Everything comes full circle. After the post-Brit pop cull in rock titles (remember Select, Vox, Melody Maker) and the plethora of dance mags that launched in the late nineties, the rock mag went through a renaissance in 2003. With Muzik, Seven and Ministry gone and almost forgotten, we got two new rock titles. Future Publishing launched the supposedly more punchy Bang!, while Xfm turned what had been a promotional mag into a fully fledged newsstand magazine - X-Ray.
NME seemed to enjoy a new lease of life as its natural music genre gained more prominence, and even the most ardent NME critic seemed impressed with their revamp in the Autumn.
Despite the growth in rock titles - and the launch of a new music supplement by the Observer - jobs remained thin on the ground for music journalists in the post-dotcom era. Even more music websites bit the dust this year, others becoming content-free fronts for ring-tone operations. As we go into 2004 you can count the number of extensive music websites on one hand - but with the genuine expansion of broadband usage in 2003, next year will surely see the rebirth of online music media.