This Month in Expensive British Music Magazines
So this weekend marked our latest monthly expedition to Las Vegas, with its non-coin-operated, digitalized, and franchise-dependent slot machines. I played a machine based on designs from the “Alien” series (does H.R. Giger see any money from this?), and there are other machines based on Star Wars, I Dream of Jeannie, The Munsters, and Blondie (the comic-strip, not the band). I’m not sure how lucrative these machines are for the franchise-sustainers, but they are starting to make the casinos in Vegas look like a weird combination of video store and Sunday newspaper supplement.
Anyway, the real reason I feel the need to make the 3-hour drive to Sin City each month is to pick up a fresh supply of music magazines, most of them imported from the U.K., where they really know how to keep magazine junkies drawn out. I mean, just the sheer size of the rags put most of our American equivalents to shame (and we’re the ones with all the paper forests!). The average page count in the magazines I like ranges from 150 to 250, and, also unlike our American music rags, the Brits seem to not only take their music seriously (by not featuring cover stories on acts like Ashlee Simpson) but also seem to a have a wider pool of people who can actually write.
There are four British mags I pick up regularly or at least scan at the newsstand, each with their own appealing features.
Q is probably the most garish of the lot. If you can imagine USA Today being printed on slick paper after a printing press explosion, you’ve got a good idea of the page design for Q. The American magazine Blender is basically a carbon copy of Q, only the photo captions in Q are occasionally witty or even funny, whereas the captions in Blender read like the work of unpopular 5th-graders. The music coverage in both magazines leans toward the trendy and popular, and emphasizes songs over albums. Q is also overly fond of list-making and tacky photography, and its record reviews seem to be written under the assumption that your head is in a moving vehicle whenever you are reading.
All of this, of course, makes Q great fun, although one might find its charms more suited to the bathroom than the reading hall. It’s not something I feel like I have to pick up every month; the latest issue’s cover feature on Kurt Cobain (what, again?) is a case in point—I didn’t feel I was missing out on too much as I placed it back on the rack.
Uncut has a similarly obnoxious layout scheme, but its coverage of popular culture is both more extensive and intelligent than Q’s. In addition to music features, Uncut covers film and the occasional author, though it’s not above ranking things like Springsteen’s 100 greatest songs. The most reliably appealing feature of Uncut, at least as far as I’m concerned, is its regular cover-mounted CD, which is often compiled by musicians or bands or is organized around some central theme. One of the magazine’s recent CDs was a compilation of songs from the Chess label; this month’s compilation is actually a trio of discs, compiled by the members of R.E.M. Of course, if you want all three of the CD’s, you have to buy 3 copies of the magazine, but at just about $9 a copy, you are still getting a pretty fair value for a decent CD, assuming you’re not interested in reading the same magazine three times.
The cream of the British magazine crop, at least out of the crop that finds its way to the Tower Records store in Las Vegas, is Mojo. This magazine’s feature articles are almost always detailed, comprehensive, and readable. Mojo makes no apologies for highlighting the work of well-established musicians, and this plays to the strengths of the magazine’s well-informed and enthusiastic writers. This month’s feature on Bob Dylan, for example (and, yes, it’s a list of his greatest songs *sigh*), includes contributions from Greil Marcus (actually just an excerpt from his recent book on “Like a Rolling Stone,” but still), and Dave Marsh, a rare interview with the Man Himself (though Dylan has been more gregarious in the last year or so than at any other point in his career), and a detailed review of the latest release in the Bootleg Series. Mojo also features monthly CD compilations, which generally feature at least a couple of exclusive tracks. This month’s comp, for example, contains 7 exclusive tracks out of 15 (all covers of Dylan songs). Mojo is always worth picking up.
Finally, there is a relative newcomer to the scene: Word. Word, as you might guess from the title, started off as a literary-oriented magazine with occasional music features. Somewhere along the way, however, Word lost a lot of its emphasis on authors and books and became, as the cover declares, “The Quality Music Magazine.” I’m not sure why they didn’t change the title to entice linguistically-challenged music fans to the newsstand, but Word does have a lot of good writers on staff, though I don’t find it as consistently excellent as Mojo. Word has also taken to attaching CD compilations on its cover, though this is not a monthly feature. Word’s comps generally feature only new music, which isn’t a bad thing, but does give them less opportunity to be creative with their selections. This month’s cover story features Paul Weller, who seems to becoming increasingly comfortable in his role as the Parade Marshall for British Pop.
A few other magazines of note this month, though not of the British variety:
The September/October issue of Punk Planet features a long cover story on “The End of Radio,” and includes some good info on podcasting, microbroadcasting, and the rise in low-power community FM stations. The issue also contains an entertaining interview with comic artist Daniel Clowes.
Issue 22 of Stop Smiling (a magazine I discovered in Ohio) features a comprehensive oral history of the life and death of Hunter S. Thompson, including interviews with the executor of his literary estate, his wife, several of his editors, his publishers, and the incomparable Ralph Steadman. I have been greatly disappointed in how the media covered Thompson’s death, with the possible exception of Rolling Stone’s tribute issue, but this magazine goes a long way toward rectifying that dearth of respect.
Music fans should also be on the lookout for the new issue of The Oxford American, a fine magazine of Southern writing that has apparently been re-re-launched after numerous financial difficulties. The cover displays Elvis in all his hip-swinging glory (and wearing sneakers!) and the mag comes with a glorious 29-track CD of southern U.S. music. Each track on the CD is accompanied by an essay in the magazine by a range of excellent authors. Well worth looking for or ordering.
I also picked up some new CDs at the Tower store, but maybe I’ll tell you about those later.
Anyway, the real reason I feel the need to make the 3-hour drive to Sin City each month is to pick up a fresh supply of music magazines, most of them imported from the U.K., where they really know how to keep magazine junkies drawn out. I mean, just the sheer size of the rags put most of our American equivalents to shame (and we’re the ones with all the paper forests!). The average page count in the magazines I like ranges from 150 to 250, and, also unlike our American music rags, the Brits seem to not only take their music seriously (by not featuring cover stories on acts like Ashlee Simpson) but also seem to a have a wider pool of people who can actually write.
There are four British mags I pick up regularly or at least scan at the newsstand, each with their own appealing features.
Q is probably the most garish of the lot. If you can imagine USA Today being printed on slick paper after a printing press explosion, you’ve got a good idea of the page design for Q. The American magazine Blender is basically a carbon copy of Q, only the photo captions in Q are occasionally witty or even funny, whereas the captions in Blender read like the work of unpopular 5th-graders. The music coverage in both magazines leans toward the trendy and popular, and emphasizes songs over albums. Q is also overly fond of list-making and tacky photography, and its record reviews seem to be written under the assumption that your head is in a moving vehicle whenever you are reading.
All of this, of course, makes Q great fun, although one might find its charms more suited to the bathroom than the reading hall. It’s not something I feel like I have to pick up every month; the latest issue’s cover feature on Kurt Cobain (what, again?) is a case in point—I didn’t feel I was missing out on too much as I placed it back on the rack.
Uncut has a similarly obnoxious layout scheme, but its coverage of popular culture is both more extensive and intelligent than Q’s. In addition to music features, Uncut covers film and the occasional author, though it’s not above ranking things like Springsteen’s 100 greatest songs. The most reliably appealing feature of Uncut, at least as far as I’m concerned, is its regular cover-mounted CD, which is often compiled by musicians or bands or is organized around some central theme. One of the magazine’s recent CDs was a compilation of songs from the Chess label; this month’s compilation is actually a trio of discs, compiled by the members of R.E.M. Of course, if you want all three of the CD’s, you have to buy 3 copies of the magazine, but at just about $9 a copy, you are still getting a pretty fair value for a decent CD, assuming you’re not interested in reading the same magazine three times.
The cream of the British magazine crop, at least out of the crop that finds its way to the Tower Records store in Las Vegas, is Mojo. This magazine’s feature articles are almost always detailed, comprehensive, and readable. Mojo makes no apologies for highlighting the work of well-established musicians, and this plays to the strengths of the magazine’s well-informed and enthusiastic writers. This month’s feature on Bob Dylan, for example (and, yes, it’s a list of his greatest songs *sigh*), includes contributions from Greil Marcus (actually just an excerpt from his recent book on “Like a Rolling Stone,” but still), and Dave Marsh, a rare interview with the Man Himself (though Dylan has been more gregarious in the last year or so than at any other point in his career), and a detailed review of the latest release in the Bootleg Series. Mojo also features monthly CD compilations, which generally feature at least a couple of exclusive tracks. This month’s comp, for example, contains 7 exclusive tracks out of 15 (all covers of Dylan songs). Mojo is always worth picking up.
Finally, there is a relative newcomer to the scene: Word. Word, as you might guess from the title, started off as a literary-oriented magazine with occasional music features. Somewhere along the way, however, Word lost a lot of its emphasis on authors and books and became, as the cover declares, “The Quality Music Magazine.” I’m not sure why they didn’t change the title to entice linguistically-challenged music fans to the newsstand, but Word does have a lot of good writers on staff, though I don’t find it as consistently excellent as Mojo. Word has also taken to attaching CD compilations on its cover, though this is not a monthly feature. Word’s comps generally feature only new music, which isn’t a bad thing, but does give them less opportunity to be creative with their selections. This month’s cover story features Paul Weller, who seems to becoming increasingly comfortable in his role as the Parade Marshall for British Pop.
A few other magazines of note this month, though not of the British variety:
The September/October issue of Punk Planet features a long cover story on “The End of Radio,” and includes some good info on podcasting, microbroadcasting, and the rise in low-power community FM stations. The issue also contains an entertaining interview with comic artist Daniel Clowes.
Issue 22 of Stop Smiling (a magazine I discovered in Ohio) features a comprehensive oral history of the life and death of Hunter S. Thompson, including interviews with the executor of his literary estate, his wife, several of his editors, his publishers, and the incomparable Ralph Steadman. I have been greatly disappointed in how the media covered Thompson’s death, with the possible exception of Rolling Stone’s tribute issue, but this magazine goes a long way toward rectifying that dearth of respect.
Music fans should also be on the lookout for the new issue of The Oxford American, a fine magazine of Southern writing that has apparently been re-re-launched after numerous financial difficulties. The cover displays Elvis in all his hip-swinging glory (and wearing sneakers!) and the mag comes with a glorious 29-track CD of southern U.S. music. Each track on the CD is accompanied by an essay in the magazine by a range of excellent authors. Well worth looking for or ordering.
I also picked up some new CDs at the Tower store, but maybe I’ll tell you about those later.
posted by Chazzbot at 11:30 PM
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