Paste

About Paste

Paste is an American music and entertainment magazine, published digitally from Decatur, Georgia, that has twice reinvented itself to survive the collapse of the print music press. Founded by editor Josh Jackson, Paste began as a website in 1998, launched a print edition in July 2002 that ran for eight years, suspended print in 2010 at the height of the magazine industry's advertising crisis, and rebuilt itself as a digital-first publication covering music, movies, TV, games, books, and comics. Owned by Paste Media Group, the company has grown into a small media empire through a string of acquisitions — including Jezebel, Splinter News, and The A.V. Club — while the magazine itself continues to publish from its suburban Atlanta base at pastemagazine.com.

Founding and the Website Years

Paste began life as a website in 1998, founded by Josh Jackson, who has led the publication in various capacities ever since. The site's early focus on music and entertainment grew out of Jackson's conviction that there was an audience for literate, enthusiast-driven coverage of popular culture — writing that took music seriously without taking itself too seriously. For its first four years, Paste existed only online, building a readership and an editorial voice that would eventually justify the leap to print. Jackson remains editor-in-chief and the central figure in the publication's history, having guided it through every phase of its evolution from a small website to a national print magazine to a digital media group.

The Print Launch in 2002

In July 2002, Paste launched its print edition as a monthly magazine headquartered in Decatur, Georgia. The print magazine distinguished itself immediately with a signature feature: each issue included a CD with songs from up-and-coming artists, a physical sampler that turned the magazine into both a reading and a listening experience. The staff was small — about 15 people, mostly in their twenties and thirties — and the operation had the scrappy, mission-driven feel of an independent publication. Print Paste covered music first but also film, books, and the broader entertainment landscape, earning a reputation for incisive writing and for championing artists before they broke through. Within a few years it had more than 200,000 subscribers and a growing shelf presence at newsstands and bookstores.

Awards and Critical Recognition

During its eight years in print, Paste accumulated an impressive shelf of publishing honors. The magazine earned nominations for the National Magazine Awards in the categories of General Excellence and Best Reviews — the industry's most prestigious prizes — and won a Folio Eddie Award for Best Consumer Entertainment Magazine. It also won the PLUG Independent Music Award for Magazine of the Year, recognizing its standing within the independent music community it covered. These awards mattered because they validated the magazine's editorial approach: long-form features, serious criticism, and a genuine enthusiasm for discovery, all executed by a tiny staff working out of suburban Atlanta rather than New York or Los Angeles.

The 2007 Pay-What-You-Want Experiment

As the print advertising market began to deteriorate in the mid-2000s, Paste tried an unconventional tactic to sustain its subscription base. In 2007, following the lead of the rock band Radiohead — which had released its album In Rainbows on a pay-what-you-want basis — the magazine offered readers a pay-what-you-want subscription deal, asking fans to choose how much they wanted to pay. The promotion boosted subscriptions and generated national attention, but it could not offset the larger collapse in print advertising revenue. By 2009, Paste was asking readers for donations to stay afloat, raising thousands of dollars that bought the magazine some additional time but could not reverse the economics of the business.

The End of Print in 2010

On August 31, 2010, Paste printed its final magazine. Editor-in-chief Josh Jackson announced that the publication would continue its website but would no longer send print copies to its more than 200,000 subscribers. The entire staff of nine employees was cut; the three main managers, including Jackson, stayed on to run the website. Jackson told the Associated Press, "We thought we could make it, but we ran out of fumes. We're an independent publication doing this out of the love of doing it." The closure came amid a brutal stretch for the industry: within eighteen months, at least two of Paste's rivals — Blender and Vibe — also folded, while titles like Gourmet, Domino, and CosmoGirl either closed or went online-only. Paste's print run had lasted eight years, a remarkable achievement for an independent music monthly launched at the dawn of the internet era.

Rebuilding as a Digital Magazine

The website survived, and Paste spent the following decade rebuilding as a digital publication. In 2013, Paste Media Group launched PASTE.COM as a members-only digital weekly, reviving the tradition of the award-winning print magazine in an online format with a new issue every Tuesday — featuring longer reads, new music, and exclusive video — while PasteMagazine.com continued as a news website. The online brand grew substantially: Paste reported more than seven million unique web visitors in November 2016, up tenfold from 616,000 unique visitors in September 2010, the first month after going all-digital. Its coverage expanded beyond music to include food, drink, tech, style, politics, and travel. In 2017, the company ran an Indiegogo campaign for Paste Quarterly, a limited print revival printed on large 12-by-12-inch thick paper with a 150-gram colored vinyl album of exclusive tracks recorded at the Paste Studio in New York — a collector's object that echoed the CD samplers of the original print era.

Paste Media Group's Acquisitions

In recent years, Paste Media Group has transformed from a single-title publisher into a consolidator of struggling digital publications. In November 2023, the company acquired Jezebel from G/O Media in an all-cash deal. In March 2024, it acquired The A.V. Club and relaunched Splinter News in the same month. In July 2025, it spun off its gaming coverage into Endless Mode, a dedicated gaming and anime site led by longtime Paste gaming editor Garrett Martin. These moves have made Paste Media Group an increasingly significant player in the independent digital media landscape, even as the industry around it continues to contract. Like many of its peers, the company has also had to make cuts: in 2025 it laid off much of its film and TV team to refocus on music coverage, a decision that drew public sympathy for the affected writers.

Editorial Coverage and Identity

Paste's editorial identity has always centered on discovery and enthusiasm. The magazine's music coverage spans indie rock, hip-hop, country, folk, electronic music, and beyond, with a long-standing emphasis on emerging artists — a legacy of the CD samplers that introduced readers to bands they had never heard of. Its film, television, and gaming coverage applies the same sensibility to the broader entertainment world, while its books and comics coverage reflects the tastes of its culturally omnivorous readership. The magazine's writing is characterized by a literate, accessible voice: serious about the art, allergic to hype, and willing to be genuinely excited about something. That tone, established in the Decatur offices in the 2000s, has survived every business-model change the publication has endured.

Josh Jackson and the Staff

Josh Jackson, Paste's founder and editor-in-chief, is one of the longest-serving leaders of any American music publication, having run the title continuously since its 2002 print launch. His tenure spans the print boom, the 2010 collapse, the digital rebuild, and the acquisition era — a rare continuity in an industry defined by turnover. The early print staff was famously young and small, and the modern digital operation continues to punch above its weight with a lean team of writers and editors covering an enormous range of entertainment. The magazine's studios in Atlanta and Manhattan support its multimedia operations, including the Paste Studio recording sessions that have produced exclusive performances for years.

The Paste Sampler Tradition

Few features define Paste as clearly as its music samplers. The original print magazine's bundled CDs introduced readers to up-and-coming artists in every issue, a tangible expression of the magazine's discovery mission. The digital era brought the Paste New Music Sampler — weekly downloads complementing the editorial features — and the Paste Quarterly's 150-gram colored vinyl album with exclusive tracks by artists including Violent Femmes, Lake Street Dive, Shakey Graves, Lucius, Josh Ritter, and Courtney Barnett. These samplers are more than a gimmick; they are the physical embodiment of Paste's editorial philosophy, turning each issue into an act of curation.

How to Read Paste

Paste publishes continuously online at pastemagazine.com, covering music, movies, TV, gaming, books, and comics. The site remains free to read, supported by advertising and the broader Paste Media Group portfolio. For readers who remember the print magazine's CD samplers, the site's music coverage and sampler tradition offer the closest continuation of the original experience. Nearly three decades after its founding as a website — and more than two decades after its print debut — Paste remains one of the most enduring independent voices in American entertainment journalism.