WE'RE TURNING 30, AND YOU'RE NOT (AND IF YOU ARE, WE DON'T CARE)

In 1986, a new kind of music trade publication was born. Unlike the then-respectable, boring Industry Bible and other, now-vanished competitors, this mag was rude, sophomoric, reeking of cannabis rather than collar starch or newspaper ink. There were naked photos of promo guys, and stupid puns and silly photo captions and goofy cartoons. There was also analysis of sales, airplay, deals and other pertinent topics, which was also often goofy and rude but usually not boring. And lots of gossip, gossip and more gossip. Did we mention gossip?

Somehow, 30 years went by. And by some baffling twist of fate, we still exist.

Much has changed. Where LPs and cassettes once ruled the marketplace and messages flew by fax, we now can record, distribute, purchase, stream, share and argue about music with a single device—a device we nonetheless mostly use to order tacos, tweet photos of cats and wander around our office, holding our phones in a Pokemon Go daze.

But here we are in 2016, about to celebrate 30 years in print. Well, maybe “celebrate” is the wrong word. Maybe “apologize for” is more accurate. But we’re diving deep into the archives—and our deteriorating memories—to put together a suitably sophomoric, stoned, rude ramble through our history. Which is also, like it or not, your history. We have the utterly mortifying pictures to prove it.

And here's one thing that hasn’t changed: We’re still beating you up for ads.

The deadline for art is 8/17. If you’d like us to make it to 31—as stoned and irreverent as ever—throw us a freakin’ bone. And if you were thinking of taking a single page, remember it’s our 30th anniversary, and a two-page spread would look even better.