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Underground > Radio & Music >

Music journalism.

21:59 / 16.02.02

Brought to my mind by the news that the NME has been wounded, what music magazines/writing do you read?

[the link is about how Kerrang has overtaken the NME, whose fall 0f almost 50,000 copies sold in five years has been described as alarming by those in the know, apparently]

I'm aware this has been touched upon in the Careless Talk Costs Lives thread, but I'm just interested to see where 'Lithers get their music news from. Or if they do.

In keeping with my other reading habits, I'll read pretty much any music magazine and get something out of it.

I read the NME, the dreaded Q, even, sometimes, Mojo and Uncut (actually, I really like Uncut.)

I'll read Mixmag, Musik, Jockey Slut and to a lesser extent, DJ. I read a lot about bands online, and I check every paper which I read's music columns.

Then there all kinds of one-off reading experiences - fanzines, that magazine with the Cd whose name I can't remember...

There are, however, two music magazines I really rather miss - Select and Volume (the book and CD.)

So what about you? What do you read?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

11:45 / 17.02.02

I browse NME every week, but only because it's a magazine we get for the library anyway, so I can read it for free before it goes out for the public to read. Otherwise I don't get any regular music news at all.

I'm aware that it's a vicious circle. In my foolish teens, at the height of britpop I read Select every month, and MM and NME each three weeks out of four, as well as listening to something like the Evening Session and the Graveyard Shift. In most cases I wasn't reading/listening for anything in particular so got into some good stuff by accident.

But then I lost interest, was only listening to the radio for Mark 'n' Lard, dropped the magazines and only got them if there was something specific I was interested in, mainly due to my lack of interest in this Rock Lite scene.

These days if someone says 'x is good' I make a mental note to look out for it in the music library. So my musical tastes have become quite insular, though the 'weirder' stuff I've been in to the last few years (Third Eye Foundation, DJ Spooky, Fridge/Fourtet) has been all down to 'Mixing it' on Radio 3 which I can't promote enough.

But if there was a music scene that I enjoyed sufficiently by accident then that much encourage me out of my shell. Whatever it is, it isn't going to include the 'White Stripes' or 'Andrew WK'.

Matthew Fluxington

12:40 / 17.02.02

I've mostly given up on print magazines - I still look at a few and buy them if something in them grabs me (this goes mostly for The Wire, The Source, CMJ, Q, Select, Mojo, Venus, Mean, etc). I have subscriptions to SPIN (which I get mostly for the humor content) and Entertainment Weekly (which I get for the one-stop shopping cross-media info).
I also read the New York Times and the Village Voice regularly.

Most of my news and reviews come from online resources, not the least of which being message boards *just like this one!*. I'm also a big WFMU listener, and they keep their listeners on top of things pretty well.

For band-specific information, I usually hit fansites or their label sites... for everything else, I look at various sites specializing in news for various genres. I'm much happier to get bad music journalism for free from a place like Pitchfork than pay for it to be on paper...

20:59 / 17.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Not Me Again:
(actually, I really like Uncut.)

I do as well, but it's really expensive here in the US. I don't have any mag subscriptions, but here's a short list of magazines I read if I'm killing time at Barnes & Nobles:

The Big Take-Over: It only comes out bi-annually, but it's chock full of interviews. Must say it's really nice to actually read the interview transcript instead of some Journalist's crappy article.

Punk Planet: Maximum Rock 'n Roll only wished it was this good. Gotta admit I rarely read the interviews & record reviews because they do such a good job of writing about social & political issues. They recently put out a book called "We Owe You Nothing", which has in-depth interviews with everyone from Kathleen Hanna to Frank Kozik & is published by Akashic Books (trivia: some of the members of Girls Vs. Boys runs this press).

Hmm, what else? Can't think of any as most of them are just plain crap. I'm sure there are plenty of decent on-line zines that do a good job, but I can't think of any at the moment.

Matthew Fluxington

09:15 / 18.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Margin Walker:

Must say it's really nice to actually read the interview transcript instead of some Journalist's crappy article.

I agree. I invariably prefer detailed uncut interviews to articles and profiles. I always insist on that being the only format I write articles in when I do freelance writing. Big Take Over had a great interview with Bob Pollard last year...

12:25 / 18.02.02

i haven given up buying nme because i am sick of not being listened to by them. the whole magazine makes me feel alienated and pissed off; as they never have any girl bands in their pages. i write to them about it almost every two weeks but they don't listen so why the fuck should i give them my money?
loz sweet exile: i remember the days of the graveyard shift too! it was the best. i wonder if they're ever gonna go back there? mark and the boy lard are just not half as good on day-time. i dunno, it doesn't feel right.
margin walker: yeah, that punk planet book is so good. i am citing it in my dissertation and everything!

Matthew Fluxington

12:32 / 18.02.02

hey Suds and anyone else interested in a solid girl-centric music magazine/website:

Try Venus Zine.

12:32 / 18.02.02

man. i just sent the nme another angry e-mail!

12:33 / 18.02.02

oh flux, my boy sent me venus zine for valentines day! isn't he the best? venus rocks...i am getting back issues and everything.

Matthew Fluxington

12:53 / 18.02.02

We're certainly on the same wavelength - I was thinking just now "ooh, I should send the newest issue to Suds, cos it's headed towards my recycling bin..."

12:55 / 18.02.02

recycling bin?! what about all the gorge pictures?

Matthew Fluxington

13:04 / 18.02.02

I actually tore that one photo of the girl painting out cos I just liked it - I bought that magazine mostly cos I didn't have anything to read on a train ride home one day, and that magazine had an interview with Solex and ESG, and the Le Tigre cover feature.

I just need to get rid of a lot of old magazines - I'm doing some spring cleaning.

10:25 / 20.02.02

About 20 minutes ago I was standing round in the newsagents, thinking:

"hmmmm.. shall I buy the NME? It gets shitter every, it's run by conservative, sexist bastards, it's owned by Time-Warner .. but .. I'm bored, it's got a feature on ..Trail of Dead .. can't resist.."

so I bought it again. Shit.

Die, NME, die!

07:20 / 21.02.02

rizla, is that the one with kylie on the cover?
i saw it and almost screamed, "why is it ok to have kylie on the cover and not kathleen hanna????!"
but of course i didn't.
bastards.

07:20 / 21.02.02

I get Uncut whenever Borders doesn't have the record Im looking for. Im getting Uncut more and more often it seems. Its not a great magazine but its better than CMJ and it comes with a CD. And it usually doesn't have anything that pisses me off in it. Like an article about Linkin Park and no more than two record reviews (burn in hell RS!)

I used to subscribe to Spin but I think I enjoy magazines more when I just get them every once in a while. I got bored of Spin real quick when it came to the house every month.

I bought Skyscraper the other day. Wasn't half bad.

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:20 / 21.02.02

I have to say, since the latest NME redesign, it's looking really bad again - rather too much like the Melody Maker when they went small, glossy and shit, which is an ominous sign. And having Kylie on the cover annoys me too - I've no problem with putting more 'poppy' people on the cover, but it's completely fucked up that NME's current policy seems to be saying "guitars are for boys!" "singing cheesy dance tunes and showing your bits off is for girls!" - ie, not only will they not cover female bands properly, they'd never dream of putting someone like Westlife on the cover, would they? Or even Craig David, to my knowledge, who they mocked with a fairly blatantly racist spoof advert recently... Anyway, presumably NME's target (male) audience are supposed to overlook their knee-jerk dislike for pop and disco because they're too busy going "phwoar! Kylie!"...

Gah.

10:18 / 21.02.02

Well i'm glad you didn't take a good look at this week's 'contents', Flyboy and suds, cos I think you'd have blown a gasket..

A grand total of 0 features on female musicians and 3 pictures of male musicians posing with strippers/models.

Surely a new low.

(bitching about the NME should be made the national hipster sport)

In better news, I got the new issue of Carelss Talk.. today, and while I haven't read it yet cos I have to sit in these FUCKING COMPUTER LESSONS, it does have one of the coolest rock n' roll photographs I've ever seen on the cover - so that's a good start.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:33 / 21.02.02

New issue has Princess Superstar and Lift To Experience in it, apparently. WANT.

What's the cover, Riz?

No star here laces

10:52 / 21.02.02

I deliberately gave up reading music reviews about 3 years ago as I didn't want to end up owning the same records as everyone else. I think it was when I realised just how consistent all the dance music magazines were, in that they all reviewed the same 50 records in each issue, only half of which would be available in the record shop, which would always be sold out of whatever Mixmag's "Record of the month" was.

It's much more interesting to go on what you hear in shops, on the radio, at friends' houses, in clubs and, yes, on bulletin boards.

Since I stopped reading music press my purchases have got much more catholic in terms of scenes and artists. Plus I tend to have a tighter selection of tunes that reflect more what I'm into at the time than what's getting talked about. It's a really marked difference, and I definitely recommend it.

The flipside is a lot of the things I end up liking are considered by a lot of peeps to be desperately beyond the pale.

12:52 / 21.02.02

wait, rizla, is that trail of dead with strippers? i saw that on the cover and couldn't bear to look.
i interviewed them in 2000 and they are such nice boys and even blushed when i said i had my period! i can't imagine them doing something so cheesy as posing with strippers. what the fuck? what's going on? aaarg.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:07 / 21.02.02

The latest NME- Bubba Sparxx would like to make it clear that he is not a backwards hillbilly, he is very intelligent and has read a lot, and he is most definitely NOT gay.

12:08 / 22.02.02

quote:Originally posted by suds:
wait, rizla, is that trail of dead with strippers? i saw that on the cover and couldn't bear to look.
i interviewed them in 2000 and they are such nice boys and even blushed when i said i had my period! i can't imagine them doing something so cheesy as posing with strippers. what the fuck? what's going on? aaarg.

Well not posing exactly, but they've got this kind of rubbish 'out getting drunk with Trail of Dead in sleazy Mexican bars' article, prominently featuring a picture of a random band member buried under a large-breasted stripper of questionable gender.

Why they couldn't just interview the fuckers in a reasonable manner is anyones guess, as they've got plenty of interesting things to say..