Decibel Magazine’s year-end issue is a monster disappointment. It’s been a bad year for publishing — just check out this offer to see how bad it is for writers — but Decibel’s year-end issue is usually something worthwhile, an oasis of interesting music writing in a holiday season — a desert of awful greatest hits albums, Christmas albums, and standards recorded by wizened pop artists.
This issue was emaciated 96 pages. It was a bad year for metal, or at least it seemed that way to me. When I am familiar with most of the top 40 metal albums, I know something’s amiss. (I haven’t paid serious attention to metal since I accepted my current gig. I still love the music; I’m just not seeking it out as much.) The top ten features the usual suspects: that Disfear record that came out ages ago; the obligatory Opeth nod; relative upstarts Made Out of Babies; Baltimorean black metallers Nachtmystium; and mind-bogglingly awesome pop metallers Torche. The list is so underwhelming that Torche doesn’t even rate a cover!
It is worth noting that my favorite Japanese doomsayers Coffins rated the 40th spot for their 2008 joyride, Buried Death! Hails!
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one of these people dancing on print media’s grave. Heck, I’m asking for Beer Advocate for Christmas! Our household is littered with print media. That’s partly why I can’t really wrap my head around what made all print media decline so rapidly, and why magazines I’ve loved (and worked for) fade so fast.
I know printing and mailing costs have risen, but that doesn’t explain how people declared their independence from print overnight. They’re not all autodidacts are they? They still want to read all kinds of lists and have things recommended to them by authorities of one sort or another. Where are people finding that sort of content, if not in magazines that have provided it for generations? Have their audiences really become so Internet savvy?