RIP: The Word

I'm still numb two days after learning The Word magazine is closing shop. 

As I tweeted on Friday, "I am heartbroken."

I had just gotten a letter in the mail a few days ago from Word editor Mark Ellen thanking me "for renewing my subscription and, obviously, congratulations on your impeccable taste." Like a lot of things in The Word, the use of the word "obviously" was not only clever but understood. 

I've been through this kind of magazine death before with Trouser Press and later Musician, but it's been decades since both those magazines closed. This is a fresh wound. 

I read a lot of music publications, but I guarantee I won't feel the same if Rolling

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Paralyzed by too much choice

The Internet has given us many great things, but it's also overwhelmed our senses. When given the opportunity to dive deep into uncharted territory, many of us prefer to stick to our comfort zones. 

This comes to mind after reading Eamonn Forde's excellent Word magazine story "The Tyranny of Music Choice" (no link because it's print-only). The gist of Forde's piece is that given a wealth of music online, we tend to keep going back to very popular songs. There's a reason Top 20 and classic-rock stations are a staple in every city. 

Case in point is Spotify, the brilliant music-streaming service that makes it easy to stream and share millions of songs. Despite this rich archive of music in front of us, Forde notes that a recent study of Spotify usage indicated that roughly one-third of the 4.5 million songs in its database were never played over a six-month period. And when he says "never," he means zero, nada, zilch, nil. 

More alarming is that 100,000 songs accounted for about 80 percent of Spotify's streams. 

I guess I shouldn't be surprises. Just as restaurant experts will tell you too many menu items overwhelm customers and erode their overall experience, the thought of diving into a morass of unknown talents can be intimidating. Discovering memorable music can be work, and for many of us, we're either too starved for time or just simply too lazy. 

With that in mind, I'll share a few shortcuts on new music that's captured my attention. I'm in no way on the cutting edge of music like I once was, but I do like to stay up on trends.  

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Keeping history alive by making it fun

The power of History Pin is captured with this 1856 photo of the Champs Elysee in Paris laid over a present-day photo. I've stumbled across three different labors of love online recently that all shared a common link: they're committed to protecting things in great danger of disappearing forever. To top it off, these efforts are fun and rewarding history lessons, almost like history as entertainment (or is it the other way around?).

Having dug into my own little history project, I'm familiar with the thrill these kinds of personal projects bring others. So I know exactly what inspired others to put in the time to launch these three awesome projects:

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