2018 version of Paste Magazine / mixtape subscription?
July 16, 2018 9:57 AM Subscribe
I used to have a subscription to Paste Magazine, when they sent out CDs with a bunch of curated songs, and also had a lot of cool cultural stuff. I'd like to buy a subscription to a similar service for my 14-year-old nephew, but I'm not sure what's available these days.
Ideally, it should be a mix of hip, current culture (music, film, literature, etc.), with intelligent commentary.
I want to give him something that will help him forge an identity and be cool, however he ends up defining that word. The main thing is to expose him to a broader range of cultural touchpoints, including things his contemporaries will be talking about, and things he could really get into.
I know all of this is stuff that someone could discover for themselves, but they would have to know where to look. I think having something curated and delivered to you regularly is much more likely to be digestible and interesting. Downloadable .mp3 samplers would probably work great for the music part.
I want to give him something that will help him forge an identity and be cool, however he ends up defining that word. The main thing is to expose him to a broader range of cultural touchpoints, including things his contemporaries will be talking about, and things he could really get into.
I know all of this is stuff that someone could discover for themselves, but they would have to know where to look. I think having something curated and delivered to you regularly is much more likely to be digestible and interesting. Downloadable .mp3 samplers would probably work great for the music part.
If he lives in a city that's big enough to have a real rep movie house, a membership there would be a pretty amazing gift.
posted by roll truck roll at 4:37 PM on July 16, 2018
posted by roll truck roll at 4:37 PM on July 16, 2018
There isn't really such a thing. Even at its heyday, Paste was much more for the person that wanted to be a little more cutting edge than the average NPR listener, not anything that would have impressed cool teens (other than ones into that folksy style of music). These days the flow of hip new music is curated blogs, podcasts, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, YouTube, etc. and if you're not tuned into what's currently what his peers are into you probably won't be able to point out to him in an effective way because it's such a moving target. Or he might just listen to middle of the road teen music and be uninterested in switching things up, particularly if that's not something his friends are interested in.
If he's interested, some good books to help him think about media and art might be sort of what you're looking for - introductions to feminist and colonial reading, post-modernism, dada, and the like. Music like xxxtentacion is what is often popular with that age group. Giving him the tools to understand what's going on in the music might be better than trying to point him to it.
That said, Mojo and Uncut are still publishing and include good CD samplers with each issue and the KEXP podcasts have some good stuff, as well as other NPR podcasts.
posted by Candleman at 5:06 PM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
If he's interested, some good books to help him think about media and art might be sort of what you're looking for - introductions to feminist and colonial reading, post-modernism, dada, and the like. Music like xxxtentacion is what is often popular with that age group. Giving him the tools to understand what's going on in the music might be better than trying to point him to it.
That said, Mojo and Uncut are still publishing and include good CD samplers with each issue and the KEXP podcasts have some good stuff, as well as other NPR podcasts.
posted by Candleman at 5:06 PM on July 16, 2018 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Agreed that this just doesn't exist in the same way anymore. If this was a niece I'd recommend Nylon, but the branding is explicitly feminine.
I'd lean toward a subscription to an offbeat literary magazine like Cabinet or the Believer, especially if he's an artsy kid. Just getting a sense that there is a whole world outside the mainstream could point him in the right direction. For music, I think the best thing you could do is probably to bring him along to a music festival to get him exposed to what's out there. A Spotify subscription would also be great, as the channels feature would allow him to explore a wide range of what's out there.
posted by veery at 6:28 AM on July 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'd lean toward a subscription to an offbeat literary magazine like Cabinet or the Believer, especially if he's an artsy kid. Just getting a sense that there is a whole world outside the mainstream could point him in the right direction. For music, I think the best thing you could do is probably to bring him along to a music festival to get him exposed to what's out there. A Spotify subscription would also be great, as the channels feature would allow him to explore a wide range of what's out there.
posted by veery at 6:28 AM on July 17, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks! For anyone else looking at this, I ended up going with a subscription to Under the Radar.
posted by crookedgrin at 7:44 AM on July 17, 2018
posted by crookedgrin at 7:44 AM on July 17, 2018
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Podcasts. We call those podcasts these days!
posted by DarlingBri at 2:39 PM on July 16, 2018