The 3 Biggest Reasons Music Magazines Are Dying
It's no secret that music magazines a rapidly becoming a relic of another era. Most blame a decline in advertising revenue coupled with the growth of free online music media. But ex-Blender 
staffer Jonah Weiner suggests there are other factors killing our once beloved music rags in his Slate piece "Spinning In The Grave".
1. There are fewer superstars, and the same musicians show up on every magazine cover.
2. Music mags have less to offer music lovers, and music lovers need them less than ever anyway.
3. Music magazines were an early version of social networking. But now there's this thing called "social networking" …
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So, I guess I should give up on my dream of ever writing for a small music/culture magazine enterprise and just keep blogging?
I was afraid you’d say that.
The music magazines that buck those trends and focus on book-level quality for every issue are still doing great, though. They will survive this Great Die-Off and become the models for what comes next: deeper, better, more organized and ambitious content.
Just check out Wax Poetics: http://www.waxpoetics.com/
It’s sad when a music outlet goes under.
Magazines run by more than a couple people are doomed. Same goes for digital outlets.
This economy has crushed. No ad dollars.
RWD mag in the UK is an add funded magazine that is rise. 80000 copies per month up from 30000 last year.
Most paid specialist music magazines are disappearing from our shelves.
Yet at the same time it seems that the celebrity obsessed paparazzi magazines (Us, People) seem to continue to sell very well, managing to co-exist with the online dominance of sites like TMZ or Perez. Perhaps there is something to be learned there, but probably not. The key difference just lies in giving readers information that they can’t produce on their own.
Blogs hear it first. Even the magazines with blogs like URB are behind the curve ball
when it comes to good music. The ability to hear music is much quicker these days, demos leak faster and amateur editors can post their own reviews. Music magazines are
now remnant space.
most musicmags wrote for promo-texts for record-companies to sell ads. the last 5 years the survived doing the same promo-work for the fashion industry.
who takes them serious. no one. its good that they die.
only those who serve quality will survive. thats good.
Arrogant fossilized baby boomers who rely on the continued siphoning of essence from the young to attain eternal life are incapable of running modern media companies….but that hasn’t stopped them from trying, at the cost of the younger generations dreams and culture, which should have been at the forefront by now.
The nostalgia trip is at long last coming to an abominable end…alas, I fear, before the end doth come they’ll clinch tight, white knuckles viselike on the steering wheel, and drive us all over the cliff.
People over 50, please
Stop eating your children,
brendan b brown
wheatus.com
4) Look at Rolling Stone
The problem is they are not remotely giving me any reason at all to even pick them up and glance through anymore.
Why, in 2009, am I still seeing magazine covers with Zepplin, Hendrix, Floyd, Doors, Dylan, Nirvana, GnR, Neil Young, Springsteen, etc. and those fucking “most awesome albums ever” lists?! I just don’t give a damn if they think Exile On Main Street was way totally amazing and groundbreaking and classic! LET IT GO!!