Yep. The 70s and 80s were it's heyday. Even Matt Taibbi grew over the past 15 years or so into a decent journalist, albeit an unapologetic liberal.
It had a fifty year run. That's pretty respectable for a magazine. Plenty of others have come and gone since then.
I’d buy it, make it pretty neutral politically by exposing the monstrous crap on all sides, drop the rap (there’s legions of other mags doing that), focus on the great bands that are getting buried by the Beyonces, Adeles and Lady Gagas, extensively cover up-and-coming bands all over the country, hire Mark Steyn to do a column on world politics, music, movies or whatever he wants, lionize the living legends like Dylan and Petty, give young local journalists a chance to write gritty, indepth, riveting true crime from their local bailywicks, make Random Notes really random and cool again, and I think I’d have a winner, not a Wenner.
That is a long time for a magazine. I can’t find CarToons, Monster Mania, Creepy, and lots of others that were around when I was a kid.