Rolling Stone magazine has long been known for its striking covers. (Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)

Dr. Hook sang a song about it.

Cameron Crowe made a movie about it (Almost Famous).

The cover of Rolling Stone magazine: the ultimate pop culture symbol that "you've made it." Bands that have graced its cover have come and gone, but the institution of the RS cover, and the magazine itself, is still relevant.

The issue of RS that comes out today is pretty big on Cancon.

Yes, Bieber's on the cover, though it appears the magazine is backing down from comments it earlier attributed to him on abortion, a cheap shot not worthy of the magazine.

Another, less obvious Canadian act also makes an appearance in this week's issue: Saskatoon's The Sheepdogs, an indie band that's one of 16 acts vying for the chance to play the Bonnaroo music festival, and yes, be on the cover of the Rolling Stone's August issue.

There's something about the combination of these two: the most ubiquitous celebrity on the planet, and a band even Canadian hipsters would have a hard time naming, that has for me provided RS's magic formula for decades.

My own relationship with the magazine began in early to mid-'90s. I was a teenager: intense, gangly, and new to Canada. The time was grunge, the fashion was bad, and the bands were publicity-shy and not prone to pull-quote worthy statements (at least until Courtney Love arrived to the scene). But something about getting the magazine that was part-and-parcel of pop culture's grand tradition made me feel like a part of something bigger than myself.

Over the years, my love for RS has been tested. The late 90s were a particularly low point: the invasion of teen pop made RS give in to its lowest impulses. The covers were sleazy and obvious, splashed with uninterestingly sexy images: Britney Spears squeezed into star-spangled shorts, Christina Aguilera naked, straddling a strategically placed guitar before releasing the album that was supposed to signify her emancipation from teen-pop land.

Inside, the situation wasn't much better. Ads started multiplying like Gremlins sprinkled with water. They crowded out reviews and in-depth features that, for most readers, distinguished RS from Teen Beat.

But, even after such cheap grabs for teen demographic, RS would still manage to win me over.

Today, Rolling Stone is about as corporate as McDonalds -- it's part of the TimeWarner/AOL conglomerate -- but its genesis was intertwined with the birth of youth culture, rebellion and rock'n'roll. There's something about social dissent, unrest and general feeling of "can't get no satisfaction" that seems to put this magazine back on its rightful path.

The covers of the last three or four years have been varied, interesting and eye-popping.There was the trifecta of boomer rock gods -- Bono, Springsteen, Jagger -- whose sold-out tours defied recession. It seemed unbelievable they got the three of them in one room at the same time. But that's RS for you.

Then Rapper Lil' Wayne: a cough-syrup addicted pop culture phenomenon who had a top-selling album during the year he spent behind bars. Then Jay-Z. Then the cast of True Blood, naked and covered in blood.

The content inside was also memorable. There was an article on Hulk Hogan, a forgotten wrestler who was promised a fame revival by a reality show featuring his family. The opening scene stuck in my head for months: there was Hulk, body broken by years of fake fighting and spirit broken by the fake reality of reality TV, crawling on all fours to get to the bathroom in the morning because of chronic back pain, wife gone with all his money, son in trouble with the law. Then he turns around to the RS writer and says, with the usual Hulk optimism: "It's all good, man." Heartbreaking.

Matt Taibbi's series on the Wall Street meltdown was a fin-de-sicle anatomy of the culture of greed and personalities whose hubris finally brought it down. Brilliant.

RS was back.

So, while I continue to stew over the sensationalist cheap shot at Justin Bieber, I know I'll eventually forgive RS. I have a kind of sentimental attachment to it that goes back to the years when I -- like the young writer and the young band in Almost Famous -- believed that rock'n'roll would save the world.

Rolling Stone is my teenage crush, all decked out in the sun-washed watercolour Cameron Crowe used so well in his sweetly sentimental movie.

And my boy still knows how to rock.

-- Deana Sumanac