Music Magazines Decline and Fall

mike65

Has the internet killed the market for music 'zines?

clicky

Some big falls with Kerrang diving by 25% year on year, only one monthly title
actually saw a rise in numbers.

Are they worth buying for in depth content or will reading a screen now suffice? I dunno cos I stopped buying mags many years back.

Mike.

damonjewel

I'd get the odd copy of Mojo to read when I'm flying out of Dublin. My wife always comments "I don't know why you bother with that because the beatles are on the cover again". And its true, them guys in Mojo, They sure like the Beatles

Latchy

I use to buy MOJO magazine every month when it was a thick glossy 170 page mag ,with brilliant articles and photos of bands and artists from yesteryear.It was a good price at around £2.50 .Over the years i have seen the price rise and rise to it's present price of £4 .50 .It's now a very thin weaker variation of what it once was, with even less pages and heaps of advertisments .Not as much quality and quantity but a way to high price imo

damonjewel wrote: »

I'd get the odd copy of Mojo to read when I'm flying out of Dublin. My wife always comments "I don't know why you bother with that because the beatles are on the cover again". And its true, them guys in Mojo, They sure like the Beatles

A whole article devoted to how the Beatles made revolver could take up 15 / 20 pages in Mojo

delbertgrady

latchyco wrote: »

I use to buy MOJO magazine every month when it was a thick glossy 170 page mag ,with brilliant articles and photos of bands and artists from yesteryear ... it's now a very thin weaker variation of what it once was, with even less pages and heaps of advertisements.

Agreed. There was a time I was buying Mojo, Uncut and Q every month. Q was the first to lose the plot, several years ago. It used to be good, but they seemed to think that increasingly smart-assed journalism was the way forward. I knew they'd gone too far when they put Shania Twain on the cover and had an article about the Tweenies.
I stayed with Mojo and Uncut for a while, but I eventually gave up on them as well. I used to buy the occasional issue if it had a cover story of interest - Springsteen, The Who, etc. - but I wouldn't even bother anymore.
They seem to be obsessed with the same half-dozen acts, most of whom I actually like, but it is tiresome to see the same bands on the cover, over and over, in rotation.
I recently dumped 99% of my old music magazines for recycling, and I was stunned when I was going through them just how many covers featured the Beatles, Dylan and the Stones.

DenMan

There is no doubt the internet has hit music magazine sales. It is instantly viewable. Saying that though I buy Hammer ever month. I do get put off by the constant advertising in it, but it is a great read. The odd time if I see it I also get Kerrang. I just like the thought of getting something to read that is in my hand.

nyarlothothep

I tend to read reviews by music listeners, rather than any zines or magazines because I find their opinions more honest and reliable. Basically people who buy a particular album on amazon for example will be open to the genre in the first place so if they like it, chances are I may like it too, if they don't then something is up. Also previewing the album through myspace etc, is a good way of forming your own judgements. I really don't see the necessity for music critics. Music features/histories are another story completely. But I really don't like the agenda driven nature of magazines which focus on a few bands exclusively.

DenMan

I agree with that statement completely. The reviews and previews in all music magazines (metal included) is incredibly biased and very one dimensional. It lacks genuine interest and feeling which a band's myspace is anything but. Fans of a genre are drawn to bands they like and a personal page is the only place they can be appreciated outside of seeing them live. On the flip side of that I enjoy the interviews and gig reports as they really are the only true side of magazines where the band members themselves and the fans that support them can be completely open minded and (hopefully) not edited out.

stovelid

It could be correlated with the fall in pub attendances?

Without fail, whenever I'm drunk, I always buy one to read in the taxi or night-link.

Otherwise: hardly ever.

jill_valentine

I far prefer having an actual magazine in my hands to scrolling through a page on the internet. Or I would, if the actual journalism was any good. The internet isn't kicking the crap out of magazines just because it's faster, but because it gives us access to far better stuff than the smug old sh*te that Hot Press is churning out.

ZakAttak

Newspaper circulations are also falling, as well as books and even the number of leaflets and pamphlets being printed has gone down. Basically, hard-copy print media is on the way out, and has been ever since the first computers started being used.

So I don't think its got anything to do with the standard of journalism or how informed the article-writers appear to be.

Stuff printed on paper isn't being read anymore. Internet pages and screen displays are replacing everything.

insinkerator

The internet is replacing printed media, mainly because of the price....... If i wanted to go out and buy Q or kerrang or any of the sort it will cost me about 5 or 6 euro. Now for that amount of money i could go to an interenet cafe, read the articles online, and have enough left over for some food and the bus home. Magazines will complain that the internet is killing them, but in reality they are killing themselves.

Its the same with Pubs. Pubs complain that the smoking ban is killing their trade. Yes it probably is having an effect, but in reality the pubs are killling themseves. I was in Northern Ireland recently and the most expensive pint i could find was £2.80. Which works out at €3.55. The cheapest pint i have EVER come across in the republic is €4.20.

Magazines, like pubs, are putting themselves out of business

Nephilim Wolf

I get Metal Hammer & Terrorizer when they come out depending on the bands that are featured. The only annoying thing about these two magazines is the amount of adds near the back.

DublinWriter

delbertgrady wrote: »

Q was the first to lose the plot, several years ago. It used to be good, but they seemed to think that increasingly smart-assed journalism was the way forward.

...around about the time they employed an editor whose previous job was with Smash Hits. Q went down the toilet ever since.

At least Hot Press have been consistantly up-themselves since the mid-70's, although they had a rocky few years financially in the 90's and probably will face many more.

mike65

Even what constitutes a bathroom read is being redefined as laptops and various handheld devices get more net-friendly

Mike.

grumpytrousers

DublinWriter wrote: »

...around about the time they employed an editor whose previous job was with Smash Hits. Q went down the toilet ever since.

Ah yes - sept/oct '99 with Shania Twain on the cover...I had a sub for a few years after and i remember the joy of the epiphany that 'this is crap, this is'.

The Word magazine is a good read. It's pricey but it's intelligent. Founded by Ellen & Hepworth who launched Q in '86

---

Now playing: U2 - Fortuante Son
via FoxyTunes

jill_valentine

I'm the kind of nerd who far, far prefers to actually have the magazine in my hands. I'll re-read the thing, I'll look moon-eyed at the photos for a bit, I'll get every cent out of it. But it terms of actual writing, nobody can argue that Hot Press comes close to it's North American counterparts. It's a piece of sh*te, and most of the UK magazines are heading in it's direction. I buy it just to have a magazine, at this stage, but even that's getting harder and harder to justify. What Hot Press, and plenty of the others, seem to have missed is that if the writing was good enough, they could still have a place. They don't have the speed, sure, but they could still bring the content. They don't have the monopoly on news anymore, but that should have been the spur to step up their game in other ways. They just haven't adapted, and they continue to treat their audience with unbelievably smug contempt.

Here's an example - Hot Press' cover story a few weeks ago was a Bruce Springsteen/ Arcade Fire's Win Butler double interview. Hark! Say you. That sounds brilliant! Well, yes. Yes, it was...

... when it was printed in SPIN magazine nearly a year previously, along with some exclusive photos of the two guys hanging out. Hot Press just reprinted a bunch of stock images that were even older than the article itself. They didn't acknowledge where they got the material from, nor did they snip out the excited writer's giddy references to now ancient news.

Now, I have the internet, which gave me a heads-up about the interview then. So I picked up that magazine, which is perfectly available in Easons, and read it then, back when the events referred to in the interview - Win and Régine joining The Boss on stage - were still fresh and interesting.

If that's the kind of contempt they treat their readership with, no wonder it's deserting them. In that case, the Internet wasn't responsible for them being crap, it just highlighted the fact.

And people talk about Pitchfork being smug...

Dudess

delbertgrady wrote: »

Agreed. There was a time I was buying Mojo, Uncut and Q every month. Q was the first to lose the plot, several years ago. It used to be good, but they seemed to think that increasingly smart-assed journalism was the way forward. I knew they'd gone too far when they put Shania Twain on the cover and had an article about the Tweenies.
I stayed with Mojo and Uncut for a while, but I eventually gave up on them as well. I used to buy the occasional issue if it had a cover story of interest - Springsteen, The Who, etc. - but I wouldn't even bother anymore.
They seem to be obsessed with the same half-dozen acts, most of whom I actually like, but it is tiresome to see the same bands on the cover, over and over, in rotation.
I recently dumped 99% of my old music magazines for recycling, and I was stunned when I was going through them just how many covers featured the Beatles, Dylan and the Stones.

I could have written that post! Yeah, Q was really MOR for its first few years, then it improved in the early to mid 90s, then it got all sucky again. They went on the road with Boyzone or Westlife one month back in 01/02 direction - they think that's hilarious in a studenty, ironic/postmodern kinda way, but it's not so clever when they charge a bloody small fortune for it.
And yes, Uncut and Mojo do the Dylan/Beatles/Zeppelin/Stones/Who/Floyd/Bowie thing on a loop, which is fine to a point, I love all those artists, but Jesus... Change the record! (Pun intended).

I stopped regular music mag purchasing... I'd say in 2002/03. It's just been very occasional copies ever since - for the train/plane.

Uncut is great though if you're also a film head.

DublinWriter

mike65 wrote: »

Even what constitutes a bathroom read is being redefined as laptops and various handheld devices get more net-friendly

A view obviously inspired by this AH post.

mike65

Nope! I just read that now, thanks for the link...erm.

Mike.

Setun

I agree with what's being said about Uncut and other music mags: they're absolute balls. I remember when I was in secondary school many years ago and a friend of mine brought in two issues of Uncut - one featured Steely Dan, the other had a big article on Coltrane. No way they'd write about those guys anymore - instead we see a pattern: May is the Rolling Stones issue, June is Morrissey, July is the Beatles... ad nauseum/ad infinitum. I think the day I decided to stop buying Uncut was when, on the front cover, it read: "The Passion of Morrissey", complete with a christ-like mock up of Morrissey with the crown of thorns et al. It looked absolute ****e, and I realised I was fed up with sensational music journalism (so now I read pitchforkmedia instead :rolleyes: )

I was in the airport one or two years ago and I picked up a copy of The Word ft Joni Mitchell that issue I think, just to read on the flight. It was their big 50th issue anniversary retrospective, and in one article they went through all their back issues and briefly commented on them - how well they sold and he likes. I think, and I could be wrong, that they tell how after they put Travis on the cover the magazine nearly went out of business. And how they sold far more than they thought possible when Roger Waters was on the cover a few months later.

I suppose they just want to sell copies, and if they do this best by repetitive, sensationalist and predictable journalism then that's what they'll do, but I won't be buying it. /wanders over to pitchfork

grumpytrousers

in fairness to Word..and mods, delete this if i come across as a Shill...it's refreshing that you have a magazine that actually will have an article on how much of a failure some of their earlier editions were. My favourite line was how 'Acres of Landfill in East Anglia were filled with our unsold Dido issue...'

they're an independent production, not part of, say IPC or EMAP so getting the punters to pick up at the newsstand is all they have to rope in buyers - they can't cross advertise in many sister publications.

I gotta agree with jill_v up there. I've got all my Q mags from the time i was in college and there's nothing i love more than to go back to 1995 for an evening and see what was going on back then and to reference it with where i was at the time. It's like a cultural diary or something. I'll never get that with pitchfork...but i think this is an age thing. I'm in my thirties and i like *having* product. Not necessarily for today, but for sometime in the future. It's the same as keeping newspapers from days where there's a seminal story (my own fave being my 'ARCHER PULLS OUT OF LONDON MAYOR RACE' Evening Standard).

You don't get the same thing from online. online archives my hole...sometimes the yellowing paper is just the job!

Setun

Agreed, and yes I agree that The Word isn't all that bad. But give them time and they'll be as predictable as the rest

btw was only joking about pitchfork. They're grand for the odd snoop but if their reviewers feel that they can give a sonic youth album 0 out of 10 because the reviewer hates new york then I won't be taking them so seriously either.

John

Most music magazines suck now because:
a) They can't keep up with the internet, news is out of date and albums are already leaked
b) The interviews are rubbish and rarely insightful
c) Every issue has a special feature (The A-Z of festival camping, Top 100 lists that always feature The Beatles, Nirvana, Radiohead, Oasis and The Rolling Stones in the top five, etc.)
d) Short, non-commital reviews that sum up an album with a number of stars or a mark out of ten and tell you nothing beyond the reviewer's feelings on aspargus rather than the album at hand.
e) Shed loads of ads that you can't adblock.
f) The price.
g) Repetitiveness (see the above Mojo arguments) and a focus on old rather than new music.
h) Monkeys instead of real writers.

I have stopped buying every single magazine since about five years ago for the above reasons. However, I did eventually find a couple of magazines that at least refuted some of the above points (but unfortunately Foggy Notions has died). The one magazine that goes against nearly all of the above is The Wire because:
a) It somehow gets news in print before the internet and actually uses its website as an appendix to the magazine.
b) The interviews are usually good and very insightful.
c) Only the odd issue has a special feature and it's usually useful (guides to a particular artist's back catalogue, articles on specific scenes that may be of interest, articles that deal with a theme on a level that's deeper than "It sounds like The Smiths so I like it").
d) Some long and mid-ranged reviews that have been known to discuss the music both on its own merits and in relation to other things like the artist's previous work, other albums, etc. and no arbitrary grades, just an opinion.
e) A few ads at the front, none in the interviews, few in the reviews and a couple of pages at the back.
f) Ok, the price is still expensive but it's actually worth the five quid (and for now I pay nothing as I got a gift subscription from my girlfriend).
g) Very little repetition, some artists are featured a lot but only because they release a lot. A heavy focus on new music and new types of music as well as reverence where it's due (no Beatles, no U2, no Dylan, etc. as there is enough on them out there)
h) The odd crap journo but a high number of capable, enthusiastic and talented writers.

All magazines should be like that and that's why they're failing.

grumpytrousers

See, John, I agree with 90% of your sentiments about the lamentable state of music magazines. I suspect that you would say (and if you did, I'd agree) that in an ideal world, a music magazine caters for the faithful. The kind of folks that on a given saturday will go to their local record shop (if there is one..) browse the vinyl racks, pick up something old, something new and something plain odd and give 'em all a listen. The more eclectic the better.

The problem isn't that music magazines don't match up to the template you outline; the problem is what i call the Candy Floss effect. Putting on my rose tinted specs for a second, there's absolutely no doubting that the quality of writing in the magazines suffering sales dips was considerably better, say, ten years ago. As i've said earlier, i've got the old Q magazines, and leaving aside our potential differences on the contents thereof the writing is quite quite good. Here's how they described John Bonham in December 1993 - ignore that it's about a rock dinosaur - just enjoy the prose

"At the heart of this power were the drums of Bonhham, a phantasmagoric Victorian steam-engine of spinning flywheels, oiled rods, cranks, pistons and cylinders hissing and snorting on sprung rockers, rivets popping with the pressure; you didn't feed this man, you stoked him"

You can, even if you don't give a continental f*ck about Led Zeppelin (and i don't, for the record!) enjoy a sentence like that. I felt slightly cleverer after reading it.

Today, all the publications are just focussing on the lowest common denominator. It's all 'tie in with our website where you can download the latest Coldplay b-side', 'text us with this that and the other'...

It's all about the short attention span. It's all about getting your money and getting it now, 'cos the shareholders want more than this time last year.

I honestly think that if most of the magazines cited in the initial article actually went back to treating their readers as intelligent human beings, who were capable of sitting down and actually reading for more than 3 nanoseconds, circulation would go up again.

John

grumpytrousers wrote: »

I honestly think that if most of the magazines cited in the initial article actually went back to treating their readers as intelligent human beings, who were capable of sitting down and actually reading for more than 3 nanoseconds, circulation would go up again.

I wholeheartedly agree. I've no real problems with Q, Kerrang, etc. apart from the fact that they aim at such a low common denominator (not music, writing style I mean). I'd gladly read a good article about any band, even the Beatles but they are so few and far between now.

(and for the record, I'm not a huge Led Zep fan but that quote makes me want to put "Kashmir" on at full volume)

grumpytrousers

Candy Floss effect is my attempt at introducing a new phrase to the lexicon to replace 'lowest common denominator'

I can see i have some work to do!

Sadly - no more than when you'd get extra homework cos a few messers made noise when the teacher went outside the door in primary school - it's the idiots that's ruined it for the rest of us! (writes a swot...)

It's not limited to writing of course. Is it a coincidence that a show like The Wire doesn't get a mainstream broadcast slot in any country?

cavedave

Originally Posted by grumpytrousers View Post
I honestly think that if most of the magazines cited in the initial article actually went back to treating their readers as intelligent human beings, who were capable of sitting down and actually reading for more than 3 nanoseconds, circulation would go up again.

Is it just a problem of music magazines? For example if you compare FHM ten years ago to now there is a vast drop in quality. Not that it was ever good.

Do music magazines really expect to gain new converts? They give away free cd's still. The average 15 year old does not know what a cd is.

grumpytrousers

No - i don't think it's limited to music magazines. I only ranted on about them cos that's where the OP is coming from. I don't want to get all sociological about it, but I've a feeling we're reaching a point of no return. The focus groups decreed that the punters wanted shorter articles with loads of 'miniboxes' on the sides for the easily distracted, and the people who wanted something to 'read' (as opposed to something to 'read like Heat magazine, but be focussed on music') have deserted the 'quality' magazines in their droves.

Meanwhile, the Heat mentality people don't have the same loyalty to the magazines and thus the sales spiral downwards continues apace.

I've not read it in an age, but friends who would be in the know tell me that something similar has happened with Empire. Where it was a magazine for people who 'knew' movies, now it's for for those who are happy with puff pieces on whatever A-lister has agreed to an interview in exchange for a 4 star review and a fluffy interview asking about charity work.

---

Now playing: Perry Blake - Ordinary day
via FoxyTunes

cavedave

grumpytrousers

No - i don't think it's limited to music magazines. I only ranted on about them cos that's where the OP is coming from

Oh yeah on a music forum talking about music magazines makes sense. I just wanted to make the point that the decline in quality may not be just in music magazines.

I think part of the problem is that we are so used to switching from point to short point now that long articles just bore people. I know we are only talking about magazines here and our parents probably complained that magazines required less concentration then novels. But it is pretty poor if people cannot concentrate for 5 pages on a topic they are interested in.

mike65

I love the whiff of snobbery in the morning.

Completely OT (and yet not). QI has been hijacked and will now be shown on BBC1 friday nights from next series, so instead of the well read wit of a typical panel (and Alan Davies) it'll be packed with personality newsreaders.

Oh and the X-Files went to hell the moment it switched to BBC1 (twas a conspiracy I tell ya)

Mike.

MoominPapa

A light in the darkness is Record Collector. By its nature it won't satisfy the requirements of new music, although its news section is bigger and better than any monthly mag and it music reviews, of new releases and reissues, runs to 20 pages in the current issue. Its eclecticism and respect it pays to all genres is rare and refreshing when compared with the jaded smugness of the likes of Mojo or the narrow focus of a genre mag like Classic Rock. In the current issue there are major articles on Randy Newman, Todd Rundgren, Underworld, Hall & Oates, Eric Burdon, The Yardbirds and Lou Reed and that mix is probably tame by usual standards. I can't find figures on its circulation so can't say how healthy its sales are and whats its future holds but if you are going to spend 6quid+ on a music mag and you don't want to end up pissed off about it you can do a lot worse the RC