The rapid transition in the world of print publications hit home today as I picked up a copy of the new Blurt magazine on the same day I learned that another music magazine, Blender, will bite the dust. This could get confusing, so pay attention.

Blurt magazine debuted on newsstands recently, the first title I'm aware of that started online and moved to print. That comes, however, after Harp magazine, which begat Blurt, folded last year. It was purchased by JazzTimes parent Guthrie Inc. in 2003, and in announcing its closure last year, Guthrie CEO Glenn Sabin said, "Unfortunately, Harp's critical acclaim never translated into sustaining commercial success. Harp's lifecycle was ill timed with the precipitous decline of the music software industry, coupled with the consolidation of the consumer magazine newsstand business and rising paper and postage costs."

Those behind the mag, including publisher Scott Crawford, quickly regrouped and launched Blurt, an online magazine/web site. It is essentially Harp online, with a normal daily-updated web presence and a quarterly PDF magazine. That product was essentially a magazine in all aspects but the presence of paper. Instead, users would click through pages in a dedicated web-based viewer.

“Crawford told FOLIO: magazine earlier this year that the company had "gotten to the point of wanting a physical product to help brand the site—we want it to be the ‘soul’ of the web site in print.” At that time, the print product was planned as a quarterly. The premiere issue, however, says it will come out 10 times a year, or roughly as often as Harp.

Aesthetically and editorially, it is Harp in all but name only. I'm glad to have it back in whatever form, for I missed out on nearly all of its online coverage. For whatever reason, if I want online music coverage, a quick-hit site like Pitchfork works better for me. If I want long form journalism and criticism, I'd rather have a print product.

That means, however, that Blender's decision to cease publication and move exclusively to the web means I might actually pay more attention to it. I was never impressed with the magazine, stuffed as it was fully pix of scantily clad "singers" and 50-word CD reviews, but that's just the kind of thing that works online.

The magazine's April issue, on newsstands now, will be its last. Instead, it will limit coverage to its web site. It's as if each publication figured out its strength -- according to my tastes, anyway -- and decided to switch places to play to them.

Labels: magazines, music