allstar Closes Its Doors After Six Years Of News, Views, & Gossip

steve k

go.to/stevek

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http://cdnow.com/allstararticle/fid=345453

allstar Closes Its Doors After Six Years Of News, Views, & Gossip
Nov 20, 2002, 9:00 am PT

Friends of allstar:

In 1997, Joey Ramone sang allstar's praises by calling us "defiant upstarts." Unfortunately, our defiance has run out and allstar is closing its doors today. CDNOW is undergoing some changes and will no longer need daily news.

And, that's OK.

allstar has had an awesome six-year run, starting on Sept. 9, 1996 under the direction of N2K, Rob Lord, and John Bitzer. Our first day of news featured our first exclusive news scoop on Trent Reznor's soundtrack to Lost Highway, news on the condition of Tupac Shakur who had been shot just days earlier, and a Miss Truth gossip item on Courtney Love telling yours truly to "get away from me now." Well, now she gets her wish.

Flash forward five years from launch (with CDNOW as our new home) and we had lasted longer than any other online-only, daily music magazine. To help us celebrate that anniversary, a few of allstar's favorites chimed in -– "allstar is one of my favorite sites; it's always informative and fun" (Moby); "Thanks allstar news for giving music fans such great insight about artists and music ... and thanks for giving us Miss Truth!" (RIAA President/CEO Hilary Rosen); and "I think allstar is pretty darn nifty" (Blink-182's Mark Hoppus).

Well, while we're at it, a few more praises came our way in the past six years that we don't mind sharing again. New York Times called Miss Truth "A cool site for pop music gossip. This is Liz Smith for Generation Y." Entertainment Weekly named us the best music news site on the 'net in 1997, saying, "The site is a must-read for its daily news updates alone. With a network of correspondents constantly digging, allstar gets the scoop on alt-rock news." And, yours truly (again) was named one of the Most Influential Californians in the Music Business by Bam magazine in 1998.

But, enough about us.

We would like to thank our loyal readers for sticking it out with us through all the changes (and as always for your colorful reader mail -– in answer to the most frequently asked questions: Yes, I do have a life. No, I won't go to hell. And, no, I don't get my news and gossip from my husband.)

We would also like to thank our hardworking, underpaid, in-the-know freelance writers, especially our main man, Senior Writer Kevin Raub, who have worked their butts off over the past six years and deserve a lot of credit for making our experience at allstar a great one.

I'm lucky to have met you.

Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna
Managing Editor, News
CarrieBVrenna@aol.com

P.S. I'll still be Senior Editor for the quarterly Gene Simmons Tongue magazine as I contemplate my next move.