Magazine Death Pool

Future Music: RIP 2005 - 2007

The Reaper didn't even wait one week to take the first magazine of 2007, Future Music. January is usually a time when the Reaper heads down to Miami, parties along South Beach, drinks boat drinks.

My trip was postponed.

A noble magazine informing home musicians how to make big hit singles and that groovy music on the radio. Except many home musicians surf the web and don't read magazines. Some have trouble reading music, you expect them to read a magazine?

'Tis unfortunate because the remaining how-to-make-music magazines are some of the worst art directed publications on the planet. These magazines must be the only ones on the planet that can make music seem unsexy and often, downright ugly. These guys got a lucky break.

So the Reaper parked downtown at Fifth Avenue, hauled all those synthesizers, drum machines and Mac computers, and moved them to the big boat. Of course, I was tripping over some cables and nearly tore my cloak! And what do you think I was playing on this Yamaha keyboard on the trip down? "Heart and Soul," of course.

Giant magazine -- RIP or not?

Dead or not dead? Looks dead. Smells dead. Reads dead.

But it seems that Jamie Hooper's filthy rich father-in-law -- you know the one I've told you about a few times in the past -- has decided enough is enough. But according to Radar magazine, it's still not keeling over and joining me for a long overdue ride down the River Styx.

In what must be one of the luckiest strokes in the magazine business, one that Emap couldn't even pull with FHM, the magazine is being sold to a publicly-traded radio company called Radio One. Their boilerplate says they are "the largest radio company that primarily targets African American and urban listeners."

More than ever, Giant magazine is on the Reaper's list of Magazines To Watch Die. When radio people take over the publication of a magazine, it's the lunatics running the asylum (Radio One already saw its profit drop 30% in their third quarter 2006). Are they planning on turning Giant into another Vibe or King?

So while Hooper and his rich father-in-law have escaped the scythe, Giant magazine will almost certainly  fall. Down here.