METAL EDGE AND METAL MANIACS TO SHUT THEIR COVERS FOR THE FINAL TIME
Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 1:00am by Vince Neilstein
An anonymous source has confirmed to MetalSucks that legendary magazines Metal Maniacs and Metal Edge — both published by Zenbu Media — have closed their doors for good. At this time we can’t report whether either magazine will print any final issues or whether Zenbu itself is in trouble, but we can confirm that the end is nigh for these once mighty metal publications.
Any time hard luck falls upon anyone in the metal community it’s a tough pill to swallow, but Metal Edge and Metal Maniacs are fucking institutions and this news will undoubtedly send shockwaves throughout the metal world. Though these once mighty publications may not have carried the same weight in recent years that they once did, their demise delivers a shocking blow in one fell swoop to two industries already in peril, publishing and music. To say the absolute least, this is the end of an era.
Of the many implications running through my brain — not the least of which are the awesome people at both publications who are suddenly jobless — I keep coming back to two:
1) The publishing industry is fucked. Of all the people I know who have lost jobs in the current recession, at least half worked in publishing. It’s the elephant in the room, but there’s no denying it; print as a news medium (books are another story) is on the way down and it seems unlikely that it’s going to rise again. The once-monthly format seems quaint in comparison to the web, where information spreads to every corner of the earth in a matter of seconds and the expense of doing so is at a bare minimum. How can a once-monthly publication whose function is to deliver news possibly compete with that? There’s something to be said for holding an object in your hands, but with every 12 year-old just discovering Metallica who’s never lived in a world without cell phones, iPods and MySpace, the value of having and holding a physical object is fading away faster than Kirk Hammet’s hairline. Today’s teenagers simply don’t give a shit. Exhibit A: the demise of CDs. If there’s a market to support the continuation of print periodicals in some capacity in the future, it’s roughly analogous to vinyl; a nice bonus, but certainly not a huge moneymaker that can support an entire industry. Those publications that are smart ought to invest heavily into moving their content into the online space while determining how to phase out their costly print operations. And they ought to figure out how to make money doing so, which this writers knows is easier said than done. Take it from personal experience; record labels are just not as willing to shell out for banner ads as they are for magazine ads, whatever the reason may be. Which brings me to point #2…
2) The music industry is fucked. It’s no secret that magazines don’t make money from your $4.95 per month subscription; they make money on ads. But who buys ads? Record labels. And who’s laying off people left and right, themselves fighting against the seas of change because of the above 12 year-olds? Record labels. See the problem here? If record labels are no longer the crux of the record industry’s financial axis, where’s the money coming from? Is there even any money to be made in the music industry anymore? It’s what I’ve been saying for years: everyone in the music industry is going to have to accept that they’ll be making less money than their predecessors and perhaps less than they made before. The music industry is no longer a place to get rich; rather it’s just another profession in which to make a modest living while having much more fun than our suit-and-tie wearing friends. Those in it for the riches are already heading for the exits if they haven’t been shown the door yet. Which isn’t to say no one can get rich working in the music biz; it’s just becoming harder and harder.
So where does this leave us? Shit’s fucked. That all I’ve got at this early/late hour.
-VN
Wow man that is heavy – bummer.
what a huge bummer…
and the bit about music industry sucking is true. im 16 years old, in my final year at high school in australia.
there arent many people who i know actively buy cds, and go to the record store to buy cds. its more a case of: its top 40 radio, lets download the single.
while i do buy loads of cds and always have no money cos i buy cds, u can’t help but download music. due to: expensiveness of a said cd/lack of money, not able to get the actual band u want and more to the point, i can download more albums in a day than i can listen to. its basically that simple. but everyone knows this anywhoo
wow. I cut my teeth in metal reading metal edge, and (later) metal maniacs. I recently stopped buying maniacs because of its near-complete condemnation of the new wave of thrash metal (plus the never ending ass licking of every black, death, and boring-ass avante garde metal band), but seriously, i’m sorry to see it go. for many, this is/was their only gateway to underground metal…
Today is a sad day, indeed. I hope that the underground will become stronger as a result, since there’s not much of an upside to this. Well-written piece, Vince, guys like you are at least helping to keeping metal alive in difficult times.
Just wish there was some motivation to do something about it…if it’s worth saving things like this they should be saved, but for the convenience of the internet. I agree that music should be something tangible like a cd or record…I buy cds as often as I can. There are no record stores left to speak of, if I want a cd I have the options of Best Buy or FYE. Too bad there doesn’t seem to be any way to revive stuff like that. I guess it’s a bygone era, one in which I was fortunate enough to catch on it’s deathbed. I think it’s just a matter of time before concerts and live performances in general start to disappear. Today’s music fans don’t need to leave home to buy music…God forbid tomorrow’s music fans don’t have to leave home to watch music.
My band just paid $1500 for not only a full page add, but a song on their sampler for april…………FUCK MAN! I hope this isnt true, or we can atleast get the money back for the sampler!
“Today’s teenagers simply don’t give a shit. Exhibit A: the demise of CDs…”
I resent that! As a teenager (technically not anymore… but close enough) all of my friends and myself always bought cd releases, and did flip through the pages of many a metal publication, Metal Maniacs and Metal Edge particularly, always supporting the scene, because if we don’t then who the fuck is?
To say that today’s Teenagers don’t give a shit is a grose statement. Sure, many kids these days are finding the digital medium and exploiting it, but there is a large percent of the teenage audience does give a shit especially within the metal community… you underestamate how much we do care about the state of the industry.
This truely is a sad day… to see two major, as you put it so well, institutions in the metal community fall by the way side.
Vince, I don’t think we can just blame it on the kids…
Luckily for the porn industry “the value of having and holding a physical object” (one’s wiener) is never fading away.
Yay!
Wow, this is fucking terrible. I always bought Metal Maniacs and thought it had great articles and interviews that shone a positive light on all of the metal scenes. To see such a storied metal institution go fucking blows. Still can’t grasp it completely.
Too bad. I’m quite sad to hear that. For what it’s worth I am one of your Romanian readers and Metal Maniacs has reached even here. I agree it is hard to compete with the internet but a monthly magazine is a monthly magazine. Let’s just think at the free cover cd. Internet can not compete with that. Sure it is myspace, youtube end everything else but that cd presents you with a good selection of music. Also there are the interviews which are usually better in the monthly magazines. And then again i’m 28 years old so maybe i’m old fashioned.
Sux, but the internet wins. Labels & Bands have to try & make that shit work, if I knew how I wouldn’t tell you. Still comes down to good music tho. If your in it for money your probably making shit music anyway.
Dude you forgot to take credit for being a part of the destructive force behind the end of publishing, you dolt. Sites like you, theprp.com, blabbermouth.net, gauntlet and any other metal news site and the reasons these magazines have become null. So instead of blaming teens, blame yourselves. Oh wait… don’t blame anyone, because where one door closes, another opens you fuck.
its a very sad day
nuff said
I’m 34 so I grew up on Circus, Creem, Hit Parader, Metal Forces, Kerrang, and Metal Edge. I remember when Metal Edge was edited by Gerri Miller who filled the magazine with pics of bands like XYZ and Bulletboys hanging out backstage at places like The Rainbow. Yes, it was really cheesy but what can I say…I’m a big hair metal guy! Years after she left, Paul Gargano was editor and he shifted the focus onto bands like Sevendust. By that point no one cared. Metal Edge died when hair metal died.
Metal Maniacs was the best American metal magazine throughout the 90’s but they hit their peak when Mike from EYEHATEGOD and his then girlfriend, Alicia from the band 13 were running it. Ever since then, it went down the toilet.
i have a friend who works for those mags, he told me yesterday before the news broke. it’s really sad that shit like this is going down. even entertainment weekly is canceling their print publication (at least i’m pretty sure). everyone’s fucked… no one is safe.
You know what? I always hated those mags. Especially Metal Edge. I call them “Metal Dull” because they always have promoted shitty crap, most of the time borderline metal at best. Metal Maniacs was better, but who cares? Pitt magazine was better, but that was years ago. Maybe Pitt sucks now. I don’t bother with print because it is stale.
#1. Reviews are worthless because they reveal only the likes and dislikes of the reviewer. They don’t really tell me what it sounds like, and oftentimes the prose is flowery drivel.
#2. Interviews tend to be boring fluff pieces for the bands. At least with the Grimoire, Bill Zebub asks funny questions. Could you imagine Metal Dull asking The Black Dahlia Murder why they rip off Dissection? Or asking Mike Akerfelt why he turned into a pussy?
So really, what is the point of metal mags? Fuck them. Now if only there was a good website to help me find new metal bands and good metal releases…
Man, the gaming community just went through this with the loss of EGM, and now it’s happening again with the metal community. To be honest, I haven’t bought a Metal Edge in forever, but it was the first metal mag I ever bought, so it does have a soft spot in my heart.
Greed – the ultimate flaw of human nature. Music will always exist, just as people will always be there to exploit it and profit from it. The same reason so many magazines exist to begin with. So the industry part of it will never die either. It all starts and ends with the consumer. Remember when good metal bands had to be sought out? When bands actually just played music, instead of trying so hard to get lucky and strike oil? Nah, I guess not. Never happened. I must be hallucinating. Fuck Stephen Harper.
I used to subscribe to Metal Edge from like 91-94. I think I still have a ton of them too. Sucks.
The times, they are a changing. You can blame it on anyone and everyone and still be just as guilty. Or you can accept the changes, and go on with your life. It’s nice to reflect, but getting stuck in the past is a surefire way to fuck up the future.
Both magazines were purchased last year by Zenbu, who did a nice overhaul but doesn’t have the resources after all to make magazines work. Zenbu is a very small company founded by deadheads in the early 1970s to publish Relix. Zenbu’s flagship magazine Relix is also calling it quits — which makes this announcement from two days ago just seem bizarre:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20090201/bs_prweb/prweb1940884
Zenbu was about the third owner of Maniacs and ME in five years, and there’s no reason somebody can’t step now in and pick up the pieces. Tough environment outlined above by Vince notwithstanding, metal is not on the decline. Hopefully Zenbu now makes it easy for somebody else to carry on with the mags–possibly one of the previous publishers like Sterling-McFadden.
“#1. Reviews are worthless because they reveal only the likes and dislikes of the reviewer. They don’t really tell me what it sounds like, and oftentimes the prose is flowery drivel.”
Typically stupid Internet-oriented search engine mentality right there. This isn’t about between you and the Black Dahlia Murder, princess. Reviews are one small part of the dialogue and process that makes this a community, something more than just buying and selling pieces of plastic based on a star rating. You’re supposed to read reviews to stimulate a conversation and get some musical appreciation, not just whether Bloodbath is worth your lunch money, dummy.
Unless anyone forgets, Blabbermouth was born in Metal Maniacs, it’s basically just the online version of Borivoj Krgin’s Brash Bits from the magazine.
So RIP — hopefully temporarily!
Decibel Magazine FTW.
This is terrible news, but ultimately means that we must support the remaining mags out there. Everyone needs to subscribe to Decibel and Metal Hammer.
Decibel FTW x2
Metal Edge is terrible to read. I subscribe to it and hate it. I wasnt going to renew it this time around. I love my subscriptions to Decibel, Outburn, and Revolver
Decibel, Outburn, and Revolver are awesome mags. And Alternative Press is great for indie and sometimes metal artists.
It makes perfect sense. There is no money in the music biz, and anything with out money fails. People say the internet is the future. I don’t think that internet sites compare to a hard copy magazine. I don’t think that these billions of tiny internet sites move product as much as a good magazine does. It’s a shame to hear about these magazines going under, but it does not suprise me one bit.
Allan Brandt,
Typical scenester bullshit. “You’re supposed to read reviews to stimulate a conversation”. Really? I can have a conversation with a music review in Metal Edge? You mean I can correspond to some corporate poser and he will write back to me? Why?
Music journalists are narcissistic failed musicians. People like you, whining about “community”, are the sorriest of scenesters. No jackass, this isn’t about a dialogue. This is about listening to heavy metal. You sound like some friendless insecure high school reject who needs to feel loved by this “community”.
This is shit. Just another piece of the old ways being ripped from people. I myself never got big into these mags, but am an avid reader of Revolver and i can only hope that it doesn’t go the way of the dinosaurs as well. For every one who can’t believe many teenagers are to blame for this you need to open your eyes. Some kids that are like 6 years old have cell phones and Ipods they only want something they can get in 10 seconds and have no care for the value of things. I will buy cd’s until the day I die or they stop making them. I love reading news papers and mags and as a guy who hosts a metal radio show i try to get information from where ever i can, the loss of these two mags just makes the way we get information that much smaller. I hope all those who lost their jobs can find a way to keep doing what they do whether they write, review or take pictures good luck to them!
fuck. I know ME has gone downhill (rapidly) in the past year in quality, but that was the first metal publication I read. I was pretty loyal to ME, that is, until Revolver came out. It sucks to see them go, but I just hope the same doesn’t befall Revolver, Outburn, and Decibel. those are the best 3 IMO.
Hibernum, if your idea of metal is being locked in a closet with a stack of CDs, never going to shows, never discussing metal with anyone else, never reading a magazine… then what the fuck are you doing reading metalsucks and posting on a message board, scenester?
Anyway, we all lose. I took Maniacs for granted just like everybody else, but that magazine covered hundreds of piddly-ass bands every month that will never appear in Decibel or Revolver. Until they are already streamlined and professionalized, anyway. Sad day!
At least MetalSucks can pick up Metal Edge’s Blessed by a Broken Heart coverage.
Allen Brandt,
Why would you assume I don’t go to shows? To answer your question, I am generating traffic for an old roommate, not that it is any of your goddamn business.
And you apparently read decibel and revolver? Poser fag!
People who lament the decline in album sales, yet who steal all of their music off the net, are probably the same people who lament the loss of the written word but have probably never actually purchased one issue of either of these magazines. (If you don’t fall in either of those two categories, this is not aimed at you.)
The music industry has totally changed since the emergence of Internet, I think. The only choice is whether you accept it or have it thrust upon you. Yet, it doesn’t mean that there’s no way out: 1) Get a contract with music download and streaming websites. 2) Be engaged with other industry, game, movie, for example. 3) merchs, tours 4)…
It’s kinda like transit of economic structure. It’s not on the way! It’s here! Face it! Think out of the box and try every means to seek a new direction. That’s all it counts.
WOW. This is wild, and unfortunate. Fucking crazy…
I just scrapped up enough cash to post an ad and I was looking foward to working with them later in the year. At least the issue we’re in actually got published, I feel bad for all the people working at those magazines, people who cared about metal. Just like newspapers, I guess the magazine industry is having to adapt…
This is a bummer for sure, I remember worshipping Metal Maniacs in my formative years. Let’s be real though – this is a shitty time for publishing, but it’s not doomsday by any means. It’s the bust part of the boom-bust cycle. The internet is a huge factor for sure, but people like mags in their hands. Times were good for a while, lots of mags, lots of money to go around, and publishers were raking it in – many came to expect a 30% profit from mags, which is fucking absurd.
But it’s not a friendly climate now and lots of mags will have to go – same with record labels. The good ones will stick around through the recession, and in a few years when things have straightened out, we’ll see some new ones pop up.
Nothing against ME and MM, but I guess they couldn’t find a good, steady niche to support their business model.
Decibel FTW x10
I have been doing an online music magazine for over 16 years now. The world’s oldest and longest running, if you believe the hype… :) I was there for the fanzines and the demo tape trading; in fact, it was my help writing for the short lived Underworld fanzine in the late 80’s (and writing for Good Times/Good Times Metal which is now Creative Loafing) that got me wanting to start my own publication. SO I’ve seen it all? Anyone remember Thrash Metal Magazine? Metal Forces? Metal will never die, it was huge in the early to mid 80’s, died out for awhile but the people who had metal flaming souls never forgot about the music. Metal Maniacs was a GOOD magazine, I mean where else could you read about Norwegian black metal bands like Darkthrone, Gorgoroth, Satyricon, Marduk and the like and possibly see full color photos of them? I owe Metal Maniacs a lot, they covered my publication a few times in their pages, and massive respect to them for the work they did promoting and even giving decent space to bands signed to tiny labels the world over.
Metal is seemingly growing in this day and age, and though Metal Maniacs will be missed, there is one thing that the internet has advantages over print publications: multimedia content! Just look at vibrationsofdoom.com for instance, there’s over 1300 rare, classic and out of print metal albums you can listen to in their entirety, a weekly 2 hour radio show, and at least 5 songs in streaming RealAudio from EVERY CD reviewed. Every issue! So obviously for music, the internet can do more, but there is NO substitute for good writing and good in depth, informative interviews. Despite having done the interview and review thing for almost two decades now, there are STILL better writers than me out there, and Metal Maniacs picked up on this.
The reason we all do this? I hear at least 10 bands every month from every corner of the globe: bands that 95 percent of the U.S. population will NEVER get to hear, even if they are readers of metal magazines and internet scourers! So that’s my job in a nutshell. I don’t suppose everyone will like what I like, but at least with me there’s consistency. I’ll keep doing what I do for many years to come. At least I hope. Hopefully someone will pick up the torch for the new breed of metalheads coming along, because the youthful enthusiasm and healthy rebellion of youth have the fire and the passion to continually make music that will amaze me and kick my ass to the floor… They say the youth are the future, and they’re right. SO, who will step up?
Steven Cannon,
Editor In Chief of Vibrations of Doom Magazine/DOOM Radio.
So Zenbu is failing, and taking Metal Edge and Metal Maniacs with them. ME and MM should’ve been folded into one title the nanosecond they purchased them. I never really liked either mag, too cutesy and cheesy for my tastes. Future US’s Revolver is usually pretty good, but a) I know they’re not making that much money on subscriptions if they’re only charging a buck an issue if you subscribe- and they’ve cut out the free mp3’s! b) they focus way too much time and energy on bands that are about as heavy and/or metal as a cheese omelet, and c) one more advert from those PETA terrorist bastards, and I’m kicking all their asses myself, THEN cancelling my subscription!
All the good rock & metal mags go sooner or later, Creem, Circus, Hit Parader (?), and now ME & MM. Oh well, it’ll all be online anyway.
Neither mag was my favorite, but this is bad news.
Anyone remember Rip magazine? Was my favorite back then…
I wrote for ME in it’s last year, and it was the first national magazine I wrote for. I got the text from my friend and former associate editor the day it happened…It was indeed heartbreaking, but certainly not shocking. I didnt write for it to get rich because it didnt pay much (no writing gig really will, unless you’re Stephen King) but that wasnt the point. It was a part time freelance gig that I did to pay homage to the style of music I’ve listened to all my life. I wanted to enlighten readers on music that they may be interested in. That’s ultimately the point of a music magazine, anyway, if you ask me. I read this magazine since I was a skateboarding kid, and it was honor to have put in my work for a magazine I respected for many years. Sure, in it’s last days, ME wasnt what it used to be, but it was still a good mag. It covered a lot of the more obscure metal bands that Revolver didnt, and I honestly believed they had some pretty good writers on staff, who had distinctive voices and who wrote strong pieces (even if the bands may or may not have been the coolest)
I also work in radio, another industry that’s currently being gutted, but luckily (knock on wood) I’m the web director for our cluster, so I might still have a job in 6 months.
But I can tell you this: The web IS the new media. It’s not the future, it’s not what’s coming. It’s already here. And this is just one casualty of this fact. Many media outlets have done a fine job of ignoring this elephant in the room, and sadly they are learning the hard way of the repurcussions of this. And if you want to look just a few years further down the road, mobile technology is really the new media. Cell phones are advancing faster than the web ever did, and any magazine, newspaper, radio or tv station that’s not bolstering and embracing and adapting their web and mobile presence 100% will see their doors close soon too. That is my first evaluation of any form of media these days: how’s their website?
Metal Edge could have done ALOT more to bolster their web presence, and who knows, maybe that is what they will focus on from here on out. Maybe they are just shutting down their print element, and will just go online I mean, when the rumblings in the media are saying that the NEW YORK TIMES may cease their print edition in May, you know the tides they are a changing…
To anyone who is reading this who may be an aspiring writer or journalist, my advice to you: learn some web development. CSS, HTML, PHP and java will never hurt your chances in this Brave New World.
They had a long run compared to many magazines. I’m not surprised they folded hiring writers who don’t know basic grammar. Its is possessive. It’s is a contarction for “it is”.
Chris-
Thanks for you’re – I mean “your” – astute observations. Tell me…what’s a contarction? Shows me how much you know about the business of the media that my misspelling on a COMMENT would be a reflection of work in a professional magazine, like there’s (another contarction!) a connection between the two. Magazines fold because they lose ad dollars. Not because a writer misspells a word. You stupid fuck.
I somewhat agree, I didnt like it as much though
Nicely put, however add to the fact that you have some people like myself who over a year ago that had never illegally downloaded because the wonderful feeling of having the original or “adding to my other thousands of cd’s.” though, then comes unemployment. i want to keep up but how do i? i’d be slipping out the loop if it was not for “uploaders” helping me out. i’m no longer a completest now that i don’t have the new cd’s from static-x, dope, nickelback, (hed) p.e., etc. and i fear the only that has kept me sane is only going to get worst. hell, in my area… i couldn’t even find the march 2009 issue of “metal edge,” which i’ve been collecting for years now… and now i know why.
I PAID FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS TO BOTH MAGS FOR 2 YEARS EACH TOTALLING ALMOST $80.00.I FEEL LIKE ZENBU TOOK MY MONEY AND BASICALLY SHIT ON ME AND i’M SURE THAT i AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO FEELS THAT WAY.I AM RECOVERING FROM MAJOR SURGERY AND AT THE TIME I FIGURED UNTIL I AM ABLE TO GO BACK TO WORK AT LEAST I WILL HAVE SOME READING MATERIAL TO OCCUPY MY TIME AND TAKE MY MIND OFF THE SERIOUS PAIN I’M GOING THROUGH WITH PHYSICAL THERAPY AND ALL. IF THIS IS TO BE THEN FINE, BUT IT WOULD BE NICE TO AT LEAST GET MY MONEY BACK.IF ANYONE HAS ANY SUGGESTIONS ON WHAT I CAN DO TO ACCOMPLISH THIS I WELCOME YOUR COMMENTS, EVEN THOUGH THIS MAY BE A LOST CAUSE. TO ANYONE WHO READS THIS I WISH YOU ALL THE BEST IN YOUR RESPECTIVE LIVES. TAKE CARE.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA