Music

This Sucks: Another Music Magazine Dies

Unless you’re a rock’n’roll fan of, uh, a certain age, you’ll have to recollection whatsoever of Crawdaddy! magazine.  But believe me when I say this:  it was one of the most important rock magazines ever.

When college student Paul Williams founded the magazine in 1966, he had no competition.  That’s because there were no rock’n’roll magazines.  Writing about rock music was left to teen mags, which was as awful as you can probably imagine.

Crawdaddy! was different.  (Note:  To be correct, we need to use the exclamation mark in the name of the magazine, although it disappeared and reappeared a couple of times, much like the ! in Panic! At the Disco).  This was the first magazine devoted entirely to serious rock’n’roll comment and criticism.  In this respect, Williams beat Jan Wenner’s Rolling Stone by almost a year and Creem (“America’s Only Rock’n’Roll Magazine”) by three years.

Williams left in 1968 and the magazine chugged along for another decade, ceding ground to the evermore dominant Rolling Stone.  In 1979, there was an image change and the magazine renamed itself Feature.  Advertisers bailed.  It was dead in three months.

In 1993, Williams reacquired all the intellecual rights to his creation and self-published Crawdaddy! until 2003. And even though Williams literally invented this kind of writing for the North American market, he couldn’t compete.  RS, Spin, Alternative Press and others were just too big and too strong. 

Then in 2006, Crawdaddy! was acquired by Wolfgang’s Vault, which maintained it as a daily webzine. 

But that wasn’t enough.  Crawdaddy! is now officially dead.

And don’t get too excited about Creem coming back.  Word of that resurrection may have been premature.

 

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 37948 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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