Alpha Media Group closed Blender magazine on March 26, 2009. I learned a lot from this magazine and I've subscribed for several years.
Blender was started in 1994, by Jason Pearson, David Cherry and Regina Joseph as the first digital CD-ROM magazine.
Blender took a distinctly laddish turn when purchased by Alpha Media, who also publish Maxim. It didn't seem like quite the sort of thing you would expect to see in a Connecticut household. (Cover girls are strictly NOCD.)
But even at it's most voluptuous, Blender had wonderful writers. I was a fan of Josh Eels work. And in the current issue has a great story about Kelly Clarkson by Michael Joseph Gross. It's thoughtful. He notices that Clarkson drops her accent all of a sudden, but leaves it to us to figure out what this might mean.
Blender, R.I.P.
Blender was pretty. I took it for a year and let it lapse. Reason? The music reviews were not critical, they all seemed like a sales pitch. I’ve noticed this has moved on to Entertainment Weekly and my beloved Rolling Stone where hardly anyone gets below a 3 stars anymore. Is all this music really that good (everything is above average!)? Or do the reviewers not know enough about “what the kids are listening to,” or are they just unwilling to expose the emperor’s nudity because they are corrupted by advertising and celebrity rub-ups? BTW, Grant, love the blogs, (best, Scott Roberts!)