This year has been a rough one for music magazines: their ranks are thinning, the business they’re covering is becoming more notable for being one that’s putting out a product people don’t want to pay for than anything else, and now Crain’s New York Business puts into numbers what anyone who picked up a music magazine probably noticed already: Ad pages at the big four magazines are down substantially from last year’s tallies, even as the magazines are increasing their rate bases. (Only Spin has weathered the downturn, with its ad pages actually up 22% since 2007.) Why?
Yes, that’s right: If you buy a ticket to the May 2 New York City show by the Ellis Unit, which features Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner’s son, Gus, on guitar and vocals, you get a free subscription to Blender–a $9.97 value that brings your real price for the $20 ticket down to a mere $10.03 (plus service charges, which will probably mean that you’re out $20 anyway). I wonder if this means that Jann has no hard feelings about the Joe Levy decampment? Click the screenshot to enlarge.
Once again, we present Rock-Critically Correct, a feature in which the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe, and Spin are given a once-over by an anonymous writer who’s contributed to several of those titles–or maybe even all of them! After the click-through, a look at the new issue of Rolling Stone:
Once again, we present Rock-Critically Correct, a feature in which the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe and Spin are given a once-over by an anonymous writer who’s contributed to several of those titles–or maybe even all of them! After the click-through, a look at the new issue of Rolling Stone:
Always say two nice things first, the writing workshoppers tell me, so I’ll grant that Rock and the Pop Narcotic author Joe Carducci makes a good point about Rolling Stone‘s Britney issue: Jann’s other rags are indeed as responsible for the Britpacolypse as the tabloids. (Though who cares about Rolling Stone‘s hypocrisies anymore? Haven’t we all come to terms with that?) And yes, the possibly Wenner-penned sentence comparing Britney to George W. is gaggingly bad. But then he tries to explain Britney, and suddenly there’s not enough hand-waving in the world for this bitch to take flight:
Rolling Stone has put two people in the Executive Editor position recently vacated when Joe Levy took the reins at Blender. The new hires: Jason Fine and Eric Bates, both of whom are being bumped up from the Deputy Managing Editor ranks. More »
Once again, we present Rock-Critically Correct, a feature in which the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe and Spin are given a once-over by an anonymous writer who’s contributed to several of those titles–or maybe even all of them! After the click-through, he contrasts the Britney Spears cover stories in the new issues of Rolling Stone and Blender:
Once again, we present Rock-Critically Correct, a feature in which the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe and Spin are given a once-over by an anonymous writer who’s contributed to several of those titles–or maybe even all of them! After the click-through, a look at the new issue of Rolling Stone:
And now it’s time for a special edition of Rock-Critically Correct! Usually, this space presents analyses of the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe, and Spin by an anonymous writer who’s contributed to several of those titles–or maybe even all of them!–but this time, our critic gives us his take on yesterday’s announcement that Joe Levy would be taking the top post at Blender:
Once again, we present Rock-Critically Correct, a feature in which the most recent issues of Rolling Stone, Blender, Vibe, and Spin are given a once-over by an anonymous writer who’s contributed to several of those titles–or maybe even all of them! After the click-through, he takes in the year-end issues of RS, Spin, and Blender:
