You and I, we started off nicely.
I bought my first issue of your magazine six years ago because it had Paramore on the cover, and then, everytime I would go to the UK, I would keep a little bit of my change to purchase your pages. I also liked Kerrang, back then, but I liked you better because when you said there was going to be, say, Kids in Glass Houses in the magazine, it wasn't an article as big as a stamp. It was an actual article with writing, and I liked it.

Then, my music taste started to expand, I got into heavy music and started to read Alternative Press and Metal Hammer. And then, I became really broke and couldn't really afford magazines so I stuck to the online version of what you did. And this is when you and me started to fall apart.

I started noticing that you always mentioned the same bands, all the time, and it made me sad. You know, Rock Sound, when the bass player of one of your favourite bands tells you, weeks before their last ever show, that their career went the way it did because the music press didn't support them enough, you open your eyes. I still liked you. But I wanted to see someone on the cover that was not an eternal loop of Paramore, Slipknot, You Me At Six, All Time Low and Black Veil Brides. At least, you didn't do a Kerrang and called Pierce The Veil, Sleeping With Sirens and Of Mice & Men new bands when they were all about to release their third albums and you couldn't quite publicly admit that you had missed out because you were too busy giving Asking Alexandria their twentieth cover of the year. But still. You stopped catering to my interests, music wise, because you stopped expanding your music taste. 

And it is a problem I have with you, Rock Sound, and a problem I have with most of the music press. 
You pick a successful band, milk it until your readers are sick to death of hearing about them, and then you carry on. See, that favourite band of mine who broke up and said the music press didn't support them enough? I saw them once in your pages and you wrote a brilliant post about them AFTER they called it quits. Aren't you supposed to care for the new, up and coming bands? For the artists that play toilet venues in the hopes of expanding their fanbases? For the hardworkers? Why weren't you here for my favourite bands when they were still bands, Rock Sound?

We both know the answer, don't we?

It's because they weren't good poster boys, they didn't create any sort of scandal, they were just nice guys doing great music, they didn't care about clothing brands and image, they just wanted to make music and that's not good enough for you. 

That pissed me off greatly, you know. You being a leader of the British music press but you barely supporting the little bands in their small venues. But this isn't the worst thing you did.

Remember, Warped Tour UK 2015? Yes, the festival in Alexandra Palace that was shabby at best and all that, that fateful October day. What you did, around and during that festival, was promoting the worst bands on the line up. And by worst, I do not mean "do not cater to my music taste". By worst, I mean "promote values that should not be promoted by anyone, let alone a band who has a young fanbase". You know who I am talking about - the Attilas, the Memphis May Fires, the Metro Stations of the world.
I am sure you don't live in a cave, Rock Sound. You are supposed to be tended to by journalists that know what happens in this scene. And yet you promote a homophobic, sexist and misogynist band and dare calling them a "welcome alternative" in a generic metalcore scene. This sentence still repulses me to no end. I'm going to be brutal here, Rock Sound. When you said that, you disgusted me. 

When it wasn't Attila, it was Memphis May Fire - the band whose frontman, Matty Mullins, sexualises teenagers, comments on their physical appearances and then uses religion to justify himself. The band whose frontman shamed teenagers for wearing shorts at Warped Tour in America. Don't you think we need feminism, Rock Sound? Don't you think us girls should be able to walk around in whatever clothing we want to without the fear of having anyone attacking us and, if we're at a rock show, without having to suffer the spokesperson of a band shaming us for doing so? Do you not realise that promoting bands whose members trample upon feminism like Matty Mullins does means YOU trample upon feminism too?

Yesterday, Rock Sound, you know as well as I do that during the NME Awards, Oli Sykes, during his band's performance, wrecked Coldplay's table. One can easily think that he picked Coldplay of all bands because one, they are an easy target, and two, he genuinely believed they had stolen Sempiternal's artwork when they made A Head Full of Dreams. I do believe you had published an article about it, and you were standing on Oli's side. Obviously. Big bad mean mainstream band had to steal off the nice, lovely metalcore band. Obviously.

And you called it badass. In your books, in the message you promote to your audience, you sincerely do believe that someone wrecking someone else's table during a performance is "badass". You do believe that someone being disrespectful is "badass". You know as well as I do, Rock Sound, that if it was Coldplay who had done it, you would have called them out as violently as you would have done if they had set fire to your offices or killed your mother. But when it is Oli Sykes, it becomes "badass".

I don't want to support you anymore and as long as there is no drastic change in your editorial line, I refuse to give you my hard earned money. I refuse to support a magazine who calls a homophobic, sexist, misogynistic band a welcome alternative in the scene. I refuse to support a magazine who gives the time of day to a band whose frontman shames teenagers and destroys feminism. I refuse to support a magazine who calls a disrespectful act badass. I refuse to support you anymore because by supporting those bands, you support their ideas, you buy into their message.

Don't you get it, Rock Sound? You cater to an audience of young teenagers, mostly. They are in the process of being educated about the world around them, and if they read you, you become one of the ways they will find out about our scene. You have an immense power in your hands - why do you want to use it to let them believe that being sexist is okay?

I want you to take a bloody stand, Rock Sound. I want you to stop supporting bands that are offensive to vulnerable people. I want you to stop perpetuating the idea that being disrespectful, breaking things, wreaking havoc for the sake of it is badass. I want you to support band so I never have to hear someone I care about tell me "we're breaking up because the music press never supported us enough and there is only so much the fans can do". I want you to make a change, Rock Sound, and I want it now.

No more Attila, no more Memphis May Fire, no more Oli Sykes being called a badass when he disrespects someone else's hard work.

You know, Rock Sound, last night, when you were getting excited over a table being wrecked, I was crying my heart out in the Underworld. I bet you don't even know who was playing because they're not good enough to be your next poster boys next to twenty one pilots, but last night, I watched Stray From The Path say to a packed Underworld that we should refuse to let the Paris attacks be forgotten, we should refuse to let the victims and their families down. I was sobbing so hard my whole body was shaking because these attacks, they will haunt me for the rest of my life, Rock Sound. While you were getting excited over Oli Sykes climbing a piece of furniture, I was realising that heavy music, it changed my life. It is one of the reasons I am the person I am today. It changed my outlook on the world, made me care about politics, about animal rights, about human rights. A band like Enter Shikari changed my vision of the world forever and started my fight for equality. A band like Architects enlightened me about animal cruelty and the environment and made me stop eating meat. Heavy music is also the reason why I am the tough person I am today. It made me realise that I was strong, stronger that I could ever think I was, it made me stand up for myself.
And this is more badass than Oli Sykes climbing a fucking table will ever be.

I want you to support those bands more, Rock Sound. I want you to speak with those bands, hear them out and put them in between your glossy pages. Sure, Drew York may not have the same poster boy potential as Alex Gaskarth, but if his music and his words can have the same positive impact on someone as they did on me, do you not want to promote that? Do you not want to make the world a better place? Do you not want everyone to believe in equality and animal rights and saving the Earth? Do you not want your readers to believe in themselves?

You have a power, Rock Sound. You are a music magazine and the power of the press is greater than we realise. You can make or break a band's career. Stop making the careers of vile humans and start supporting strong ideas, start supporting kindness, start supporting equality and feminism and the Earth we live in. Stop perpetuating the idea that being disrespectful is badass and start promoting people that take a stand to make the world a better place.

I do not think you're bad, Rock Sound. Just misguided. Listen to me, please. Stop letting me down, stop letting us all down, stop letting that scene we all believe in down. Support it with all you have, with all you love, because this is what we all do, and we need you to do that with us.

After all, there is only so much the fans can do.