Editor's Notes: Change You Can Believe In

Like the man we are featuring on the cover for the third time in seven months — a record equaled only by John Lennon — we embrace the idea of change. Not change for the sake of change, but change as evolution and growth and renewal, change as the kind of cultural renaissance that gave birth to Rolling Stone more than four decades ago. Bob Dylan sang, "He not busy being born is busy dying." That's another way to put it.

With this issue, we've changed to a new format, reducing our size to the dimensions of the classic magazine and exchanging staples for "perfect binding." In the trade-off, we've improved our paper quality and invested in additional pages to expand every section of the magazine — more music news, extra pages of Random Notes, more reviews and more space for our award-winning features and political coverage.

We began life in 1967 as a tabloid-size newspaper. It was not an aesthetic choice — it was simply what we could afford at the time. Each issue was 24 pages, the photos were black-and-white, the ink came off on your hands and the newsprint quickly turned yellow. The next decades saw many upgrades as we became more successful and had the money to improve the physical product. In 1973, we started printing the magazine on a four-color press. In the winter of 1981, we took another big step when we essentially became a hybrid of a newspaper and a magazine, upgrading to near-magazine-quality paper and reducing the dimensions to 10 x 12 inches, stapling the whole thing together and neatly trimming the edges.

The large format was one of Rolling Stone's trademarks — and it became a physical reminder of our roots in San Francisco and of a vital time in our cultural history. That's a lot of history, and it is not without a wistful feeling of sweet memories of those days that we make this change.

It was not a decision we made lightly. We felt this was the right move but remained a little uncertain, knowing this was not just up to us but also in the hands of the large number of passionate and longtime Rolling Stone readers (there are nearly 13 million of you, when you count the number of people who share their copy).

Thus, a few months ago, while putting together our annual summer double issue, we produced a version of that edition in the size and style of the one you now hold and mailed it to 3,000 subscribers to get their thoughts. The response was a major surprise: Readers loved it. We realized that the only reason to resist change was nostalgia.

Since we decided to make the change, we've spent a lot of time rethinking the magazine. It's not a full redesign — more of a translation. We've been careful to preserve the look and feel of Rolling Stone while making a design that works on the new pages. In doing this, we have discovered how much more flexible the new format is, how much opportunity there will be for the odds and ends that come along that we never had room for.

Of course, what never changes is our DNA. A great magazine is a set of voices and values, artfully and urgently translated into great stories and pictures. The soul and mission of Rolling Stone remain the same as a magazine coming from midtown Manhattan as they were when we were a rock & roll newspaper published from a warehouse- district loft in San Francisco: We believe in the magic of rock & roll and that the magic can set you free.

P.S. Astute readers will also notice another change: We've decided to go back to the adhesive subscriber label. No more of the big white box taking up a chunk of the cover — you can just peel it off. Now that's change you can believe in.

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