Blender Magazine Review

Considering it's from the same people who publish Maxim, it's really no surprise that Blender magazine is put together the way it is.  Blender is pretty much an all music version of Maxim, just with slightly better journalism.

I'll be the first to admit that Blender was much better in it's earliest days (2002), when they seemed to be truly focused on being an all things to all listeners music mag.  To an extent, they still have this goal, they're just not nearly as focused on it. 

Blender offers a lot of excellent monthly features to get the reader engaged.  The "classic song" feature selects a hit from yesteryear and collects comments from the artist, the producer etc about how it came to be.  "Ask Blender" features readers asking Blender questions about musical heroes past and present.  The news section is always interesting, since Blender seems to always have 1 or 2 nuggets I haven't seen elsewhere.  Their album review section is, while not as big as it used to be, still impressive.  They still review everything too, from the major releases to the smallest independents.  And as part of their album review section, they select an artist's discography and give a small write up to each of the albums from that artist.  With some artists, this feature can last 2-3 issues, if the artist has put out a large amount of albums (think Bob Dylan or Neil Young).

Now, in terms of their features, Blender has become overly dependent on the current big thing.  Whereas when they first came out, they were willing to feature anyone in music who was truly worthwhile, they now seem to have an overdependence on mediocre "stars" who lack any real talent.  They are also overly dependent on the various lists they come up with, which is never a good sign for any music mag.

In additon, Blender's honesty has been called into question more than once by artists following the publication of articles.  This is never a good thing, as it brings into question everything the magazine writes.

On the whole though, Blender is an enjoyable read every month.  No, it's not the deepest music mag out there in terms of content, but it is a nice way to unwind after a long day at work.

3.5 stars, rounded DOWN.