Alternatives to Rolling Stone

Lord, do we need them. Rolling Stone will always be my first grown-up magazine love (somehow, I leapt immediately from Ranger Rick and Cricket to RS and Sassy, with no transitional periodicals -- I suspect this won't be the case for my daughter, who is growing up in an era of more magazines than even I can keep up with), but if you're looking for great coverage of music outside the Top 40, it's not the rag to turn to. Add RS's ongoing slide into mediocrity to SPIN 's metamorphosis into a lad mag (warning: accompanying photo of Britney Spears may not be worksafe) with music content thrown in, and you have some disappointed readers.

Thank heavens, then, for USAToday's Pop Candy, engagingly written by Whitney Matheson, who brings us Five Alternatives To Rolling Stone. My favorites of her list of suggestions are Philly's own Magnet and Uncut, from the UK. What music magazines does your library subscribe to? How often do you read them, and how often do you notice changes in coverage & tone? Do your patrons talk to you about your magazines? Do you invite their comments?