In 1972 Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show sang about longing to be on the cover of Rolling Stone, but for rock stars, it’s a much rarer feat to appear on the cover of Time.
The popular news magazine launched in 1923 and has been published every week for most of the rock era, switching to every other week in 2020. However, rock musicians or bands have only served as the publication’s cover story 25 times.
You can see all the Time magazine covers featuring rock stars or rock music below.
Bruce Springsteen is the only rock star to appear by themselves on the Time cover twice. The first time was in 1975 when he famously also appeared on the cover of the magazine’s main rival Newsweek. He appeared again in 2002 when his post-9/11 album The Rising was discussed.
Three members of the Beatles have appeared twice: The group was featured on the Sept. 22, 1967 cover, Paul McCartney appeared solo in 1976 and John Lennon and George Harrison were given tribute covers following their 1980 and 2001 deaths. Bono has also appeared twice, alongside his U2 bandmates in 1987 and solo in 2002. To date the last rock star featured on the cover was David Bowie, following his 2016 death.
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Time was most invested in rock music coverage in the ’70s, dedicating 11 covers to the subject that decade as compared to six in the ’80s and just two in the ’90s.
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NOT INCLUDED: The definition of rock is incredibly broad today and, in this list, we’ve elected not to include pop/rock acts such as Imagine Dragons, Maroon 5, Twenty One Pilots, 5 Seconds of Summer, Coldplay, Goo Goo Dolls, Gym Class Heroes and Train.
Gallery Credit: Joe DiVita
