r.i.p. no depression

That's just amazing, and thoughtful, writing. And I can't help but feel that this:

In this evolving downloadable world, what a record label is and does is all up to question.

...is the best one-sentence summary of the music business in a long while.

I can't say I ever followed the magazine, they covered music that for the most part was of little to no interest to me, but this is sad news.

I'd been meaning to subscribe. Downer.

too bad, indeed.

We were just talking about an article edd hurt wrote for them on the Howard Tate thread. RIP.

Now I really feel guilty about not buying that issue with the Howard Tate piece. While some of us have grumbled about the parameters they used to define country, alt-country, blues, soul, roots music, the stuff they did include was always nicely written.

Speaking of less newsstands to sell their magazine, while I still would often see some issues in my local Borders, I noticed that Living Blues magazine has disappeared from that store.

get it while you can't

man i used to read this all the time : (

sad.

I only ever saw one issue of Living Blues (I THINK it was living blues), and the cover story was about the kids/grandkids of R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, etc...thought it was a little odd and forgot it existed altogether until just now.

Was that Living Blues or am I thinking of something entirely different?

And am I alone in thinking that is sorta weird?

Alright, off to bed for real now...

That was probably it. There's another American blues mag--Blues Revue I think it's called, but they seem to emphasize covering more blooz-rock stuff that I don't care about, as opposed to the Burnside family Mississippi stuff and the outcasts like Otis Taylor that I do care about. Borders also carries a nice Brit magazine at $10 a pop called Juke Blues (I think that's the title). But to get back to No D, I read some nice features by Geoff Himes and others there. Are there any other country music publications that would feature some of the articles that No D had?

I wonder if some hotshot marketing/advertising person could get No D more non-music ads, or is such a niche publication just reliant on record company ads as they noted in the farewell message?

ouch! music magazine - thats two declining industries in one

as a contributor, one thing i always thought was nice was their christmas bonuses. their freelance rates were relatively modest, of course (but not bad, really -- i bought my ipod and powershot off a feature i wrote for them last year), but even with that they made a point of sending a little extra thank-you every december to their regulars. it was a nice gesture, more than i've gotten at most of my salaried jobs. and as editors peter and grant were great to work with. i got the sense it was important to them to treat people well.

xpost:
well obviously harp and paste cover some of the territory, but i think there's a lot that will fall through the cracks -- especially among the more traditionalist stuff. if you look at all the profiles and reviews in every issue, ND gives space to a pretty huge number of people.

Harp and Paste have always annoyed me in their white-bread predictability...

I did a few very small things for ND about five or seven years ago, and to this day still get a comp issue. It was my first freelance stuff outside my hometown, and both editors were very easy to work with. And I was surprised at how widely and thoroughly read the mag was.

I'm pretty much with Ned; I never read this mag and wouldn't have on a dare, but more magazines is always better than fewer magazines.

I'm actually more upset about what this signifies than I am about the loss of a pretty great magazine. We're totally through the looking glass here, folks. It's hard not to be bummed out.

i know, it's starting to feel like if doomed small publications could fly, this place would be an airport.

If clever posts could fly straight to the roffle/zing threads ...

Oh yeah? Well if snarky, unfunny responses slocky...s1ock...cocky...oh, nevermind.

I had no idea there were so many ND contributors on ILX.

I used to read it back in the late 90s. Some articles were a bit haughty, such as "IF YOU DON'T LIKE BOB WILLIS, THEN YOU MUST HATE MUSIC". But it was mostly a really good magazine.

But hey. At least there's still Oxford American (for now).

cut out the fighting!

let's get this thread back on track RIP no depression:

http://www.takecountryback.com/features/Diane%20Bowker..Waylon%20and%20Jessi%20..my%20favorite%20photo...jpg

At least there's still Oxford American
From Oxford, Miss?

Used to be. Now it's in Conway, Ark.

But Twitty, TX is out of the picture?

"IF YOU DON'T LIKE BOB WILLIS, THEN YOU MUST HATE MUSIC"

well better this ^^ than some pop douche saying the same thing abt an amerikan idle nerdathon winner. but yes it's a silly equation either way.

wonder how much the rise of las vegasized country-pop the last few years affected the demise of No D?

yes it's depressing

Ah well. I agree that ND is generally better and more substantial than Harp and Paste, especially with the live reviews and the longer profiles.

Harp and Paste sounds like some mini-mall combination copyshop and brewthru.

wonder how much the rise of las vegasized country-pop the last few years affected the demise of No D?

that was partly what launched it in the first place, a reaction to the garth years. but to ND's credit (at least imo) they'd evolved a fair amount on the pop/trad dichotomy. miranda lambert was on the cover, and gretchen wilson's latest got kind of a rave review.

yeah i haven't read it religoiously like back in the tupelo/wilco dayz but yeah they seemed to have "loosened up" a bit to their benefit

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19357366

NPR story on music magazines struggling with less ad revenue and higher postal costs

It's slightly hypocritical of me, but I kinda wish this thread title referred to the music genre.

Well, this is a big bowl of suck. Haven't read ND in some time, but I always enjoyed it when I did.

wonder how much the rise of las vegasized country-pop the last few years affected the demise of No D?

Not at all, probably, given that -- if anything -- No Depression seemed to have somewhat softened its anti-Nashville prejudices in the past couple years (i.e., putting Miranda Lambert on the cover last year, for instance.), and alt-country and Nash-country have seemingly been moving closer together lately, not farther apart. (Also, Las Vegasized country-pop was around long before No Depression was, obviously.)

As much as I disagreed with the magazine's stodgy aesthetic (we've talked about this some on Rolling Country), it's really sad to see it go by the wayside. Bad news for music criticism in general. Hopefully those involved will land on their feet.

Here's what contributor Roy Kasten wrote about it:

http://livinginstereo.com/?p=416

(I wrote that before I'd seen Tipsy Mothra's post, obviously. Sorry about the redundancy.)

Christgau blogged about it at the arts journalism site: http://www.najp.org/articles/2008/02/no-depression-lets-hope-so.html

Here's what contributor Roy Kasten wrote about it: http://livinginstereo.com/?p=416
"Maybe the Web site, nodepression.net, will flourish and become the Pitchfork for music buffs who can’t pronounce Xiu Xiu."
LOL

"the precipitous fall of the music industry"

When the music industry made more money than ever in 2007, I think they're misdirecting the cause of their failure. I did extensive market research back in 1998-99 when I was considering starting a print magazine, and even then it was pretty clear that the future of publishing was online. ND's problem was their scope was too narrow. Roots and Americana's popularity goes in cycles, and they couldn't possibly expect to keep up the same revenues as the 90s boom. They could have done things to expand their readership. The issues I've skimmed the last several years were just too dry and boring.

Despite the shrinking market for print magazines, I still think it's possible to sustain a sizeable readership. Proof is in the pudding for more than a handful that are flourishing. A good thing, as I like magazines. Good to have something to read on the train and the hopper.

When the music industry made more money than ever in 2007

Uh? (I'm not saying you don't have something to refer to but you're the only person I can recall making that claim!)

well, if they count concert and merch revenue...

Yeah, I'd really be interested to see what figures went into that claim.

ND becoming a roots Pitchfork is a great idea.

Maybe they can post a YouTube video of a monkey drinkling its own urine for the next Martina McBride review.

Here's yer dag durn figures:

Nielsen Music Year End Report, Overall Music Sales
2004 - $817,000,000
2005 - $1,003,000,000
2006 - $1,198,000,000
2007 - $1,369,000,000

That does NOT include concert tickets or non-music merchandise. Looks to me like plenty of money is being made. You'd think this was some sort of dirty secret the music industry is trying to hide. Perhaps. But I'm not the only person stating the facts. There's plenty of press releases out there.

yeah I was gonna say there was always something a little questionable about the strategy of building a magazine around such a specific subset of genres.

I don't mean there's anything wrong with a niche, but the taste of a niche changes with time and I don't know if ND really reflected that. I think a lot of the audience for alt-country/roots/americana has increasingly gone to soft indie.

In the same way that Bloodshot has gone from being fairly central to the indie scene circa 2000-2002 (Neko, Ryan Adams) to focusing on bands that are good live acts, ND has gone from being alt-country to covering a much wider range of ages and tastes than, say, Magnet or Pitchfork. People I know who would follow an ND website are those who actually go out and see live music and/or actually buy CDs.

What makes this especially painful and particularly frustrating is that our readership has not significantly declined, our newsstand sell-through remains among the best in our portion of the industry

I mean, not to sound too idealistic, but if ND did it the right way, it could be like Pitchfork is for 18-25 year olds and Roots Pitchfork is for 24-90 year olds.

I think a lot of the audience for alt-country/roots/americana has increasingly gone to soft indie.

so did ND, to some extent. shins were on the cover last year, and i did a profile of the decemberists for them a few years ago. (and conor oberst last year, although i'm not sure what spectrum he falls on.) most recent thing i wrote was a mountain goats record review. they haven't been hostile to indie per se.

i think it's true there were/are a lot of things they could have done to broaden their scope and reach, but the sense i always got was that peter and grant were putting out the magazine they wanted to put out. if they had to think too much about catering to x, y or z audience they would have enjoyed it less. given that, i think the whole thing was an impressive achievement. making a living for more than a decade publishing the magazine you really want to publish is really a pretty good run.

that's some boring indie! i liked this magazine okay, though. i remember an alright merle haggard thing once.

yeah it's the 'soft indie' hurting was talking about. garden-state indie. there's a reason the merle haggard articles were better.

When the music industry made more money than ever in 2007

There's plenty of press releases out there.

I was stunned to hear this too. But anyone reading this thread should follow at least the first link in Fnb's last post. Very sobering figures. I've summarized some figures:

Total album sales are indeed down (15%) from last year. But overall music sales (ALBUMS,SINGLES, MUSIC VIDEO, DIGITAL TRACKS) are up 14%.

Digital album sales are up 53% while digital track sales are up 45%.

Internet album sales (PHYSICAL ALBUM PURCHASES VIA E-COMMERCE SITES) are up 2.4%.

Non-majors had a 13.48% market share of total album sales (catalog and current titles) in 2007, up from 12.61% in 2006.

Top selling artist of the Soundscan era (1991-12/30/2007) - Garth Brooks with 67,402,000 units sold

Top selling album of the Soundscan era - Come On Over/Shania Twain with 15,449,000 units sold

So unless I'm being naive here, reports on "the precipitous fall of the music industry" are shooting their wads too soon.

Only where are all these layoffs at the majors coming from? Or is that more unsupported paranoia?

But assuming these figures are sound, Fnb is right - the problem is the decline of print rather than the music industry.

Never read it, but will miss it.

Like I miss the band that spawned its name.

We're all getting older or dying. Heh heh.

Yes, anyone familiar with the history of entertainment industry will know there are always growing pains during transitional times. In 1942-44, the Musician's Union had a recording ban when jukeboxes and radio were taking away some of their regular live gigs, their only income at the time until they started getting royalties. In the 1950s the film industry was convinced they'd be destroyed by television, as their freeloading consumers were getting entertainment for "free" (sound familiar?). Cassette tapes were going to kill the music industry, just as VCRs and VHS were going to kill the movie industry, which mysteriously survived television. Each time, the industry simply expanded into new markets.

My theory as to why the blustering industry histrionics have been particularly shrill the last 8 post-Napster years, is that the industry weasels and execs were so fattened up by the excesses of the 90s peak, so used to mountains of cocaine at their disposal that their withdrawel has made them exceedingly whiney.

I'd guess the future of music commerce might involve the convergence of music sites like Pitchfork and former print heavyweights Rolling Stone/Spin/Blender, with Rhapsody-type subscriptions to stream and sample, and buy albums in all codecs, including full bandwidth (FLAC) for reasonable prices like $5. And apparently a shitload of ringtones too.

One can hope. The reality is they'll continue to try to price-gouge music fans (see MusicGiants) as far as they allow 'em to.

Growth In Overall Music Purchases Exceeds 14%

Not saying I necessarily disagree with you, Fastnbulbous, but it might make sense to be skeptical about figures like this; it's not hard for "overall purchases" to grow at a time when people are switching over from album purchases to single-song purchases. (Any figure involving "Track Equivalent Album" sales should also be taken with a grain of salt; most actual albums exceed 10 songs these days, so it's a bit of a stretch to pretend that ten downloaded songs add up to an album.)

Remember, the record labels also have a bit of an ulterior motive in demonstrating, through supposedly objective figures, that they're not in a slump.

(I mean, you'll never hear a major label C.E.O. argue that his label's market share is lowerthan what it's being reported as. Their jobs depend on them doing well, not poorly. Complaints about illegal downloading, etc., cutting into their business are important, though, because crackdowns on file-sharers theoretically might ultimately mean more sales and profits. So it's a balancing act.)

Hard to tell from those figures whether ringtones are included among "overall music purchases," btw.

dumb question: "sales" = dollar amount or units sold?

In the case of that +14%, it means units.

so yeah obviously it's a questionable figure

But the overall sales in dollar amount have grown too (or at least has remained relatively consistent):

Nielsen Music Year End Report, Overall Music Sales
2004 - $817,000,000
2005 - $1,003,000,000
2006 - $1,198,000,000
2007 - $1,369,000,000

Is it possible that steadily more stuff is being included in Nielsen SoundScan?

I'm beginning to think that we need a new thread here, so hold on...

lol @ "r.i.p. no depression" becoming "OMG THE MUSIC INDUSTRY IS DOOMED"

Okay folks, go for it:

In 2008, the music industry is doomed...or is it?