Stereogum soldiers on in the era of streaming and AI

If you’re an indie rock fan of a certain age, the name Stereogum will probably conjure strong feelings. The site was launched “January 1st, 2002, on a whim,” founder Scott Lapatine told The Verge. Originally, this early staple of the music blog era was focused almost entirely on music discovery and posting MP3s. “It was the early days of like Windows Media Player and Real Player,” Scott remembers. Today, the site is focused on music journalism and has just relaunched to keep up with a media landscape being overrun by AI.

Lapatine has been with Stereogum from the beginning, and watched as both the music and media world rapidly changed around him. Though he sold the site in 2006 and watched it change hands several times in the ensuing years, he bought it back from the previous owner in 2020, making it arguably the most popular bastion of independent music journalism on the internet.

After almost 24 years, the site is making some of the most significant changes since it stopped hosting MP3s. Some of those changes, like the new backend, are largely invisible to readers, but Lapatine says the new site loads faster and has fewer bugs. The site has undergone a facelift, complete with a dark mode, and is shifting its focus towards subscriptions.

Obviously, Lapatine says, “the biggest change is streaming.” Stereogum predates Spotify by several years, so the novelty of posting a song, perhaps one you couldn’t hear anywhere else, was enough to help it build a strong following. “In the early days, it was like the rule was no interviews and no whatever,” now he says, “I have like a team of professional music writers, so there’s like a lot more context and insight.”

What prompted the latest revamp of the site, however, wasn’t streaming music platforms, it was largely driven by AI. “Google’s pivot to AI search has cut our ad revenue by 70 percent. Prior to that, Facebook and X’s deprioritization of links hurt too, but I can’t downplay the brutal impact of AI Overview,” Lapatine said in a post announcing the site’s relaunch. Even beyond overviews, though, Lapatine sees AI diminishing these platforms’ usefulness. Every time he logs into Facebook, he says he’s bombarded with videos, “like Ozzie comes back from the dead and hugs a little girl. It’s hard to believe that these platforms are letting themselves be turned into these like slop warehouses.”

He was also clear in our interview that while he’s sure AI has its place, that place is not at Stereogum. “I have never used it for anything creative and none of our writers use it in terms of like news gathering or writing,” he said noting, “it certainly sucks to be competing with articles that are AI generated… but it’s a reality.”

Like many other outlets, Stereogum is shifting towards a subscription-focused model. (The Verge launched its own subscription program in December of 2024.) As advertising revenues have dried up and AI overviews have crushed search traffic, many sites have looked to their dedicated fanbase to help keep them afloat. Lapatine says there has been some limited backlash, but “hopefully our audience understands that, to get what they feel is unique from Stereogum, you know, they need to support us.”

He notes that, while people have gotten used to getting everything online for free over the last 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 will still offer some content for free but, “there’s some percentage of readers we need to pay to exist. We need to pay our writers,” Lapatine says.

He knows there are a lot of places vying for your subscription dollar these days. Websites, podcasts, Substacks are all shifting to a paid subscription model. “We think there’s like a future for music writing done by humans,” Lapatine says, “and to be clear, like there’s a lot of places that do this. There are like awesome newsletters and other independent sites.” But he points out that a lot of major music publications are owned by giant conglomerates. And he doesn’t believe that those outlets are always above board. “I think a lot of people don’t realize how much of the music journalism that they see these days is either secretly paid for or is not done with integrity.”

Lapatine says his goal has always been to operate with transparency. He wants Stereogum to feel like talking to a friend who goes to shows and tells you about cool stuff on Bandcamp. Ultimately, he wants to build a connection with readers, help them find good music, and do it with personality. That human element is key because, he says, “I’ve never discovered anyone from the algorithm.”