Burning and Ripping Music Magazines in the MP3 Era

When The Fader recently announced that it would distribute its summer issue via iTunes — making it the first magazine ever to do so — it wasn't terribly surprising. Magazine executives have been talking for years about digital distribution — how their brands will be what survives long after the last of the "magazine" readers die off, rendering magazines a novelty popular with kids who remember seeing them on eBay.

And that's saying nothing of the underwhelming sale of Spin and subsequent struggle to integrate a new editor; music magazines' continued loss of advertising revenue; and the closing of niche, yet well-regarded titles like Circus and Grooves.

What was surprising, though, was that it was 85,000-circulation The Fader — not Rolling Stone, not Vibe, not Billboard, not any of the countless national magazines with their ubiquitous "music" issues — that hooked up with iTunes first.

"We made it a point at the The Fader a while ago to embrace new technology, and a new generation of music consumer with different sensibilities that have been shaped by the Internet," says The Fader publisher Andy Cohn. "This is about taking it to the next level and making the new issue an interactive experience, giving readers the ability to listen to the artists featured in the magazine."

Then again, perhaps it wasn't all that surprising. Big music magazines have generally been slow to adapt to the shifting ground of the MySpace-MP3-iPod era. While they may have covered the phenomena, you'd be hard-pressed to find ones that have completed the circuit and actually gotten on board.

Sure, Rolling Stone, Spin and just about every music magazine have supplemented traditional album reviews with "What to Download," but that's because they were forced to. Albums sales dropped 8 percent in 2005 as the Recording Industry Association of America turned up the heat against piracy — the bulk of the desirable 18-to-34-year-old demographic is less concerned with the traditional album than they are with the next hot MP3.

"You think of all the great albums, the classics, the Beatles," says Andy Pemberton, ex-editor of Spin. "If the Beatles were to hand in Rubber Soul to their record company today, [the company would] say, 'This is great — where's the other half?'"

Indeed, music fans have come to expect free downloads, and some magazines, like The Fader, have obliged. But by and large, most of the others haven't.

"I really can't speak for [other music publications], but there is a general hesitation to break away from the old-school mentality of making magazines," says Cohn. "[There is] a general fear of the unknown. You have some publishers and publishing companies who only know one way of doing things, and writers who are surprisingly slow to adapt, as well."

"There is a resistance to adapt, but it's the delivery of the content where they are falling short — which is up to the publishers to figure out," says Cohn.

Pemberton stood by this philosophy at Blender, expanding the number of reviews exponentially to satisfy a music-consuming public that was getting used to the idea of an endless MP3 playlist. (According to one theory, Pemberton's insistence on Blenderizing Spin to cater to younger readers led to his ultimate demise.) In fact, if a recent Mediamark Research Inc (MRI) audience study is to be believed, Blender's typical reader is 26, male, and more "connected" than Rolling Stone and Spin. "The iPod, downloading, MP3 generation has clearly found a music magazine they can call their own," Blender publisher Lee Rosenbaum said in a recent press release touting its ability to connect with Generation "i." "Blender's authenticity and connection to the culture has been proven."

Perhaps. Blender started shifting its coverage of MP3s to cater to iPodists two-and-a-half years ago, says editor Craig Marks, but he points out that the category as a whole has been "slower to adapt than one would've imagined," in part because writers and editors have been reluctant to let go of a romantic ideal: the 12-song album.

"The traditional album reviews section is something that can still drive a magazine," says Marks. "It's a weird holdover from the from what was a new art form in the 60s and 70s: the rock album. If you look at hip-hop magazines, they're less concerned with covering complete albums."

For its part, Rolling Stone has gone to great lengths to reinvent itself as a punchier read — though a misconception about Generation MP3 is its A.D.D.-fueled tendency to skim. (Everybody skims, not just kids who download music.) Jann Wenner said late last year that the magazine would be investing a "significant" portion of resources in its online presence.

But Wenner's traditional print focus seems to overshadow what the magazine does on the Web. At the magazine's 1000th issue party, there was no Web to speak of: no kiosks, no faux interactivity, nada. Just Wenner on a stage, and a magazine looking back at its legacy, with Paul Shafer and the CBS Orchestra serving as that rich history's oddly-chosen reminder.

And Rolling Stone can win as many prestigious awards as it wants — no 19-year-old kids are chosing their magazines based on how many Ellies it wins.

But the reason The Fader's iTunes stunt reverberated through the halls of its bigger competitors, if only a little, had less to do with a shift in content and more to do with the rewiring of its delivery.

"They [mainstream music magazines] are being beaten to every story by blogs and music-driven Web sites, as the timing is too immediate for monthlies, bi-monthlies, or weeklies to try and compete with," says Cohn, who adds that the Fader has thus far been able to keep pace with the blogs by covering artists that are still unknown. "This generation is just not going to wait that long for music 'news.'"

[Editor's Note: This article has been updated to clarify the quote in the final paragraph. In an earlier version, the "they" in Cohn's quote was incorrectly attributed to "[Music magazine publishers]" — he was referring to "mainstream music magazines."] [Dylan Stableford is mediabistro.com's managing editor of media news; dylan AT mediabistro.com]