We found ourselves in Riga, Latvia, trying to figure out if the imposing ex-Soviet city had it in for us. We rode a motorcycle taxi in Paris, wired at 5 A.M. and chowing down on kebabs at a password-protected restaurant after running into Uffie and lounging backstage with Cazals. We sat in a suite at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, watching as Will Oldham conjured a song about a crooked insurance executive who tried to fake his own death. We photographed our beautiful and hilarious cover star Rashida Jones at Richard Neutra’s VDL House, a true Los Angeles landmark. We asked Richard Prince what he eats on a daily basis; he refused to tell us, which might mean he’s hiding something. If you can’t tell, we’ve been quite busy putting together our 38th issue for you—not to mention keeping you updated daily at Anthem Online. Enjoy!

We wrapped up our current issue a few days after Barack Obama won the U.S. presidency by a healthy margin, thereby ending eight years of a criminal regime in Washington. It’s fitting, then, that the issue itself started out as a rumination on the concept of “utopia”—what it means, whether it exists, and how it can fail. There’s a reason, after all, that “utopia” means “no place”—let’s no forget that the joy of our first African-American President was followed by an economic sucker punch that we’re still reeling from. But enough of that dreary doomsday stuff. We’ve put together our finest issue yet, stocked with revolutionaries, radicals, utopian dreamers, and one very naked actress. The world hasn’t ended yet—and until it does, you’ll always have Anthem.

It seems like we can't spend a full day without stumbling on someone's premature obituary of print media. Anthem wants to prove that what seems impossible can be answered with what's least expected: bigger, bolder, brasher. We'd like to think we're running full throttle into the future with oversized ambition—critics and so-called common sense be damned.

Hence the newly refined publication. We've happily transitioned into a quarterly format, given ourselves a design face-lift and refined the editorial you've come to expect from Anthem: special projects, all-star contributors and content that looks as sexy in your hands as it does on your coffee table. This bigger picture reflects a symbiotic relationship that you, the reader, have necessitated and to which we, the magazine, have responded. In the end, we're all marching to the beat of the same drum.

We’d like to imagine you reading this issue of Anthem on a jet bound to Micronesia or in the back of a road-tripping car cruising through the sweltering beauty of Baja, Mexico. If not, rest assured—there’s plenty of vicarious traveling to be had between the covers of this, our annual On the Road issue.

The objective of our tight-knit staff at Anthem has always been connecting dots, surveying what everyone is talking about, and combining that with our own tastes and biases and obsessions. It’d be pure hubris to aim at comprehensive coverage of the music world, but every now and then, we like to pat ourselves on the back. Last year’s New York music special is a case in point; we happily watched Dirty Projectors, Yeasayer, MGMT and company catapult to indie fame in the months following. Hopefully you’ll uncover a few similar gems in our annual Music Special’s Bands to Watch spread—and don’t miss the additional fifteen artists featured on anthemmagazine.com. And as always filling out the rest of the issue are the things we’ve found most intriguing in the worlds of art, film, fashion and culture.

Welcome, dear readers, to our annual Masculine/Feminine issue, our chance to wallow in the joy, angst and general weirdness of gender and sexuality. This issue marks an exciting milestone: Party animal Andrew W.K. launches a new advice column and sits down with electronic superstar Moby to talk about monogamy, romantic guilt and whether free love is possible in the modern age.

For 2008 we’re dedicated to remaining true to our roots, despite the inevitable bumps, lurches and growing pains. We’ve watched other independent titles go off the rails, ditching their original fan base in order to serve up barely disguised advertorial for cooled-up investment bankers—BlackBook, anyone? We’ve grimaced as mainstream media cannibalizes the cutting edge, feeding from the same reservoir of buzz that the Internet has both blessed and cursed us with. More painfully, we’ve fought and suffered the wrath of egomaniacal publicists who think their clients equally belong on the cover of Anthem as they do on Entertainment Weekly—publicists, moreover, who treat independent media like a giant hand-job machine built to service their well-protected clients. That said, we’re not pessimistic. We’re happy as hell! It’s a new year with fresh challenges, even if it sometimes seems like independent publishing is being killed by corporate cash and our shared hype machine. As always, speaking for ourselves—saying what we mean, and meaning what we say.

Sigur Rós are a reclusive bunch—they’re not too fond of the press, they say, because in their native Iceland everyone tends to leave you alone. It must be easy to disappear in a country whose population barely tops 300,000 people—and where everyone, doubtlessly, seems to be a third cousin of Björk. For the band, the familiar landscape of their native country informed a movie, Heima, which got us thinking about the concept of home and belonging. So what’s heima in the twenty-first century, then? It might just be a state of mind, some ridiculous ideal, a place where everything feels right. It might be the city you move to next, or the city you just left. It might be in a tree house in the rain forests of Bolivia, communing with rhesus monkeys. Or perhaps it’s something a lot like Anthem: an unreal work in progress, far-flung community, a lively circus of ideas.

It's that time of year again, when always-fashionable Anthemites feel compelled to take things up a notch. The fall brings crisper weather and a parade of fashion weeks from New York to Barcelona. To celebrate, we've pulled together our most extensive fashion issue yet, taking progressive couture's pulse in a way that the 4 lb. Vogues and Vanity Fairs of the world just don't get . You'll find a rundown of this season's zeitgeist, from the rock 'n' roll drama of Todd Lynn to Gucci's resort line, K Karl Lagerfeld, Raf Simons' strongest year yet and our traditional wrap-up from Paris. Two beautiful actresses (Amelia Warner and Vicky McClure) got stylish for our lens, and post-punk heroine Siouxsie discussed how hot-air balloons inspired her album name.

Over the past years, we’ve surveyed the Danish creative scene, dodged bullets in the former Yugoslavia, and caught the hustle and flow of South Africa’s hip-hop movement. If you’re anything like us, you have a problem keeping still, and it’s when we’re traveling that our hunger for new, fresh experiences is sated. And yes, it’s true—with the American dollar a bit impotent and airfare to Europe topping $1,000, this summer can be a bit of a bitch when it comes to international gallivanting. That doesn’t mean you need to stay at home. Plenty of options exist for the scrappy and economical traveler, from the brand-new carpooling service at GoLoco.org to CouchSurfing.com, a social network that’ll find you a free place to crash from Montreal to Marseille. Use this issue as a guide and an inspiration for your own travels.