Word went out yesterday that No Depression magazine is going to cease publication after 13 years and more than seventy issues. This is dreadful news that brings home a new kind of specificity and tragedy to the ongoing immolation of the music business. No Depression is a spectacular magazine, graphically and editorially. It has been the singular news outlet about a vital vein of American music that is famously difficult to name but that is saturated with genuine artistry and that actually builds on and enriches our culture. I read No Depression, and I’m proud to say I wrote for it. Grant Alden and Peter Blackstock are some of the most talented and dedicated journalists I’ve ever seen work. The idea that they’re asking themselves ‘Gee, what now?’ at the stage they are in their distinguished careers is infuriating.
It’s also maddening that some people will point at this as some kind of vindication of commercial country music or the “death” of Americana music, as if musical preference and passion were a dog fight. But to my mind, No Depression was a huge success. It galvanized a community of fans and artists. It never lost money. It won awards. Now it looks from here to be a victim of the same forces whipping around major labels: a precipitous decline in the idea of buying albums in CD form. The magazine was heavily dependent on record labels for advertising, and now record labels are starved for cash flow and redefining success downward every month. ND said in its farewell editorial that advertising revenue declined a third in a year. ND had little hope of tapping ads for consumer products, which are bought by the mega-ton for only high circulation publications.
All around me I see accomplished, award-winning professionals cut adrift from long-held jobs or ever careers, wondering what to do next. More media/entertainment people seem to be freelancing and chasing a shrinking supply of work. They are sidemen, producers, accountants, designers, stylists, publicists, and journalists. Not to mention songwriters. It’s starting to get really grim out there.
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