Rolling Stone's 25 Worst Cover Misfires

​Happy Birthday, Rolling Stone, the first magazine that made us want to pick up a pen and notebook paper and go on an ether binge. The current-events and music magazine turns 43 years old today, and we wish them 43 more.

The magazine's first cover boy was John Lennon on the set of the film How I Won The War, and since that time the man or his band the Beatles has continued to grace the front of Rolling Stone at least once a year.

Digging through the magazine's cover archives, we found the most prolific musical cover subjects are U2, Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Madonna and Green Day. That's pretty good company for recent cover stars like Kings of Leon and Lady Gaga, who will more than likely be on the cover a few more times before they hang up their boots and meat dresses.

​But the magazine doesn't always have the best luck with its cover choices. They get swept up into hype just as easily as every other music magazine. They put the Vines on the cover of a 2002 rock issue, bypassing the White Stripes or the Strokes. Funny how that turned out.

They also repeatedly splashed the Backstreet Boys on the front, knowing full well it was to sell issues. But let the person who hasn't used teen pop as a draw to their work cast the first stone. Ahem...

Local trivia aside: Besides Annie Leibovitz, one of Rolling Stone's biggest go-to cover photographers is Houston native Mark Seliger. Rocks Off picked out the 25 most misguided, weird musical and sometimes downright unfortunate acts to grace the covers through the years. Have you seen Garth Brooks? Holy awesome mullet, Batman!

What are your least favorite covers?

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