''True Tunes News'' is a magazine which covered

alternative Christian music Alternative or alternate may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki'' * ''The Alternative'' (film), a 1978 Australian television film * ''The Alternative ...

. It was published between 1989 and Winter 1998.

Background

John J. Thompson founded in 1998 ''True Tunes News'' out of his

Wheaton, Illinois Wheaton is a suburban city in Milton and Winfield Townships and is the county seat of DuPage County, Illinois. It is located approximately west of Chicago. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 52,894, which was estimated ...

Christian record shop, True Tunes. The store itself, founded in 1989, with Chris Langill, was relatively unique because it focused exclusively on

at a time when Christian bookstores wouldn't carry products based on rock, hip hop, or other hard forms of music. In 1995 Thompson founded a live music club for Christian acts called True Tunes Upstairs. In 1997 the store, magazine, and related assets were bought by the

Charlottesville, VA Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Cha ...

based company Journey Communications. Journey closed the shop in early 1998 citing lagging sales due to the spread of alternative Christian music to larger retailers, and turned operations to the printed magazine and the internet. Despite competition from '' CCM'', '' HM'', and ''

7ball ''7ball'' is a discontinued Christian music magazine, first published in 1995. They focused on rock, hip-hop, and other "alternative" forms of Christian music. The magazine was initially published by the Royal Magazine Group (a division of Thoma ...

'' magazines ''True Tunes News'' was extremely successful, achieving a worldwide circulation of 50,000 issues by 1993. This made it the largest Christian rock magazine by circulation, a title it held through the late 1990s. In the late 1990s the magazine ran into financial trouble when several of the record labels whose advertising financed it and it went defunct in 1998. When it ceased publishing the editors turned to the internet for distribution, but this effort has now been disbanded.

References

Music magazines published in the United States Christian magazines Defunct magazines published in the United States Irregularly published magazines published in the United States Magazines established in 1989 Magazines disestablished in 1998 Magazines published in Illinois {{Christian-mag-stub