Blender tops Chicago Tribune list of 50 best magazines

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"1. Blender. Finally, America has a music magazine that unites the zippy, irreverent writing of the best British music press with the serious reporting and terrific profiles that can still occasionally be found in the depleted Rolling Stone. Blender's exhaustive piece on the shooting of Pantera's Dimebag Darrell, for instance, was definitive. And when it comes to top-notch froth, well, it's the mag to beat. The features on divas such as Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey were not just deee-liciously dishy, they were brilliantly crafted. Plus, Blender's reviews are well-informed, fun to read and mercifully free of the rock-crit blather designed to impress other critics."

Better than National Geographic, Wired, Vanity Fair and the Atlantic Monthly. Who knew? Jeez, and I thought it sucked.
Full article here:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-0506230005jun23,1,5717415.column

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:00 (4 years ago) Permalink

BTW, Mojo's at #27.

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:02 (4 years ago) Permalink

Well, the mom who wrote the article is pretty hot, so, like, I can deal.

― Huk-L, Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:06 (4 years ago) Permalink

Where's "Highlights"?

― Big Loud Mountain Ape (Big Loud Mountain Ape), Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:07 (4 years ago) Permalink

I wouldn't protest this.

― The Good Dr. Bill (The Good Dr. Bill), Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:08 (4 years ago) Permalink

They're right about one thing - the New Yorker has slipped.

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:12 (4 years ago) Permalink

Slipped below Blender?

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:18 (4 years ago) Permalink

wot a joke

― Gear! (Ill Cajun Gunsmith) (Gear!), Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:26 (4 years ago) Permalink

People and People in Espanol both in top ten in magazine shocker!

Finally, America has a music magazine that unites the zippy, irreverent writing of the best British music press with the serious reporting and terrific profiles that can still occasionally be found in the depleted Rolling Stone.

Yes, uh.................finally.

― PB, Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:36 (4 years ago) Permalink

Well, it's hard to compare Blender and the New Yorker - they're trying to do different things. I never read Blender though, so I have no comment.

― o. nate (onate), Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:38 (4 years ago) Permalink

mercifully free of the rock-crit blather designed to impress other critics

[recuses self from discussion]

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:39 (4 years ago) Permalink

I always thought Blender was like USA Today for music fans - ie, looks great, but if I can news anywhere else, why wouldn't I?

― Dominique (dleone), Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:44 (4 years ago) Permalink

One thing I do love about Blender is the feature where they have a celebrity list their favorite albums.

But if Mark Twain were to suddenly re-appear and ask to see the very best of what current American periodicals had to offer, I doubt I'd reach for a copy of Blender.

― PB, Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:48 (4 years ago) Permalink

I just leafed through Blender this AM at B&N while my kid read a Lemony Snickett book. S'OK, didn't make me LOL or go sprinting over to the CD section to buy the new Foo Fighters.

"top-notch froth" + "dee-liciously dishy" = (unintentional) parody of glossy magazine prose

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:52 (4 years ago) Permalink

How To Improve Blender: less features, more (and longer) reviews. It seems like the review section was bigger and featured a wider variety of writers when they started. Also: more skin plz.

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Thursday, 23 June 2005 14:59 (4 years ago) Permalink

The New Yorker, slipped or not, is better than all of the others on this list. Vanity Fair is the only one that competes at all; although, yes, I guess I don't know about Lake Superior Magazine.

― Zed Szetlian (Finn MacCool), Thursday, 23 June 2005 15:02 (4 years ago) Permalink

Game Informer got pwned by Lake Superior Magazine at the prestigious Minnesota Magazine Publishers Awards last year.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 23 June 2005 15:05 (4 years ago) Permalink

The New Yorker, slipped or not, is better than all of the others on this list

― save the robot (save the robot), Thursday, 23 June 2005 15:11 (4 years ago) Permalink

Also, they were wrong to slag the New Yorker's John McCain profile, it was great - it was just ... subtle.

― save the robot (save the robot), Thursday, 23 June 2005 15:12 (4 years ago) Permalink

Well, I don't care what anyone says, oranges are better than apples, and that's that!

― Matthew C Perpetua (inca), Thursday, 23 June 2005 15:13 (4 years ago) Permalink

If The Believer could spin-off a music magazine based on their regular music issue - but if they could ditch the smugness and the cutesy marginalia, not let artists interview other artists, learn that listing your favorite records != writing, and keep Nick Hornby far away from it - it could be a pretty good thinking person's music magazine, which is what's missing from this list and from the US in general.

― save the robot (save the robot), Thursday, 23 June 2005 15:18 (4 years ago) Permalink

having worked there for a time, I look at Blender like a former sausage factory worker might at erm…a piece of sausage.

For a while there, Felix Dennis could have affixed "Maxim" to "Ball Bearings Monhtly" and it would have sold well. But the gentleman in charge at Blender now is a very canny guy.

― veronica moser (veronica moser), Thursday, 23 June 2005 17:39 (4 years ago) Permalink

Wax Poetics, people, Wax Poetics.

― Tripmaker (SDWitzm), Thursday, 23 June 2005 17:52 (4 years ago) Permalink

A thinking person's music magazine....made in AMERICA, no less.

― Tripmaker (SDWitzm), Thursday, 23 June 2005 17:54 (4 years ago) Permalink

Hello is Spanish not British, which is why it covers obscure europudding dukes and the like. Vanity Fair is unreadable celeb puffery. No Onion?

― snotty moore, Thursday, 23 June 2005 18:25 (4 years ago) Permalink

They had 50 spots to fill and couldn't include Harpers?!

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Thursday, 23 June 2005 19:20 (4 years ago) Permalink

wax poetics is very nicely designed.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 23 June 2005 20:06 (4 years ago) Permalink

Speaking of slipped, Harpers verges on unreadable half the time these days.

The John McCain profile was actually about his mom, anyway.

― Zed Szetlian (Finn MacCool), Thursday, 23 June 2005 20:45 (4 years ago) Permalink

yay, WIRED!

― ken taylrr (ken taylrr), Thursday, 23 June 2005 20:48 (4 years ago) Permalink

p.s. for those who don't read it frequently: the chicago tribune is awful.

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Thursday, 23 June 2005 21:17 (4 years ago) Permalink

My 'Vanity Fair' subscription came with some weird deal where I started getting Blender for free. I dig Vanity Fair by the way, puffery or no. But Blender as the BEST? Am I old, or just living in a weird parallel universe? I mean, it's okay...the section where celebs answer questions from readers is kinda cool, the back page self-portrait can bring a wry smile, and the celeb album picks are good (Anderson Cooper's picks, particularly interesting to me but maybe that's because I kept flicking back to the yummy photo of him..) but the interviewing tends toward the gimmicky, [Snoop interview a case in point]. I certainly wouldn't pay for it, since it's not really offering me anything I can't source elsewhere. Now Mojo, I love.

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 23 June 2005 21:30 (4 years ago) Permalink

What is the feeling about 'Uncut'? It was my favorite mag in the world when it first came out...it's not a sniff on what it was before, I guess since the concept couldn't be sustained without pressure to be more current, but I ain't no insider...so I wondered if everyone else just rolled their eyes, or thought it was cool, or what.

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 23 June 2005 21:34 (4 years ago) Permalink

There's so much more to Vanity Fair (at its best) than puffery. And even that -- this month at least -- can be pretty good. Witness the Nicole Kidman profile. That stuff aside, the Deep Throat piece is fascinating. The excerpt from the Hillary Clinton bash, though -- eh.

Uncut's done some great things. I remember their fantastic piece on Bowie's Berlin period a few years back.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Thursday, 23 June 2005 21:47 (4 years ago) Permalink

yeah, the Bowie piece was great. I found 'Uncut' really helpful...because unless you were there reading the mags when all this stuff happened, you really only heard it referred to...but they printed all kinds of archived articles, like the one about Elvis Costello & the Armed Forces tour, etc. It got me into all kinds of music that I knew about but hadn't listened to, and the same with their movie stuff too, which was pretty comprehensive. And the 'Sacred Cows' column rocked.

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 23 June 2005 21:52 (4 years ago) Permalink

Word is sooooo much better than Uncut or Mojo

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Thursday, 23 June 2005 21:53 (4 years ago) Permalink

What's 'Word'? (I'm too tired to mess around with italics).

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, 23 June 2005 21:56 (4 years ago) Permalink

UK music mag, basically the same idea as Uncut or Mojo (dadrock plus indie hopefuls that'll be dadrock soon enough, with lots of film stuff too) but far more sharply written and with much better front-of-book regular features, e.g. asking various folks what they're reading/listening to/watching lately (this is more entertaining than it sounds)

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Thursday, 23 June 2005 22:08 (4 years ago) Permalink

Along with Decibel (US metal mag, featuring some of the funniest music writing around), Word is my favorite music magazine right now.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Thursday, 23 June 2005 22:09 (4 years ago) Permalink

You guys are, like, SOOOO summer 2003. Word lost its edge ages ago. It just feels like a forum for complacent middle aged journalists to reminisce to one another about how great they all were back in the eighties (that whole 'because they were there' advertising campaign based around their writers is cringe-worthy).

The Wire: often unreadable, deliberately obscure, completely up its own arse but easily the best music read around. A mag that will genuinely point you to things that aren't written about ANYWHERE else.

― D.G. Jones (D.G. Jones), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 11:49 (4 years ago) Permalink

a forum for complacent middle aged journalists to reminisce to one another about how great they all were back in the eighties

HI DERE

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Wednesday, 29 June 2005 11:55 (4 years ago) Permalink

3 years pass...

RIP, apparently

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=135539

― xhuxk, Thursday, 26 March 2009 16:45 (10 months ago) Permalink

I just read that too. More music critics on the dole!

― The Screaming Lobster of Challops (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 26 March 2009 16:47 (10 months ago) Permalink

http://idolator.com/5185426/blender-rip

― xhuxk, Thursday, 26 March 2009 16:47 (10 months ago) Permalink

actually, somebody beat me to the RIP, here:

Andy Pemberton out at Blender

― xhuxk, Thursday, 26 March 2009 16:52 (10 months ago) Permalink

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