Say It Ain't So

I've just started to get back my magazine subscriptions. After Katrina I let most of them laspe and just picked up the new issues on the newstands. For months after Katrina mail was so sporadic that you might get the May issue of a magazine is July. I've just got in the habit of picking up whatever issue of whichever magazine I want at the newstands. But it gets to be expensive, subscriptions are a lot cheaper, so I've started back. I'm a magazine junkie, reading anywhere from five or six different magazines on up.

I just received my first issue of No Depression in the mail today. No Depression is not a medical journal, despite the name. It's a magazine about music, mainly what would be labeled Americana, but it's a label that the magazine itself would struggle with, basically saying it was a magazine that covered American music.

For my money this is the best music magazine out there today. Magazines today tend to feature short articles for people that have the attention span of a fly. No Depression would feature long articles about fascinating people involved in the creation of some wonderful music. It highlighted forgotten creators as well as today's innovators. It was never a magazine that featured who was hot at the moment. Covers featured such musicans as the Shins, Lucinda Williams, Liz Wright, Potter Wagoner, Josh Ritter and now and than a more familar name like John Fogerty or Johnny Cash. It was a magazine that took me awhile to read. I would read an article and put it to the side and pick it up a few days later and read another article. It's one of the few magazines that I save.

In today's issue they announced that the next issue will be their last issue. After 75 issues they are closing up shop. In a market with a rapidly shrinking advertising market they just can't compete. I haven't been able to read the issue yet, I was so upset that I put it to the side. This is literally my favorite magazine and now it will be gone.

And magazines like People and Us continue strongly....