AOW #11: Stones Near Decision on 50th Anniversary Shows

POSTED/CREATED 12/4/11

REPOSTED: 12/11/11

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/stones-near-decision-on-50th-anniversary-shows-20111123 

This piece is basically about the possible 50^th Anniversary Tour of the Rolling Stones. It is not a definite decision yet but, throughout the article, they talked to both past and present members to see what they thought of the idea. Keith Richards seemed very willing to join into the spectacle, as well as other members like Ronnie Wood (guitarist) and Bobby Keys (saxophone player). However, they seemed to be looking for Mick Jagger’s approval; especially since they just recently completed their 40^th anniversary Licks Tour. In the end, it is still up in the air but they think that if they do continue with the tour, they will only stay in a few cities rather than a full nation tour.

The author of this article is Patrick Doyle of Rolling Stone Magazine. He is credible because I found an article of him that says he was an Ithacan and New York University Alumni and since those are two very prestigious journalism schools, I can tell that he is very well educated. It also said that he started his career off by working for Ithacan as an Accent editor which means he worked a long and hard way up to get to work for Rolling Stone.

http://ithacanalumni.blogspot.com/2010/10/patrick-doyle-moves-up-at-rolling-stone.html

The context of this piece, alike to many magazine articles, would be temporal or causal. It would be temporal because it is an extremely recent article that is talking about interviews that just recently happened. It could be causal as well because although the article is very recent with new interviews, it is discussing the effect of these interviews rather than just what the interview says.

The purpose of this article was to create excitement for a very important event in the career path of the Rolling Stones. A 50^th Anniversary tour is an extremely substantial point in the history of one of the greatest bands of all time.

The obvious audience of this article was fans of the Rolling Stones – especially ones who want to see them in concert again/for the first time. However, it could also be for the general public as well whether they like the Stones or not because mostly everyone knows who they are – but not everyone knows how long they’ve been a band.

Some rhetorical elements in this piece were: communal memory, active voice, and casual tone.

There was a lot of communal memory all throughout the article, especially if you are a big Rolling Stones fan. Much of the communal memory came from the once rocky relationship of Jagger and Richards, which was a much publicized thing. Also, the communal memory was expressed through the always noticeably “snobby” persona of Mick Jagger, seen by both the media in his interviews and Richards in his book Life (which were both included in this article).

Alike to many other articles, this one had an active voice because of the many introductions of interviews – for example, “Richard says…”, “Adds Jagger…”, etc.

It also had a very casual tone (diction/syntax) because much of it was snippets of interviews and citations, so there wasn’t much room for it to be formal. Also, it is a casual rock article and formality would throw of its purpose to inform.

I believe that the author did accomplish their purpose because, as a fan (majority of the intended audience), I was not only informed of the possible tour dates, but I was also clued in to why they might or might not be happening.