Blender (magazine)

Blender

Issue 2.1 from 1995, featuring Björk
Editor-in-Chief	Dale Hrabi
Former editors	Regina Joseph (Founding Editor-in-Chief), Howard Stringer
Categories	Music
Frequency	10 times per year
Founded	1994
First issue	August 1994 (1994-08) (CD-ROM) June–July 2001 (Print)
Final issue	June 1997 (1997-06) (CD-ROM) April 2009 (2009-04) (Print)
Company	Dennis Publishing
Country	United States
Based in	New York
Language	English
Website	Blender.com
ISSN	1534-0554
OCLC	34610465

^[1][2][3][4]Blender was an American music magazine published from 1994 to 2009 that billed itself as "the ultimate guide to pop culture"^[5]. It was also known for sometimes steamy pictorials of celebrities. It compiled lists of albums, artists, and songs, including both "best of" and "worst of" lists. In each issue, there was a review of an artist's entire discography, with each album being analyzed in turn.

Blender was published by Dennis Publishing. The magazine was created by founding Editor-in-Chief Regina Joseph as the first digital magazine, delivered entirely on CD-ROM disc and before the development of graphical browsers required to view the web^{[6][3][7][4][8][9][10][11][12]}. She brought in co-founders Jason Pearson and David Cherry, and Blender's original publisher, Felix Dennis/Dennis Publishing, UK^{[3][4][1][11]}. Joseph's CD-ROM editions of Blender also featured the first forms of digital advertising^{[7][1][4][8][11]}. Felix Dennis published 15 digital CD issues, and launched a web version in 1996.^[13] The final CD-ROM issue was published in June 1997, issue 14.^[14] Dennis started publishing a print edition again in 1999 which became the final distribution format of the title. Blender CD-ROM showcased the earliest digital editorial formats, as well as the first forms of digital advertising. The first digital advertisers included SonicNet^[1][7], Time-Life/Philips^[11][7], Calvin Klein, Apple Computer, Toyota and Nike.

In June 2006, the Chicago Tribune named it one of the top ten English-language magazines, describing it as "the cool kid at the school of rock magazines".^[15]

Owner Alpha Media Group closed Blender March 26, 2009, going to an online-only format in a move that eliminated 30 jobs and reduced the company's portfolio of titles to Maxim alone. Blender's final print issue was the April 2009 issue.^[16] Subscribers to the magazine were sent issues of Maxim magazine to make up for the unsent Blender issues.