The 1975’s Matt Healy and Young Thug front The Fader’s 20th-anniversary issue

Print copies of venerable independent music/lifestyle magazine The Fader typically seem like collector’s editions. The thing is printed on heavy glossy stock and features lavish photography combined with elegantly restrained book-like typography. And over the years individual issues have become instantly coveted; artists including Kanye West, The Strokes and Kendrick Lamar landed their first-ever national magazine covers thanks to the New York-based quarterly. Now, two artists, Young Thug and The 1975’s Matt Healy, are fronting The Fader’s 20th anniversary issue. Young Thug’s cover was released online a couple of weeks back, while Healy’s cover drops today—both issues (in a split print run) hit newsstands Sept. 24. The Fader, founded by Rob Stone and Jon Cohen in 1999, was pretty early to multimedia (for instance, it started releasing full issues through iTunes back in 2006, in a pioneering distribution deal with Apple) and event marketing (its Fader Fort venue has long been one of the most-wanted stages at SXSW for rising and established stars). But 20 years in, Stone and Cohen have kept the print faith—and as if to underscore their continuing devotion to physical artifacts, they’ll not only be selling posters of their magazine’s Young Thug and Healy covers (per usual), but they’ll also be collaborating with Vinyl Me, Please, with support from Goose Island Beer Company, to release a special artist-compilation vinyl bundle to go with the 20th anniversary issue (full details and track listing TBD). Keep an eye on The Fader Shop and/or your local newsstand and/or record store—or just watch for all of this stuff to show up eventually at wildly inflated prices on eBay.

The 1975’s Matt Healy and Young Thug front The Fader’s 20th-anniversary issue

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