Paste Magazine Puts All Bets On The Internet

Paste Magazine ended its print operation last summer and now only exists online.

In the last decade, Paste Magazine attracted readers by offering a free CD featuring new music with every published issue.

The music and pop culture publication received four National Magazine Award nominations after its launch in 2002.

But plunging ad revenue caused financial troubles, and Paste had to ditch its print edition last summer.

They kept their website alive and now it features a sort of virtual magazine, filled with new music downloads and videos of live performances recorded especially for Paste.

Its content is free until the end of August, but after that you’ll have to buy a subscription.

Will it work? Analysts say probably not, but Paste executives think otherwise.

New musicians highlighted in Paste Magazine:

Guests:

Josh Jackson, Paste Magazine’s editor in chief
Nick Purdy, publisher of Paste Magazine

We welcome comments from all of our listeners. Post below. Please stay on topic and be civil. Comments may be moderated by us, but you are solely responsible for the content of your comments.

Dale Brazale

I hate to tell you, but I think they’re doomed. I totally liked their music. The problem is that I’m a totally unhip 63 year old.

Jeffersonhuxley

@e44ccefbee4f117025028df7d9662d77:disqus ….hilarious and true
I think your post nails the reason why people who DID like Paste liked it: not b/c of the content, but for the free sample of music

The fact that you like the content doesn’t mean, prima facia, that younger people CAN’T like it.

The problem was, Paste’s founders had a lot of things right, but like any org. had weaknesses. People (including myself) liked Paste for all kinds of reasons. Just buying the mag for the free CD seemed fine, in fact it seemed like a great deal, even if you didn’t read the mag, it was good to have on the coffee table or in the bathroom (all geniuses read while shitting…look that up)

But Paste’s generic content wasn’t what brought it down. It was the CD….or, if you prefer, it was the economics of the publishing industry.

Or it was a failure of Paste’s leadership to innovate…

However you look at it, Paste is now a blog….so long Paste…long live Paste (blog)!

Anonymous

I’ve been reading/playing the mPlayer for the last month, and I have to say I am impressed. What sets it apart from other recent innovations (like the SPIN Player iPad app) is that you still get to keep the mp3s on any device, and the selections of music are broad in genre — not just Hipster indie rock like Pitchfork and other “cool” music blogs would recommend, but also folk, country and Americana. Anyway, at the moment it is free, so everyone should check it out.
Sergio C Munoz

I had a subscription to paste and thought the mag worthless but the cd valuable. Now i have paste thru the flipboard. They something called mplayer which plays cool music but what i really want is just to be able to download the disc monthly. Willing to pay. Why so complicated?

Anonymous

That’s what the mPlayer is essentially. You get 6 MP3s a week, so it is similar to the free CD. They have a button to download all the tracks at once for convenience.