OMG! RollingStone Comes To India!

I was going through the ‘Foreign Magazines’ section in Landmark in City Center here in Chennai today and picked up RollingStone. I was flicking through the pages and suddenly I saw an ad wherein I noticed a store ad with Bangalore, Chennai, Noida etc written at its bottom. I was confused at the sighting as foreign magazines don’t publish ads containing Indian locations. So, I flipped back to the cover and saw RollingStone India and the price is Rs. 100. I couldn’t believe it. It’s for true that the king of all music magazines - RollingStone, has now an Indian edition. Psst… and it was the mistake on the store’s part to place an Indian magazine under foreign magazines section.

I did a review on Indian music magazines few months back here on my blog. I wrote about The Record (which I can’t find on the stands, now!), Rave and RSJ. I guess in the coming months, these magazines are gonna have a tough time. Priced at Rs. 100, the Indian edition of RollingStone contains 174 pages (incl. of covers) unlike its foreign editions which have less number of pages. (Note that it’s a monthly magazine in India as opposed to the biweekly magazine in the US)

The inaugural issue (i.e., March 200 has five different covers featuring Amy Winehouse, Led Zeppelin, Jay-Z, Bruce Springsteen and Anoushka Shankar. And I picked the one with Amy Winehouse. The Indian edition is brought by Wenner Media LLC in collaboration with MW.Com India Private Limited, the Mahindra backed company that publishes Man’s World Magazine (as you may know that FDI is not allowed in India!). Man’s World recently underwent a change in its logo design. RS India would have articles on International artists as well as Indian artists and Bollywood music as 70% of music sales in India are of Bollywood’s.

With the launch of VH1, we’ve already witnessed many international artists coming to give live concerts in India. And I hope RollingStone would help accelerating this trend in the years to come. RollingStone India would be the brand’s 14th edition outside of the United States.

The magazine is infused with some quality ads and content, of course. It gives Jodhaa Akbar a 2 star rating! It has articles on Kailash Kher, Rabbi, Leslie Lewis etc.

The quality of the magazine is far better than the three music magazines that are published in India. I’m onto reading the magazine now. The website is under construction but you can subscribe to the magazine or else head to your nearest store to pick your copy.

What next? Will Billboard and Q Magazine come to India? Anyway, RS will be here to rock us!

~ by Saawan on March 21, 2008.