Metal Lungies

Status Ain’t Hood & Spine Magazine were joints ML read before ML even existed (check our long history of linking to those spots in the archives).

Well both sites/blogs/webzines/whatever you want to call them,  have gone under some huge changes as of late. SpineMagazine shut down for a few weeks before re-launching in July. Their site looks sleek.. too bad its all in fucking Adobe Flash. Now, don’t get me wrong I’m not anti-flash, a header or some Flash element is cool but in no way do you would make a all-Flash site in 2008. The choice is to redesign with Flash is a huge headscratcher for me.  I remember when MTV.com went all Flash a few years back.. there was such a vile response that they went back to non-flash within a matter of months. Navigating in Flash is such a pain, that I’m afraid this will hurt Spine’s readership. So please Spine Magazine, for hip hop internets sake go back to the drawing board, I’d hate to see an OG site bite the dust.

Speaking of biting the dust, that is the fate of Village Voice’s Status Ain’t Hood. Tom has moved on to future endeavors but not before he dropped a recap of some of his best joints.  Hate or love him, his writing had a pretty knowledgeable and unique approach to breaking down (mostly current) music that wasn’t a chore to read. You can never forget when Captain Jack checked Tom HARD on Dallas Penn’s site though. Hope he resurfaces somewhere soon (he has a personal blog at the moment).