It’s getting close to the time when I’d usually be receiving the newest issue of music magazine Blender—except that Blender’s parent company announced a couple of weeks ago that the April issue would be the last. Other than as another indicator of the slow, sad decline of print media, the demise of Blender isn’t all that regrettable; for a while it had some pretty strong reporting, but the obsession with charticles and lists has generally overwhelmed the quality writing, especially since the last redesign.

I had a (free, thanks to an online offer) subscription through April 2011, which probably will be filled by Maxim. Blender editor Joe Levy is being shuffled over to the veteran lad mag, but I can’t see it shifting too far from its established boobs-n’-gadgets format. At least some of the quality criticism can still be found at blender.com.