if I had, I might have changed my first guess. Not him either, though.)

Bowie?

Ha! Went back and checked Wikipedia, and Lennon is actually tied for first with their answer. McCartney is in third, Dylan and Springsteen tied for fourth. I never considered any of the Beatles, simply because they packed it in soon after the magazine starts. That sure is a lot of commemorative covers, and I guess a few related to solo work.

Not Bowie--doubt he's very close.

Nine for Bowie. Thirty for Lennon and the other #1.

It's going to be Bono isn't it?

Jagger? Afroman?

Bono was my other first guess, along with Dylan (24). Bono's been on 22 times.
(Dr. Hook, of course, has been on once.)

Yes, Jagger. This didn't make sense to me, in that I would have thought every Jagger cover would have also had Keith Richards on there, at the very least. But Jagger's been on there 30 times, Richards only 21.

The full list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_on_the_cover_of_Rolling_Stone

Justin Bieber's leading Pat Boone, 2-1.

That seems kind of obvious now. I guess Jagger beats out Richards due to his very successful solo career (Five stars for Goddess in the Doorway!)

I know--that's what messing with my mind. I demand to see these nine Jagger-not-Richards covers.

Some surprises on that list. Beach Boys have only been on the cover once (same as Men at Work and Spin Doctors)

iirc, it was the nine collectible covers to commemorate the 5-star Goddess in the Doorway

You can have a lot of fun (or veer off into insanity) tracking that stuff. John Fogerty's been on once; Kelly Osbourne, twice.

how many richards w/o jagger covers are there? i can think of one for talk is cheap and i think there was one w/ depp but are there many/any others? it's not quite a bono covers vs the edge covers situation but neverminding even jagger solo career (which didn't get that many covers surely) i'd guess just the accumulation of jagger w/o richards covers over the years on cover stories about the band would eventually create a gap.

http://takemeback.to/media/cover/cover-RollingStone-196808-16735.jpg

lol

http://www.winesthatrock.com/assets/images/img/Rolling%20Stone%20Magazine.jpg

Three Backstreet Boys covers! Same as David Byrne, more than Radiohead, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello...

Yeah, I'm making a false assumption that any Rolling Stones cover would have both. Right now, that's probably true--they're the inseparable face of the band (that's not really a compliment...basically, the two guys who are adamant on limping along). But if you go back to the early '70s, Jagger probably still occupied that space to himself.

http://www.ijaak.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/rollingstone.jpg
would read

"Cream Breaks Up." Well, I'm a fan, so I would have been sad.

so yeah looking at the covers (i think all of the jagger w/o richards at least) there's one tied to his solo career circa she's the boss, there's another that tied to performance, and there's that are 'well, here's mick jagger and some other ppl' one above, and the others seem to all be tied to a story about the stones (albeit maybe a 'rolling stone interview' w/ jagger). richards w/o jagger covers seems split 50-50, half ostensibly tied to the band, half either solo album, memoirs, or 'keith richards on life and how to live it' (that might be stones related though - did a bigger bang come out in 2002?).

I think that was 2005.

Makes sense. The magazine is named after him

can't believe you guys had to GUESS! seriously?

i mean hell what else was going on in pop culture during oh say 1995

http://assets-s3.rollingstone.com/assets/images/story/mick-jagger-remembers-19951214/1000x306/jagger-remembers-306x-1364847493.jpg

The friends-with-Wenner factor is probably key. Approached logically, though, I still think Dylan is the more obvious answer. The magazine debuted Nov. 9, 1967. Since then, Dylan has put out 25-28 new albums (depends on how you define new); the Rolling Stones, 17. I would have thought that just about every Dylan would have arrived with an accompanying cover story--didn't Rolling Stone practically invent the Best-Since-Whatever! system of reviewing Dylan albums? Throw in a few interviews and a few miscellaneous covers, and that'd be well over 30.

Wish I could have been alive in an era where this happened:

http://assets-s3.rollingstone.com/assets/images/music/2004/galleries/1975-rolling-stone-covers/rs185-peter-falk-as-columbo-241/500x595/22640_lg.jpg

Seymour Hersh: Part II! By Joe Eszterhas!

That 90s Jagger cover btw is a great interview - one of the few post-70s Jagger interviews in which he actually says something revealing.

yeah that 95 interview is fantastic.

would read

have read

The Rolling Stone DVDs that came out a few years ago -- with every issues up until 2007, not like it matters after 1980 or so -- are pretty great. It's fascinating to see the rag go from "Hee hee hee, I'm soooo baked!" to "I'm soooo bake- ...oh shit, Warner Brothers is here, and they want to advertise? Quick, everyone act professional!" inside of two years.

Y'know what I remember about that issue w/ wenner fellating jagger? That the first Beatles anthology record didn't get top review spot therein. I often wonder what yoko or Paul did that annoyed jw, a guy who normally employs the most slender pretext possible, over and over again, to put the Beatles on his cover.

I also love it when a former Ed staffer drops in here and alludes to a lingering disdain for jw.

Ed = rolling stone

what are these Rolling Stone DVDs of which you speak?

http://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Stone-Cover-First-Years/dp/0979526108/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392697275&sr=1-1&keywords=Rolling+stone+magazine+DVD

Guy I work with found them for $25 at Barnes& Noble.

You can look up a 14-year-old Pleasant Plains going on about monster trucks in the letters section of a June 1988 issue with Tom Hanks on the cover.