A nice piece in The Atlantic on the demise of the much-loved Word magazine:

But the recently announced demise of The Word, a nine-year-old British rock monthly, hurts more than most. The Word did something that seems beyond most of its competitors now: It breathed. Even at its most list-tacular, there was nothing assembly-line about it. When it puts out its final issue this week, the best music magazine anybody published in the last decade will be officially dead.

If you’re looking for intelligent life on planet rock, many Word contributors now write for the revamped Q magazine, but it isn’t looking too clever: the current issue has a subscription deal offering 12 issues for just £12, which to me looks like a panicky move to protect a magazine on life support. If you haven’t seen Q recently it’s well worth your time, and at £12 for a year it’s a steal.

Of course, the problems don’t just affect music magazine: the internet, the economy… you know the score. More than ever before, subscribing to the magazines you love isn’t just about saving money; it’s about ensuring that they can continue to delight you month after month – and these days subs can be for digital issues as well as, or instead of, dead-tree ones.

Here are a few links to some of my favourites:

.net  |  PC Plus |  MacFormat  |  What Laptop, Tablet and Smartphone  |  Tap!  |  Edge  |  Private Eye

(Those subscription links aren’t an affiliate thing; I’m not getting any cash if you take out a sub to anything)