Alternative Press (music magazine)

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Alternative Press
"Most Anticipated Albums of 2007" issue
Editor In Chief	Jason Pettigrew
Categories	Punk rock music magazine
Frequency	Monthly
Publisher	Alternative Press Magazine, Inc.
First Issue	June, 1985
Country	United States
Language	English
Website	www.altpress.com
ISSN	1065-1667

Alternative Press (or AP) is a music magazine based in Cleveland, Ohio which primarily focuses on punk, emo, metal, indie rock, ska, hardcore and rock music and their attendant subgenres, providing readers with band interviews and photos, information on upcoming releases, and music charts. It was founded in 1985 by Mike Shea, who is the current president.

Norman Wonderly is publisher and Katherine Poecze is the general manager. Jason Pettigrew is editor in chief, Leslie Simon is managing editor, and Scott Heisel is music editor.

Contents 1 Beginnings 2 Growth in the 1990s 3 Today 4 References

[edit] Beginnings

The first issue of AP was just a photocopied fanzine, distributed at concerts in Cleveland beginning in June of 1985 by AP's founder, Mike Shea, who disliked the music then broadcast on radio stations and believed that bands playing underground music should be given more media coverage "all in the same spot", he said.

Financial problems plagued AP in its early years. Of the fledgling magazine's struggles in 1986, Shea said: "After the last few punk concerts we promoted that year failed to make any money to help finance the magazine, I had to start begging my mom for money to keep AP going: $1,500 here, $2,500 there. My mom was super-supportive of the whole endeavor, and she seemed to enjoy having a bunch of punkers over at all hours of the night putting together issues on her dining-room table and getting spray mount all over her nice tablecloths and on the carpeting, which resulted in our socks getting pulled off as we walked over it." However, by the end of 1986, publication had ceased due to its financial problems, not resuming until the spring of 1988.

[edit] Growth in the 1990s

With the growth of alternative music in the early 1990s, circulation began to increase. AP's covers included bands such as Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden, prior to each band's mainstream success. The magazine's first cover story on Nine Inch Nails in 1990 was said by Shea to be AP's "biggest-selling issue ever." Shea recalled getting a subscription order from Spin magazine publisher Bob Guccione, who wrote a note saying, “I enjoy your magazine tremendously, and at the risk of offending your alternative sensibilities, here’s a copy of the next issue, in which I wrote the cover story about Bon Jovi."

In 1991, Shea dissolved his partnership with Bobby Crist, in a dispute over Alternative Press' advertising and subscription sales agency at the time, Spectrum Media Group.

By 1994, the magazine was doing cover stories on Beastie Boys, Henry Rollins and Love And Rockets. Norman Wonderly, now the publisher, was credited by Shea as having "made most of these happen and the more Norman got what he wanted, the more artists wanted their cover shoots to look the way Norman wanted, and so on. It wasn’t always easy; there were some nasty phone calls exchanged between everyone, and there was always some publicist who wanted to give us one half-hour of shoot time so the artist could go shopping or some stupid thing. Did we sometimes protest too much? Maybe, but we were up against a lot; we were underfinanced and still underappreciated in some corners of the music business, so we had to fight scrappily and mean when it was called for. Nobody takes you seriously unless you take yourself seriously, and that’s what Norman brings to his position to this day."

[edit] Today

Over the years, Alternative Press has supported a number of unknown new groups who have gone on to mainstream success, such as My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, The All-American Rejects, Panic! at the Disco, the Used, Taking Back Sunday, Avenged Sevenfold, Coheed and Cambria, and others. The magazine was the first national music publication to put Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins and other alternative-rock icons on its covers.

At the time of its 20th anniversary in 2005, AP had grown to an average size of 112 pages an issue and now averages between 198 to 220-plus pages a month.

Critics such as David Thorpe, a music reviewer at the Something Awful website, have accused AP of pandering to the "Hot Topic crowd", while some have said that it has become more like its main competitors, Rolling Stone and Spin magazines. However, others retort that those magazines are actually adapting more to AP's style, citing as evidence recent cover stories by those publications on Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco and My Chemical Romance – all three bands which AP discovered and first broke on a national level.

The magazine's monthly columns include:

• The AP Poll
• In The Studio
• AP&R (Unsigned bands of the month)
• Chalkboard Confessional
• Musician Of The Month
• Gig Bag
• 1000 Words
• 10 Essential
• Steven's Untitled Rock Column

Its annual feature issues include Most Anticipated Albums of the Year, which provides information about bands and their upcoming albums, and 100 Bands You Need To Know, informing readers of new bands and artists expected to become popular.

[edit] References