If you’re an indie rock fan of a certain age, name stereogum Will likely arouse strong emotions. Founder Scott Lapetine explained that the site “launched suddenly on January 1, 2002.” The VergeOriginally, this early stage of the music blog era focused almost entirely on music discovery and posting MP3s, “That was the early days of Windows Media Player and like Real Player,” Scott recalls, Today, the site focuses on music journalism and has been relaunched to keep up with a media landscape increasingly dominated by AI,
has been with lapetine stereogum from the very beginning, and saw both the music and media worlds changing rapidly around them. Although they sold the site in 2006 and saw it change hands several times over the coming years, they bought it back from the previous owner in 2020, making it arguably the most popular bastion of independent music journalism on the Internet.
After nearly 24 years, the site is making some of the most significant changes since it stopped hosting MP3s. Some of those changes, such as the new backend, are largely invisible to readers, but Lapatine says the new site loads faster and has fewer bugs. The site has been redesigned, with a dark mode, and is shifting its focus towards subscriptions.
Obviously, Lapatine says, “the biggest change is streaming.” stereogum Spotify predates Spotify by several years, so the novelty of posting a song, perhaps one you couldn’t hear anywhere else, was enough to help build a strong following. “In the early days, it was like the rule was there were no interviews or anything,” he says. Now, “I have a team of professional music writers, so there’s a lot more context and insight.”
However, what drove the site’s latest revamp wasn’t the streaming music platform, it was largely driven by AI. “Google’s pivot to AI search has cut our ad revenue by 70 percent. Before that, de-prioritizing links to Facebook and However, even beyond the overview, Lapatine sees AI undermining the usefulness of these platforms. Every time he logs into Facebook, he says he’s flooded with videos, “like Ozzy comes back from the dead and hugs a little girl. It’s hard to believe that these platforms are letting themselves turn into these useless warehouses.”
He also made it clear in our interview that while he’s sure AI has its place, that place is not stereogum“I have never used it for anything creative and none of our writers use it in terms of news gathering or writing,” he said, adding, “It certainly sucks to compete with AI generated articles… but it is a reality,”
Like many other outlets, stereogum Moving towards a membership-centric model. ,The Verge Launching its own membership program in December of 2024.) As advertising revenue has dried up and AI oversights have crushed search traffic, many sites have looked to their dedicated fan base to help keep them afloat. Lapetine says there has been some limited response, but “hopefully our audience understands that, in order to get what they find unique from Stereogum, you know, they need to support us.”
He notes that, while people have become accustomed to getting everything online for free over the past 25 years, people used to pay for music magazines. In the 1990s, you had to go to a store and pay for a copy of CMJ New Music Monthly. stereogum There will still be some content offered for free, but, “A certain percentage of readers need to pay us to exist. We need to pay our writers,” says Lapatine.
He knows there are a lot of places competing for your subscription dollars these days. Websites, podcasts, Substack are all moving to a paid subscription model. “We think there’s a future for music writing done by humans,” says Lapatine, “and to be clear, there are a lot of places that do that. There are wonderful newspapers and other independent sites.” But he points out that many major music publications are owned by giant conglomerates. And he doesn’t believe those outlets are always above board. “I think a lot of people don’t realize how much of the music journalism they see these days is either secretly paid for or not done with integrity.”
Lapatine says his goal has always been to operate with transparency. he wants stereogum Feel like talking to a friend who goes to shows and tells you about cool stuff on Bandcamp. Ultimately, he wants to build a relationship with readers, help them find good music, and do it with personality. That human element is important because, he says, “I’ve never discovered anyone with an algorithm.”