They're less about the music.

No so Paste.

Founded in 2002 and with a comparatively tiny circulation, 180,000, Paste is about the music without the hype, and all kinds of music, from chart-toppers to jazz and hip hop to the hot Mp3 download on MySpace. Its editors assume a certain eclecticism and curiosity on the part of their readers about artists outside the safe borders of celebrity culture. Call it the music magazine with the mix-tape sensibility.

"We happened upon a sweet spot in the market where people were really hungry for new music," says Josh Jackson, Paste editor and co-founder. He says the magazine was launched with the aim of focusing on great music (and to a lesser degree, film, books and other cultural areas), not the sex appeal or indie credibility of the artists. Its tagline: "Signs of Life in Music, Film and Culture."

"We looked at the big titles, Rolling Stone and Blender, and at the time they tended to have Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson half-naked on the cover," says Jackson, who was then working in nonprofit communications.

"There wasn't anything that I felt was made for me. I was 30 years old at the time, about the same age as my partners. We all just thought there were some great magazines aimed at particular kinds of music, but none that dealt with a broad range."

This appreciation of music as music has brought Paste recognition well beyond its small readership. The other day it was nominated for a National Magazine Award for General Excellence among magazines with circulations between 100,000 to 250,000.

Jackson describes the Paste reader as either someone in their 20s and 30s who's got a job and other commitments and no longer has the time to see the bands as they once did, or older readers who want to stay up with what's new rather than hang onto the music their teenage years. They are all passionate music fans.

Stuck to the cover of each issue is a free CD with tracks by as many as 20 different artists, so readers can hear for themselves what Paste finds notable that month. Its coverage ranges from pop band Gnarls Barkley to producer Daniel Lanois to cult favorites My Bloody Valentine and emerging band Sun Kil Moon.

Paste began as a web site, put together by Jackson and several friends as a hobby in 1998.

Three years later, Paste launched in print. Recalls Jackson: "We started with two full-time guys in a one-room office in Decatur, and it felt like the odds were probably against us. We had just under 1,000 subscribers for our first issue."

The free CD offer was a bid for attention, and it worked, attracting both distribution and advertising partners.

"Without any significant magazine experience or music industry experience, or real clue about what we were doing, all of a sudden we had this legitimate magazine that was going to be in every Borders. That was enough for some record labels to come in and advertise in that first issue," said Jackson. Circulation grew from there, as did advertising revenue, which Jackson says has been strong. The last six issues have averaged 32 ad pages.

"We started out with mostly record industry ads, and when we crossed over the 100,000 circulation point we started to get more general-interest-type ads," he says. "That couldn't have come at a better time."

Indeed, by then times had grown tough for the record labels, which in turn cut way back on advertising. He says, "In fact, a lot of our smaller competitors have gone out of business. If you rely on record company ads you can't do a print magazine anymore."

That turned to work to Paste's advantage when in 2005 one competitor, Tracks, folded and Paste picked up its subscriber list, which Jackson said tripled the number of subscribers.

Last November, Jackson says Paste added 30,000 new subscribers over two weeks with an offer posted on its web site inviting people to pay what they wanted for a year's subscription.

The average bid for 11 issues was about $4. Though that's probably less than the typical Paste reader spends on iTunes each week, the campaign brought the little-known magazine to the attention of bloggers and newspapers around the country.

These days, Paste is cranking up for its first big direct mail campaign. "We think the magazine has the potential to get up in the 400,000 to 500,000 range," says Jackson.

"We'll know we'll never be a Rolling Stone," but he says Paste can live with that. Better to stick with what it set out to do, which is to follow its own quirky path through the best of music and culture.