Paste

Also, in the interview, the editor, Josh Jackson says they try to make Paste a "magazine that doesn't objectify women, that doesn't glorify drug addiction, that tries to respect the artists it covers, and that writes about all of the grand themes of searching, of loneliness, of love, of darkness, of hope that popular music is often courageous enough to tackle."

One warning, as a previous reviewer has mentioned, reading Paste will cause you to spend some money, as you find hidden gems of artists and albums you hadn't heard before, and now really want to own! Amidst a sea of commercialism and crassness in music and entertainment magazines today, Paste is a weclome sign of how beauty, truth and artistry can still be celebrated and enjoyed in popular music.


Great writing about great music   June 6, 2004
 31 out of 33 found this review helpful

I bumped into paste magazine when browsing through Borders looking for something other than the usual pop-peddling tat found on the UK newsstands today. The cover (for issue 5) grabbed my attention - Joe Henry, Emmylou Harris, Guided By Voices - people already populating my music collection. Great, I thought, at last a magazine that fits my tastes. This should be a good read.

So I bought it, sat down with a large cup of joe & started reading. I couldn't put it down! As well, as the artists above, there were articles on people I'd never heard of; articles on people I'd always wanted to hear something by, but never gotten around to; and articles on artists that made me want to go out & buy their music there & then. The copy I picked up didn't have a sampler CD (someone had nabbed it from the inside before I got there!), but it made me want to read more by these guys.

I've since subscribed and find paste to provide wide-ranging content, not particularly genre-based (but if you were really into pigeonholing I'd probably say they covered Americana singer-songwriter artists most of all), and not always favourable. This is not a sycophantic bow to all things underground & trendy (as someone else mentioned, they know when to put a megastar on the cover), neither is it afraid to shout about music it loves from the proverbial rooftops. They've even gone so far as to set up their own label.

The sampler CD is a revelation as they cram it full of artists covered in that particular issue and as another reviewer wrote you will spend a lot of money trying to track down the individual CDs discussed within the magazine.

In short, this is great writing about great music, with no preconceived ideas about what great music is. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in music & culture today.


Finest indie arts and culture magazine   November 8, 2004
 23 out of 24 found this review helpful

I ran into Paste by accident. I was looking for something else in the racks of a nearb B&N and the cover caught my attention. Plus, I couldn't help but notice that besides the appealing articles that covered a wide range of artists and their work, they offered a sampler CD with 20-some songs. Most of the tracks were from artists I had no clue about, yet ended up loving. So... my advice is: subscribe to this magazine to expand your exposure to pop culture and get a deeper feel for what's brewing in the indie scene.


Know What You're Getting   April 29, 2004
 18 out of 19 found this review helpful

When you read many music magazines, from Hit Parader to Rolling Stone to No Depression, you read articles and reviews about the hot new hitmakers, and they hope you'll take what they have to say into consideration when you decide where your music money is going to go. But you have to take a lot on faith, because you don't know what the music really sounds like. That's where Paste is different from most: they bundle in a sampler CD stuffed to the gills with highlights from the current issue. You make your decision with all the information you could need or want right there on your stereo.

Paste doesn't appear to favor a particular form of music. For lack of a better handle, you could say they favor music to which a geezer like me can understand the words. Americana, folk, blues, rock, roots, and even some unclassifiable material fill up the pages and the disk. Though the emphasis is mostly on music too esoteric to get radio airplay, the editors aren't naive. They know that putting Norah Jones or Sarah McLachlan on the cover is a good way to move copy.

This magazine covers a lot of music you won't hear on the radio, but it's not so far out that you'll run into somebody who thinks beating on a piano with a hammer is music. It'll be something eminently listenable, even for a stick-in-the-mud like me. By allowing readers to get a good listen to current trends in up-and-coming music, Paste is also good for working musicians and music business professionals. It puts you one step ahead of the curve without having to spend rafts of dough on CDs or trawling through the lousy online music for the one MP3 that stands out.

Paste's masthead promises "Signs of Life in Music and Culture." This is no lie. Though the main emphasis of this magazine is recorded music, there are lengthy sections dedicated to cinema, books, and other cultural trends. The thrust of these sections is primarily in terms of winnowing good cultural content from bad, rather than being hip and with-it, so it's ideal for people who are more interested in what's good than in what's good.

This title costs more than most music magazines, because of the sampler CD, but it's worth it. If you care about music for its quality more than for its faddish factors, this is the title that will let you keep abreast of where the good stuff is to be had.


Thank-you Paste for respecting my intelligence and taste   August 25, 2004
 19 out of 21 found this review helpful

"Paste" does not make a big deal out of music genres at all and I love that they choose to discuss great music no matter what the "category".

The other aspect of this mag I really love besides the focus on the music is that it does not get into the "fashion" the incessant foul language or the drug references that seem to have overtaken other music mags (as IF popular music HAS to go hand-in-hand with bad habits.)

The in-depth look at Indie artists as well as signed, distributed music is well-balanced and thought-provoking. I found some great new listens reading through and checking out their articles.

I think if you're really into the music and the inspirations behind music this is the subscription for you - it sure is for me.

Get an issue with the sampler CD - it'll blow you away.