In 2022, rock seems more dead than ever. True, this carcass has been euthanized many times before and somehow got back on its feet, but this time it seems that death is final. In the last decade, rock no longer arouses interest, does not make headlines, is not in the center of things. The social revolutions that took place in the western world turned it into a ridiculed genre, whose heritage is male and white, and after many years of oppression it is time for it to give way to other genres, such as pop and rap. There are still, of course, many active rock bands, but the chance of another revival of the genre seems to be nil.
If there’s one industry that seems even more dead than rock, it’s the rock press. In recent years, many magazines, which operated for many years and in the past were important, influential, and had a wide circulation, ceased to exist. In 2018, NME – the British “New Musical Express” – closed. In 2020 it was followed by Q magazine. Even magazines that somehow still manage to exist, like “Mojo”, do so with a much lower circulation than before. Even at the level of content, the feeling is of stepping on the spot, not to mention wallowing in the past. There are no new heroes, and how many times can you put the Gallagher brothers on the cover.
The reasons for the decline of the genre are clear: the two branches on which it sits are particularly precarious. Along with the death of rock, the world of print journalism is also a world that is disappearing. When everything is available online, who has the strength to read a colorful magazine once a week or once a month, and pay for the pleasure.
But these days, against all odds, a surprising attempt has been made to revive one of the most mythical music magazines of all time: “Cream” magazine (not Cream, like Eric Clapton’s famous band, but Creem – a word that does not exist in the English language), which returns for activity 33 years after it closed.
- “We decided it was time for everyone to walk their own path” Statik and Ben Al Hasof
Crimea was founded in Detroit by Barry Kramer, a record store owner, and first came out in March 1969. Those were the heyday of rock, a second and a half before Woodstock, and the rock press industry was booming. In 1967, the famous “Rolling Stone” magazine was established, and in the first years, “Krim” was considered its faltering little brother. The turning point came in 1971, when Lester Bangs, the famous and sharp-tongued journalist and critic, left Rolling Stone, where he was known for his scathing and sometimes offensive reviews, and was appointed editor-in-chief of Crimea.
Bangs is a real mythological figure in the world of American rock. Anyone who has seen David Cameron’s movie “Almost Famous” (where Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Bangs’ character), knows what status the rock journalists had at the time, in the early 1970s, what an open approach they had to the artists and bands, And how much it didn’t stop them from ripping them off in criticism. “Krim” became, in the image of Bangs, a stinging magazine, which knew how to mercilessly crush the stars of the era. Paul McCartney, for example, was featured on one of the magazine’s memorable covers, in the June 1976 issue, as an employee of a McDonald’s-style fast food chain, providing cheap hits with no artistic value. “Crim” took the side of the underdog and promoted artists like Lou Reed and the New York Dolls.
Against the background of the disgust and contempt towards the rock superstars, who in the mid-seventies, in the eyes of some of the audience, turned into fat and seventy cats, the punk revolution broke out in 1976. “Crim” is considered the magazine that helped the genre gain popularity, when it gave covers and extensive articles to the Sex Pistols and the Clash. The magazine tried to represent, and sometimes succeeded, what the younger generation feels, and deal with what really interests them, including extensive coverage devoted to drugs of all kinds.
1976 was the year Bangs left the magazine. In 1982 he died of a drug overdose. A year earlier, in 1981, Barry Kramer, the founder, died of the exact same reason. In the 1980s “Krim” had already changed its face a little. It gave a wide stage to heavy rock and metal bands like Van Halen and Kiss, but also exposed the Smiths to the American audience and helped promote the promising young band REM without Kramer, the magazine lost both program and management direction, changed ownership many times, and finally went bankrupt and closed in 1989.
In the last decade, JJ Kramer, Barry’s son, led a long and tedious legal battle against the people who replaced his father in ownership of the newspaper, in order to obtain the rights to the archive, a battle that ended successfully. In the last month, all 224 issues of “Krim” went online in their entirety. The next decision he made, on the other hand, was much less predictable: starting next month, “Krim” returns to life, as a printed newspaper published once a quarter (and not once a month as in its original life).
“All my life I have worked to get to this moment. There is something about “Crim” that magnetizes me, it is almost predetermined, predetermined in a way that I could not fight,” said Kramer, who named John Martin, former CEO of “Entertainment Weekly” as a partner in the move “. On the cover of the first issue, in a fine display of self-humor, there is an illustration in which two figures are seen talking. “The rock is dead,” says one. “So what, so is the print,” replies the other.
When asked what is the logic of such a step, which on the face of it seems suicidal, Martin said that he believes that there is still a broad enough audience that would like to read about rock, and that the target audience ranges from fans of young indie bands like HAIM to fans of the big bands of yesteryear like Metallica. “Why isn’t there a “Crimea” holiday? It’s something that sounds like it should take place and it will take place,” he added.
Finally, Martin provided the ultimate reasoning regarding the need for “Crim” to exist in 2022, to the dismay and anger of the doubters: “When was the last time you laughed when you read about music?”.