SINGAPORE – Home-grown music publication BigO, which also covered film, pop culture and politics, is shutting down.

Launched in 1985 as a black-and-white zine before evolving into a magazine, its last print issue came out in 2002. It then existed solely as a website.

Known for championing made-in-Singapore indie and alternative music, the magazine printed news and features on home-grown artistes and lined up acts such as indie pioneers The Oddfellows on its covers.

BigO, which stands for Before I Get Old, was started by journalists from now-defunct newspaper Singapore Monitor, including brothers Michael and Philip Cheah, and friend Stephen Tan.

It was hailed as “Singapore’s only independent rock ‘n’ roll magazine”.

It was also a record label, releasing home-grown music on cassettes and later CDs, and organised concerts. Some of its more prominent releases include the New School Rock compilation CDs in the early 1990s that featured bands such as hardcore veterans Stompin’ Ground and indie rock group The Padres.

One of its more notable columnists was the late singer, songwriter, radio deejay and music critic Chris Ho, who died of stomach cancer in 2021.

In a post announcing the closure published on its website on Wednesday, Philip Cheah, who is co-editor, paid tribute to the publication’s more than 100 contributors over the years.

He also reminisced about the magazine’s early days.

“We were music fans from the start,” he wrote. “And we always wondered why the appreciation of pop culture in Singapore was so terribly superficial. Reviews then were no more than a rehash of press releases. Hence our desire to engage the appreciation of pop and youth culture.”

Tan, who is co-editor, thanked the indie musicians and radio DJs who kept the music scene alive over the years, but lamented that the scene today is “probably more fractured than it ever was”.

Michael Cheah, who is the publisher, reminisced about BigO’s beginnings as a photocopied monthly magazine, but bemoaned that the creative scene in Singapore “remains very still” and “bound by rules”.

According to the post, BigO will “call it a day this month in August 2023” without giving a specific date. It also called for readers to donate money to help fund the cost of running its website.