Spex (magazine)

However, because of its huge freedom Spex was inclined to speak only about topics that interested the editorial team, and to ignore other newsworthy trends. Some good artists were rejected on principle. The Smiths, for example, never appealed to Spex, whereas Die Toten Hosen have always been the object of graceful praises. Diedrich Diederichsen, the editor from 1985 to 1991, brought the spotlight on American indie punk bands (predominantly from the SST Records) at the expense of other kinds of pop music like house or hip hop. At the end of the year 1999, after nineteen years of existence, Spex went bankrupt and was bought by Piranha Media. This signalled the end of self-production and the magazine was completely restructured as many employees chose to leave. Critics saw the buy-out as a loss of Spex's independence and predicted that it would become a mouthpiece of the music industry.

The removal

In December 2006, parent company Piranha Media announced the relocation of the editorial staff from Cologne to Berlin. Editor Alex Lacher claimed it was necessary for practical reasons (being closer to the music industry in Berlin), and for financial reasons: the loss in revenue caused by the prohibition of tobacco advertising in German newspapers obligated them to close one of their three editorial offices (Berlin, Cologne, and Munich). This decision has sometimes been seen as a pretext taken by Piranha to get rid of the editorial staff. The move, first planned in the summer of 2006, was carried out in December; the Cologne staff who resisted the move were fired after the publication of the January 2007 issue. Max Dax was named as the new editor and Spex settled in the Kreuzberg neighbourhood, where Groove, a Piranha publication dedicated to techno music, was already located.

The new Spex

In March 2007, the first issue of the new Spex from Berlin came out. At that time, the paper became bi-monthly. This choice was driven by the in-depth transformation of the magazine's content and the decision to emphasise analysis of wider musical and artistic trends over news coverage. Spex is no longer focused on listing new releases, but also on critical analysis of modern social evolutions. It has more pages, longer articles, and fewer but more detailed record reviews. The conditions of the production of art are a topic of interest, with special reports on globalisation, the rise of digital culture, depolitisation and the difficulties of the music industry. There are many reasons for those editorial changes. In the last years of the Cologne period, readers complained about a degradation of the editorial quality, claiming that the magazine was losing its trademark wit and just compiling record reviews indifferently every month. In that sense, Spex was no longer a voice distinct from other music magazines such as