TV REVIEWS : Reminiscing With Rolling Stone at 25

It’s a given that “Rolling Stone 25: The MTV Special” (tonight at 10) is going to be fairly flattering and self-aggrandizing, with one corporate, post-counterculture rock ‘n’ roll institution saluting another. Host (and former Rolling Stone contributing editor) Kurt Loder’s remark that the magazine is now “part of the media Establishment against which it once rebelled” would’ve fallen into the so-obvious-it’s-superfluous category 15 years ago, let alone now, when rebels like Tom Cruise and Jason Priestly appear on the cover with semi-annual clockwork regularity.

Within that context, though, it’s a pretty interesting 90 minutes--at least for those of us old and nostalgic enough to remember those pre-Madonna days when merely the imagined hint of David Cassidy’s pubic hair on the cover set off a public maelstrom that wrecked his career.

There are reminiscings over headier coups, too, like the coverage of the Karen Silkwood and Patty Hearst stories--in the mag’s mid-’70s glory days--that established that ex-hippies could do respectable investigative journalism, too.

Rolling Stone did set all sorts of standards worth commemorating, like being the first mass-market publication to bring Richard Pryor’s uncensored language to supermarkets everywhere, not to mention the first to take pop music seriously--for better or worse.

“I think Rolling Stone ruined rock ‘n’ roll,” blurts David Byrne, one of dozens of music and movie celebrities interviewed. “Rock ‘n’ roll used to be sort of innocent . . . and then people started writing about it.” Not everyone blames the messenger: “I’ve always found the interview situation a fairly good sport,” says Sting.

Embarrassing episodes like the movie “Perfect” are glossed over quickly, though a fair amount of time is devoted to minor criticisms like hypocritical Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain’s insistence on wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with “Corporate Magazines Still Suck” for his cover shoot. There’s plenty of fun trivia here for longtime subscribers, though, obviously, you’ll have to go to the book “Rolling Stone: An Unauthorized History” for a critical overview.