New Alternative Press

after the somewhat disappointing "100 bands you need to know" issue last month, AP has a nice strong mix of reviews this month. There are almost as many bands, if not more, this month that I want to check out than there was on their feature of bands to check out last month. The Lawrence Arms even get name checked on not 1 but 2 reviews of bands. Which, 1 of them does not surprise since the album is the Menzingers who are their friends and on the label Brendan is closely associated with.

I will state this though, there is a feature article that shows the "Class of 2010" and has a quick statement from a bunch of frontmen for bands. Whatever. But there is absolutely zero fucking content in this section. It is literally full page pics of singers, in various stages from looking like complete asshats to somewhat normal guys. But that is all it is, pictures and maybe 10-15 words. In the past, there used to be at least a paragraph.

Which leads me to something else i have noticed, and that is that amount of full page pics with little content and the full spread ads that are every other page. I understand that people seem to have an aversion to reading words lately, poor souls do not even understand what they are missing, but come on, is readership down so much that you have to bank on neon shirt scene kids buying the mag for the pics? Every month there is a letters section and more and more it is written by what I can only imagine as screaming girls saying "OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG look at who is on the cover! it's (insert shitty band name here)" I understand that there is a need to try and turn a profit, shit I would not have a job if people did not advertise, but really, do you need to sacrifice content in order to do so?

I admit, I will probably continue to read alt press for a long time, but the amount of skipping around keeps increasing. I read almost half of the entire thing in under 30 mins, just due to the large number of ads and full-page nonsense. I almost worry that I am missing out on some band that could be amazing, just because they need a full-page shot of some near shirtless singer from a band that I have never even heard.