ABSTRACT
Fanzines possess the spark and enthusiasm of writers whose love for music prompted their endless analyses and reams of prose. Prozines entered journalism with the aim of making money by applying the traditional tools of magazine editing to the popular-music field. By 1967 certain clear paths of popular music journalism were on the horizon. Cheetah and Eye were prozines. The continuing fragmentation of the rock-music scene in the late sixties and the disbanding of many of the quality bands revived the issue of popular-prozine, careerist-as opposed to esthetic-fanzine, cultist-as the criteria of quality. Record reviewing in the rock genre began as a cultist or fanzine operation. The legitimation and success of the rock press, as exemplified by Rolling Stone, has transformed this function into a specialized skill. In the transformation the review procedure as well as the end product have been changed. The values of observers, however, have in some cases remained the same.
