Stylus Magazine closed

[Vitalstatistix]

I don't know if anyone here ever visited this site, but I've just discovered the very sad news that it finished updating over Halloween, for good.

Here's the article from the New York Observer:

Stylus Magazine, Respected Online Music Publication, Will Fold After Halloween
by Leon Neyfakh

Published: October 26, 2007

StylusMagazine.com, a portal for fans of experimental and independent music, will cease publication at the end of the month after almost five years. While never quite as widely read or immediately influential as Pitchforkmedia.com, Stylus built a name for itself among music specialists interested in rigorous, and often personal, criticism of little known artists, as well as Top 40 singles. (In recent years the site also expanded its coverage to include film.) In an e-mail, Stylus editor Todd Burns—who was good enough to publish a few of this reporter's music reviews many years ago—said there was no immediate impetus behind his decision to the end the site.

"I just got off the subway one day and said, 'I don't want to do this anymore,'" he said.

Scott Plagenhoef, who was a top editor writer at Stylus before becoming the managing editor of Pitchfork, said the site would be dearly missed.

"Todd has done an exemplary job of providing an outlet for content that is writer-friendly and allows them to stretch out and explore ideas," Mr. Plagenhoef said.

"One disappointing thing about it is that there aren't very many music magazines anymore," he said. "Even online, since having a blog has simply been a matter of hosting a song and then saying, 'hey, here it is.' That's been pretty much the end of the conversation in a lot of places about music."

Mr. Plagenhoef said he has been talking to Mr. Burns about Stylus writers who might now find a home at Pitchfork. "We've consulted with Todd and talked about certain writers who are a good fit, and we're in the process of possibly bringing on board a few people," he said.

Mr. Plagenhoef said Pitchfork has already hired Mike Powell, who wrote regularly about music for Stylus and served as an associate editor.

Stylus will publish its last reviews this week, and close out on Halloween with a "Greatest Hits"-style retrospective.

For me Stylus was on a par with Pitchfork in terms of giving exposure to and critiquing interesting new music. It also felt a lot more personal, and had many funny and touching regular columns. On top of that, they reviewed new films aswell. Shit, this is terrible!

Go to the site now, for personal reflections on the closure from various staff members, and also quite a few 'best of' lists. I'm sad.

[Neville Chamberlain]

Bad news indeed!

Another difference between Stylus and Pitchfork of course was that Stylus wrote in sentences you could understand, whereas Pitchfork doesn't. I don't think I've ever actually understood a single word written in Pitchfork.

[alan nagsworth]

I fucking loved Stylus's reviews. This is shitty news. :-(

[jaydee81]

Are they keeping up the archives?

[Vitalstatistix]

Are they keeping up the archives?

It would appear so, at least for the time-being. There's a hell of a lot of stuff there, it'd be a shame if it wasn't going to be permanently accessible in some form.

Obviously, Pitchfork will cherrypick the best writers, but of course the personal bloggy type stuff will be reappropriated into the smug hipster persona of Pitchfork. To be fair though, Pitchfork has gotten better recently. They reached a nadir with some of their track reviews being completely unreadable tosh, but have thankfully scrapped that feature.

[Part Chimp]

It's funny how so many people read Pitchfork but you rarely (if ever) hear of anyone admitting to liking it.