Blender Folds

We began getting Blender when some other periodical folded. What a moronic publication. Filled with snippets of byte-sized edit and pop junk, it never really filled any niche at all, just swiped from others. I always feel terrible for personnel in these situations: been there. Worse, our copy goes to the boss, who is 83 and has no idea or desire to digest any of Blender's hip-hop, mickey mouse, mp3 culture and neither do I. I took the last issue with to Triton college and offered it along with other recent magazines, to the class. Nobody took Blender, not even the "target audience" of urban city kids... and it sat there for a week. blender, like Maxim, filled only one void: filler for bad magazines in your local drugstore or supermarket rack. It's a "who gives a s***" mess that, at best, panders to a manipulated culture of dopes. so, blender is moving to the web now? Does anybody care? I've talked about this deadly use (overuse) of the web as a part of the publication: bad, bad move. Once a reader gets their fill from the web, will they be motivated to pick up the hard copy? Never. The use of the web should be for support, not a stand-alone; That's for people on the dime. Newspapers should charge, and charge well, for online content, but as so many folded to free sites, they all began falling. A magazine is a marriage of skills; the free web is that divorced tramp down the street who wrecks marriages. apparently, nobody ever wants to run that tramp outta town...

I got this awful magazine free for a year in my mail, unsolicited. I would like a refund for the time it took to read, and a refund for the brain cells killed directly upon reading, as well as the ones killed when banging my head against the wall wondering how any of the rags editors, writers, or decision makers had any kind of carreer involving words.

I couldn't disagree more with the posts above! In its heyday Blender was a great magazine. These posts above take only the author's personal subjective point of view into account. We all have different appetites and tastes. That's why restaurants have menus! Blender, in its prime was a uniquely positioned magazine with respect to its competitors, providing readers with a focus on predominantly "today's popular music" across all genres from rock to hip hop to alternative music. At a time when the music business was beginning to go through enormous change with the advent of digital music, Blender was one of the few, if not the only music magazine with its finger truly on the pulse of that change. Providing readers with reviews of songs rather than albums, because consumers were buying individual songs online, and lists like 20 songs to download this month, which demonstrated Blender's understanding of these shifts and the need to cater to changing consumer habits. Most of all though, Blender delivered all of this editorial through a filter of irreverent humor that was truly fun and funny, a unique approach in comparison with most other music magazines who's approach to this fun and inspiring subject matter was extremely earnest and serious. What a shame that this great and unique magazine has come to such a sad end.

Perhaps the two previous posters are too young to have really been excited by rock 'n roll... too young to have enjoyed mags like "Creem" and "Circus"... Blender was trying to fill that niche. Granted, it got too cute trying to be clever in it's final years, but it's problem is not that it was an inherently bad magazine, it is that it's target audience it just not likely to sit down and read a printed page. The 'net is the place for Blender. I hope they do well there.

I let my subscription lapse a few months ago, but I really dug "Blender." When I was in middle school and HS, I thought "Rolling Stone" was the bible the music industry went by. Once I got into college and realized that "Billboard," I found "Blender" and the mix of sarcasm, fashion, good music picks, and great interviews had me at the first issue. I think it went a little too much toward "Maxim" in the end, but I still think it's wittier than any other music mag out there.

The best content on the net is provided by bloggers and filtered through aggregators like Hype M. I dont see any point of going to a magazine like Blender and its dope smoking journalists. It has a morph into something more that a magazine -call me and I will consult for them :)! I dont see web advertising making enough money to pay for staffer salaries and server and IT costs. So this is just the start of a shutdown. I feel they should sell the brand to someone while it has some value...call me I am interested in buying!

Blender was an amusing enough read for those of us who follow popular music, and recent editorial changes had given it a small amount of additional weight, but there was rarely anything truly important or meaningful in there. Blender was good at wisecracks, but it wasn't the kind of magazine you might hesitate to part with -- unlike an issue of Mojo or Rolling Stone. A typical issue of Blender was fine for a couple of laughs, and then it was completely disposable, ready for the recycling bin after flipping through it once or twice. Even the better regular features (ie., "Dear Superstar") were over-edited into jokey vanilla and lacked substance. No one would ever refer to a groundbreaking music story in Blender (unlike RS or Spin). Not that the magazine didn't occasionally try for a meaningful article based on real reporting and writing, but those attempts were sporadic at best, so Blender never built up any credibility as a must-read. Other than the jokes, the magazine also lacked any real personality or visual style: It was slick but faceless, with competent art direction that looked like a thousand other competent magazines. Which is a shame and a wasted opportunity: early in its life, Blender was a fast-rising publication that actually had Rolling Stone worried for a moment. Blender had possibilities but played it safe. It was still a lot more relevant than the short-lived Tracks. Now that was an awful, lifeless magazine.

Unless Blender appropriated the mailing lists of a few other magazines, the publication Mark Braun speaks of was mine, Rockpile. Rockpile folded in the summer of '06 and looking back on it, sad as we were, it was probably precisely the right time because it was around then that reports of the the record industry's increasingly dismal sales were building to a fever pitch. As a magazine that primarily catered to independent label2s and businesses we could see the writing on the wall: No record sales, no ad budgets, no Rockpile magazine. We were to slow to move to an internet-only format, which could have saved us, but the truth is print publications are pretty much finished. Some will survive and fill a role for some, but in the emerging era of the internet, the kindle and the long tail it just won't be possible to sell enough magazines or newspapers (and therefore attract advertisers)n to keep print pubs alive. Sure, some highly targeted niche publications with innovative (read: free) distribution schemes may survive, but until all this culling of the herd is through it's going to look pretty bleak. That said, journalism still has value. Good writing and information gathering still has value. Brands like the NYT and the WSJ, etc., still have value. It's just going to take some time to sort out what the business model that can actually make money on the internet looks like. Have faith. The printed word is not yet dead. The rise and fall of the printing press had an arc of approximately 500 years. We're in the early days of the digital era. May you live in interesting times, indeed.

C'mon, to compare Blender with Creem is something akin to blasphemy. Creem was an entirely different critter from another age, a music rag that featured real writers that brought intelligence and insight to what they wrote. Blender served a singular purpose, delivering disposable pop culture on the cheap to a young, attention deficit readership. It should do well on the web, but for those looking for real music coverage, I'd recommend Blurt.

I'm not surprised that Blender is going under. All those lifestyle aspiration rag-mags disguised as "real" journalism are going to bite the dust. Blender was acceptable when it first hit the stands, but gradually, it fell into Maxim's "cute trap." I'm a disc jockey and Billboard, for better or worse, is still the best resource for me. When I want "cute," I read Rolling Stone. Even RS is dangerously close to nauseating sometimes. I'm not trying to be harsh here, but there's only so much you can say about music in a magazine. You either like a band or you don't. Who cares if their bass player is feeling really positive about life now that he's out of rehab? Bands (and mags) come and go, but the truly successful of each keep up with the times. Blender did not. It's still partying like it's 1999.

The picture on the cover that accompanies this article says it all. A feature on Britney Spears? I can get that from Us or People or even The Inquirer. From a music standpoint, what could be less interesting?

Somewhere a forest of trees smiles. What a pathetic rag. I've been getting it free for a year. It is sub-mental in every way. Simply for the crime of putting Kelly Clarkson on the cover, they deserve their fate. good riddance.

I toss it in the garbage or use it to light the fire. Even as a free pub. it just wasn't worth my time to read or even open up for that matter. I totally agree with your moms post.

Do you really think that Britney Spears would have agreed to pose with an uptuned Mickey Mouse hat full of cigarette butts? I believe that cover was a spoof where here head was transposed. Yet another example of Blender's classic irreverence. But then I guess you either get it or you don't.....

If the rag was any good wouldn't it still be circulating? Good riddance to bad rubbish.

I just sent out my subscription on 2/23/09, now what?

If you are in fact a fan of music, Blender means very little in every way. Since there are several smaller niche magazines actually covering music and reviewing it (beyond Blenders' average two sentence limit) it's target audience isn't interested. The format, humor and the sound-bite journalism was pretty in vogue in the late 90's. But like most disposable things - it's only a matter of time before they are properly disposed of. It was the sort of magazine co-workers gathered around for a few chuckles during downtime - and then throw it away. Let's face it, the appeal of "most awesomely bad" lists are pretty limited. At least it will find a suitable anyone-can-do-it home on the web.

Upon reading the previous posts, I see no one admitting or declaring themselves readers from the get go of this now-defunct publication. Accepting that as truth, then let me be the first to say that have bought and read every monthly edition since the beginning, and still own them. Perhaps 'Blender' may not have obtained the perceived stature of a 'Rolling Stone' or the longevity of a 'Creem' magazine, but it was a decent monthly entertainment expense to catch up on the goings-on of the music industry. I've spent the last six weeks checking my local bookstores and newstands to pick up the latest issue, only to find out when reading this post that my favourite periodical has passed away. How unfortunate. While I hardly ever agreed with the opinions expressed by many of the lists, polls, arguments and articles featured from month to month, I did enjoy reading 'Blender', it provided me with an edgy escape from my inane and stressful life to catch up on some interesting facts about the history of hit songs and how they were made, features on artists that I wouldn't necessarily think to listen to, and haven't even after reading about them since coming across them in 'Blender', but it was good to learn about them anyway. I am sad to see you go, Blender, but at least you have left a tangible reminder of who you were, and I can peel open your pages anytime I want to whenever I want to remember your obnoxious spirit. Your memory will live on forever. Now, I need to find another use for my $6.00 monthly magazine fund. Can anyone recommend a decent music/hardcore porn periodical? Big T the Troublemaker

I won't miss Blender - it wasn't terrible but it wasn't very good either. In truth I read it simply to pass the time until the next Q magazine (which itself is no longer great but still good) hit North American shores. My wife will be happy not to have to see anymore Blenders in the bathroom.