I’m Todd L. Burns, and welcome to Music Journalism Insider, a newsletter about music journalism. Click here to subscribe!
JJ Kramer is the son of CREEM founder Barry Kramer. He’s among those bringing the magazine back after a years-long effort to untangle rights issues. This week has seen numerous profiles and interviews with Kramer that outline the story and the aims of the new magazine; I hopped on the bandwagon and sent Kramer a few questions myself.
Tell me all about the new CREEM.
It’s always been in my blood. My father, Barry Kramer, was the CREEM founder and publisher until his death in 1981. After he passed, he left CREEM to me—so at four years old I was the mag’s Chairman. For the better part of my adult life, I’ve been fighting to preserve the storied legacy of CREEM—and this relaunch is the culmination of those efforts.
CREEM is returning not as a media company, but as an entertainment company. While traditional media companies are hyper-focused on aggregating eyeballs and selling them to advertisers, we are focused on building a long term relationship with our audience through compelling stories and experiences.
While we’ll be leading with our digital archive, quarterly print magazine, and ecomm—we’ll soon be expanding into original programming and experiential.
Why now?
There used to be an ecosystem between the bands, the writers, and the fans, where each would hold the others accountable. That ecosystem is broken.
Music journalism has become fragmented, sanitized, and productized. Editorial decisions are based on clicks and algorithms and, as a result, music journalism (and the music itself) has suffered. CREEM views this as a tremendous opportunity.
How is this all going to work financially?
We’ve created a business model that is not dependent on advertising revenue. Instead, we’re focused on subscriptions. We firmly believe that consumers will pay for premium content and that’s what we intend to deliver.
We will have both digital-only and digital + print subscriptions, which will provide customers with different opportunities to interact with the CREEM. In addition, we will have a free weekly newsletter and limited digital content for those that aren’t quite ready to subscribe.
Will the Creem archives also be available when everything launches?
Yes. The CREEM Archive is a bona fide rock ’n’ roll treasure trove: 20 years of music, art, culture, and some of the best damn music journalism of all time. We’re incredibly excited to share it with the CREEM audience.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
In five years, we believe CREEM will have reclaimed its mantle as the most authentic and authoritative voice in rock ‘n’ roll.
What would you like to see more of in music journalism right now?
More editorial freedom, originality, and authenticity. Click-driven editorial decisions have ripped the soul out of music journalism. Subjects are chosen based on algorithms and advertisers, rather than what’s really important: talent. We aim to remedy that. CREEM will champion bands that we believe in (regardless of their lack of notoriety) and will skewer bands that deserve it (regardless of their fame). At the end of the day, CREEM leads with passion and is accountable only to its readership.
Anything you want to plug?
The CREEM Archive launched on June 1, 2022 along with subscriptions for our new print quarterly.
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