Does anybody buy music magazines anymore? If so what?
I get Loud and Quiet and Crack. Both are excellent, and normally free, but are currently in need of new paid subscribers to keep going.
Subscribe to The Wire. Occasionally some good writing , but for the most part itās infuriatingly pompous and joyless.
Really wish Plan B/Careless Talk Costs Lives weāre still going.
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Either too specialist (Shindig) or not specialist enough (Jazzwise) or too crawling up the arse of the Gallagher Brothers and their pals (Q)
The humour has gone unfortunately. Both Smash Hits and Your Sinclair were must-reads in the late 80s whether you cared about the subject matter or not because the articles were a good laugh. NME / Melody Maker / Select had a good balance. Now itās far too serious.
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I used to love select!
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I still buy mojo and sometimes uncut. I miss Vox magazine!
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Used to subscribe to The Wire but it just made me despair. It completely sucks all the fun out of every bit of music.
Usually buy Uncut now on my commute, really good mix of indie/folk/electronic/DiS-y stuff and articles on older artists like Talking Heads/Iggy Pop/Bowie/whoever.
Would love it if Select/RAW/Melody Maker came back at some point.
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Subscribe to Wire aswell. No other magazine comes close to it IMO. It is a challenge to read soemtimes as it covers a lot of artists im not familiar with but that is what I like about it. discovered loads of great sutff through it.
Donāt buy music magazines anymore but I miss there being ones I like and, tbh, I miss having the time to while away a couple of hours reading one. Used to buy pretty much everything in the 90ās, NME, Melody Maker, Select, Vox, Q (on occasion). Uncut magazine in its first couple of years was fucking brilliant. Just as much about film and literature as it was music, double page features on Lee Marvin and Paul Austerā¦ great stuff, until it came alt country central (some of which I liked but I really didnāt need a whole magazine of it)
Thereās a bunch of ex melody maker journoās from my youth who I follow on FB/Twitter/podcastsā¦ all of whom occasionally write for the Quietus but Iād gladly pay for a print magazine if those guys contributed to it.
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Gold Flake Paint for me, an excellent publication. Looking at subscribing to Loud and Quiet as well, donāt want them going under.
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Decibel (Metal)
Ugly Things (Garage Rock/Psychedelia)
No Depression (Americana)
The Big Takeover (Punk)
Wax Poetics (Hip-Hop)
The first one is monthly, the others are quarterly.
Yes, my last two copies of Gold Flake Paint arrived the other day, and theyāre lovely, lovely things.
Electronic Sound is the only magazine I buy these days. I only discovered it a couple of years ago and itās so good Iām seriously considering tracking down back-copies.
Beautifully designed, well curated, they have a palpable love affair with all that bleeps from ambient to krautrock to techno. Subscribers can opt into an extra physical addition (usually 7" but occasionally CD) alongside the mag that feeds into the main article.
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Ditto - excellent magazine published out of Norwich - everything Yvash says above!
GFP is the only one I buy these days.
Back in the deep distant past I used to buy Q and Mojo. Both were pretty good for someone aged 13-16 getting into music. Then Q got bought over in ā¦ 1999? 2000? and went utter fucking wank. Mojo was and is always Mojo - It went through the Beatles/Stones/Dylan/Young rotation back then as well but had plenty of interesting stuff for someone like me who didnāt have internet access. I spent a small fortune based on their āgreatest cult bandsā list.
Bought Melody Maker and NME for a while too. Melody Maker was pretty much a comic by then but it seemed to be ahead of most other publications for upcoming release news. I never particularly liked NME but it killed some time.
I really liked The Word, which covered TV/film/books as well, but it disappeared pretty quickly after I started buying it.
Donāt subscribe but quite often buy Wire. Sure, it can be up itself but the reviews section alone is worth it and, to be honest, I actually enjoy the fact that they can have in-depth retrospectives of someone Iāve never even heard of. Brings back the feeling of a bigger world I had when I was 15.
Normally get ZweiKommaSieben, just because theyāre trying. Itās a bilingual German/English magazine which comes out on a fairly unpredictable basis and usually has interviews with decent electronic artists.
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Q might be on its last legs. I donāt buy it regularly, but Iād be really annoyed if it goes.
I bought every issue of Q from 1991 to the end of 2019. Their obsession with the Gallagher brothers finally led to me cancelling the subscription.
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I have it in my Readly sub (which probably doesnāt help their revenue much). Itās not great, but I do read it every month. At least they donāt have the same revolving cast of 60s losers on the cover every month like Mojo or Uncut do.
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Perhaps the public gets what the public wants, but Iām 47 and donāt understand people being solely rooted in the past. āWhoās headlining Donington this year? Ah, itās Iron Maiden and Metallica. Makes a changeā¦ā
The key word here is āsolelyā. I love The Beatles, but the whole āthereās no good music anymoreā thing does my nut.
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