The Demise Of Paste Magazine, print version


I don’t know what com­pelled me to surf onto pastemagazine.com at 5:04pm on Sep­tem­ber 1st, but that deci­sion to browse soon had me in tears: at 5pm that day, Joshua Jack­son, editor-in-chief of the cul­ture mag for over 8 years, announced the sus­pen­sion of Paste’s printed ver­sion. Though it seems the online branch of Paste will be continuing—lessening the blow a bit—this is tragedy, no less.

And not just because I was renewed through 2012.

And not just because those awe­some mix CDs won’t be com­ing in the mail any­more (yes, I still opted to receive them over down­load­ing the mp3’s.…I liked the physicality).

And not just because those beau­ti­ful, full-color sirens on luxuriously-textured glossy paper won’t be arriv­ing every month any­more as the high­light of my month.

And not just because I don’t have a clue who to go to for music advice now, since Paste’s crew seemed to so closely iden­tify with my tastes.

And not just because I will no longer have access to the lengthy, intel­li­gent reviews their staff of reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tors and free­lancers con­tin­u­ally impressed me with.

This is a tragedy on the grand­est of scales because some­thing that the world so dearly needs is lost: the active abil­ity to sus­tain a well-curated, high qual­ity pub­li­ca­tion for a siz­able com­mu­nity banded together by open­ness to dis­cover and dis­cuss con­tem­po­rary cul­ture in its widest vari­ety of medi­ums (yes, they even reviewed video games, in addi­tion to movies, music, tele­vi­sion, con­certs, fes­ti­vals, etc.). This isn’t Rolling Stone (which con­tin­ues to thrive despite its utter lack of com­pelling con­tent and inabil­ity to put its fin­ger on the pulse of any­thing less than Top 40): this is a spe­cific set of tastes.

This is a debate about the ide­ol­ogy behind being an artist, being “in the business”—what is tal­ent, what should artists be doing with their tal­ents, what com­prises a great whole album, what works and what doesn’t when a bonafide artist steps off their self-created path, what works in a col­lab­o­ra­tion, what was miss­ing that an artist used to have, etc.

This is a col­lec­tive of writ­ers and read­ers who are tal­ented listeners—they notice the creak of the gui­tar 2:36 into a song, they notice the sound of hands clap­ping to the beat in the stu­dio, they still care about what an album cover looks like, they notice the qual­ity of a sound-recording, they rec­og­nize not just an artists’ con­tri­bu­tion but the dis­tinct work of pro­duc­ers, mix­ers, sound engi­neers, and record­ing studios.

There’s a seri­ous­ness about qual­ity, intent, pur­pose. There’s an atten­tion to detail. There’s a strong impulse to paint a rich pic­ture of the per­son­al­i­ties and spaces these works come out of.

All of this that Paste pro­vided to its read­ers, and so much more, is still vital­ity impor­tant and needed, and I believe needed in print form. Need did not dimin­ish. I don’t even think demand dimin­ished, and if I knew any­thing about sta­tis­tics and trends, I might even be able to argue that the need for this kind of pub­li­ca­tion effort is grow­ing with the cur­rent gen­er­a­tion of twen­tysome­things and thir­tysome­things need­ing to grasp at con­crete threads of good work in a cul­ture over-saturated with vari­able qual­ity work.

This is an issue of tim­ing, not money directly. I think the recession/ depression/ what­ever we’re call­ing it now has hit the demo­graphic that would sup­port Paste mag­a­zine through the next decade, the twen­tysome­things and thir­tysome­things, the hardest.

Remem­ber us? We’re the gen­er­a­tion that basi­cally just grad­u­ated, had hopes, had aspi­ra­tions, and stepped out all fresh-faced and ready to start our careers right into a pile of crap. If we could estab­lish our­selves in the job mar­ket, like prac­ti­cally every other gen­er­a­tion has been able to do at our age, then we would be able to sus­tain sub­scrip­tions to our favorite mag­a­zines, we could even buy CDs and MP3s on a reg­u­lar basis, movie tick­ets when great films were released, con­cert tick­ets, and even develop com­pa­nies that would adver­tise in just such venues as Paste print mag­a­zine. We’re get­ting to be a lost gen­er­a­tion, marred by the most extreme form of quarter-life cri­sis yet seen by any gen­er­a­tion. We’re the gen­er­a­tion stuck in our par­ents base­ments until we’re 27. We’re the ones who can’t get a jump start on our lives because every job we com­pete for has older, more qual­i­fied, enhanced resume appli­cants who have the expe­ri­ence we aren’t get­ting the chances to have.

And remem­ber us? We’re the the gen­er­a­tion who just got the ball rolling, just barely tasted that sat­is­fy­ing feel­ing that we were on the path we wanted, and maybe even just started fam­i­lies and begin envi­sion­ing homes that we could fix up and own and call our own. Just when we thought our thir­ties would be a chance to enjoy some of the money we’re now deservedly earn­ing, to stick our feet in the ground and call it ours, to begin reap­ing ben­e­fits for the years in our field we’ve put in, to feel secure that the path we’ve cho­sen is work­ing for us and will lead us to achiev­ing our goals for world travel, start-up busi­nesses, enjoy­ing the recre­ations our still-young bod­ies have avail­able, home own­er­ship,  dinner-parties, friends, fam­ily, suc­cess. Now, after all of those dreams and aspi­ra­tions are laid out as con­ceiv­able plans for the future, now comes the great eco­nomic col­lapse. All of our pri­or­i­ties have shifted. That lad­der we were suc­cess­fully climb­ing has, at best, lost a few rungs up top, and at worst turned into a chute. That home we just signed our blood to is now going to cause much strug­gle and hard­ship to afford and keep up. Those kids we thought we’d be rais­ing in sta­ble envi­ron­ments are about to be moved around the coun­try as we try for prof­itable ven­tures wher­ever they are avail­able. That sweet suc­cess we thought we were begin­ning to taste now stings sour on our tongue.

When these two gen­er­a­tions have a chance to estab­lish them­selves again in Amer­ica, I know that we will see growth in music sales, con­cert ticket sales, movie ticket sales, museum admis­sion sales, sub­scrip­tion sales, hell, even stereo equip­ment sales. These are all things we wish we could afford, and would under nor­mal cir­cum­stances even be among top bud­get pri­or­i­ties because they are what makes us think and feel and con­nect and emote. But these are not nor­mal times —these are sparse times, with lit­tle lux­ury, and unfor­tu­nately Paste and other like-minded ser­vices and com­pa­nies have wilted. But we’ll come look­ing for you again soon. I promise, Paste mag­a­zine, I’ll be here when you wake.

(and for now and as long as you can hold on, we’ll enjoy pastemagazine.com, and your Best Of What’s Next, your music reviews, your movie reviews, your t.v. reviews (here’s hop­ing you’ll be review­ing the fall pre­mieres!), your 1000 Words blogs (a real treat in the blog­ging world), your Awe­some Of The Day entries, your Free MP3’s links, your playlists (which needs work, guys), and your awe­somely awe­some List Of The Day offerings.

—————————————————–

ARTICLES:

Leave a Reply

*