The best and worst music magazines

BEST.....hmmmm....well, Mojo is at least written with some degree of intelligence.

true, but they're worse than they've prolly ever been now.

I'm tired of reading over and over about how certain artists were so fucking influential, groundbreaking, the first one to do this or that etc. Can you imagine how frustrating it must be to work at Mojo (or Q, or Uncut) and be asked to summarize Pet Sounds, the Stone Roses, Screamadelica, London Calling etc in 60 words for the umpteenth time for this months "best of all time" lists.

Arthur us great but not really a music mag despite all the music adverts they get. Similarly, VICE is always worth a glance.

But Nowell, you should check out some old *Creem*s one of these days, if you really want to see what a music magazine is capable of being.

spin is bad, but IMO, rolling stone is worse these days... how many times can you say the same fucking things? how many articles can you write about the war on drugs?

far from it.

Chunklet is overrated

I guess the internet had kind of killed off the print 'zines, which is too bad. Rags like Tuba Frenzy and Space Age Bachelor had great writing and long articles, now I guess you find that stuff online.

I still enjoy The Wire, and Blender is worth $9 a year.

But if people younger than me think that lame-assed overrated issue had any punchlines in it, then I'm *glad* I'm old. Kids are really fucking stupid sometimes. Or at least they're way too easy to impress.

I get the most fun out of Roctober and Chunklet. Mojo is a pretty reliable read, too. I keep hearing about this band called The Beatles every few months...

I think Roctober is difficult to find outside of Chicago.
www.dustygroove.com - website to a record store here that sells back issues.

I totally agree with how lame Chunklet is. I get the feeling that the Chunklet staff assumes the humor of Patton Oswald and David Cross is going to magically rub off on them by running the occasional feature on said comedian.

Rip & Burn
http://www.qssa.co.uk/haymarket/template/subsorder.asp?title=rab&source=VM94d

NME = worst.

Best? The internet :D

i think.

And it's not like they were ever any good at all, even back in the day!!

As far as good ones, I'm tempted to say there aren't any that are across the board good, but I probably don't read enough of them. I can't stand Chunklet and its sneery kin.

Worst: New Left Review

Worst = take yer pick from an ocean of suction.

(Apologies to American readers - Mr Agreeable was an iconoclastic column with gratuitous swearing that used to run in Melody Maker)

I'd love to get hold of Arthur and Punk Planet - shipping is so expensive though.

I knew their review section was crap when they gave a local band here a glowing review for an album that was plain godfuckingawful. And don't get me started about the letters.

Does anybody remember a mag that ran in the mid 90's called Puncture?

Fool's Mate is actually still a lot of fun, but it's gotten to be very genre-specific in covering primarily the "visual" artists. You can count on a big photo spread on Gackt in just about every issue. Been awhile since I perused a Music Life, but its probably still a wild grab-bag of goodies.

Goldmine is UNBELIEVABLY crap in every respect!! Hasn't run an article worth reading in years, the photos are shit, the editorial focus is shit, the print is shit, the layout, design and even the advertising are shit, shit, shit. Try Record Collector.

I did like *Signal to Noise* last time I saw it, though. And last time I saw *Jane*, I thought those little reviews in the back were kinda cute. (Or at least a lot cuter than the little "reviews" in *Vice* used to be. Which were the stupidest reviews I've ever seen.)

http://black2com.blogspot.com/

I used to enjoy reading Forced Exposure for some reason though I actively disliked a lot of the music it covered. Made me laugh.

conflict was the funniest music mag i ever read. and i mean that in the good way.

Oh and I still have some old issues of Puncture lying around, it was pretty good for indie schmindie etc.

The much-maligned Rolling Stone is actually still fairly useful in covering relatively trivial current events: Who's in the studio, who has a new release, who's topping the charts, stuff like that. Not worth buying but OK to thumb through at the newsstand, if you care about that sort of thing (like I do, occasionally.)

Worst: Punk Planet.

blender is definitely worse than spin. though spin's pretty weak these days.

-- Pashmina (vietgrov...), October 1st, 2004.

terrorizer is my favorite metal mag, for sure.

I recently bought a buncha old "Black to Comm"'s thru ebay, and 'moron' sounds pretty accurate to me. Plus he appeared to have an irrational grudge against you personally, Chuck. And Anastasia Pantsios. Not to mention homosexuals, hippies, yuppies and pretty much everybody politically left of Ronald Reagan.

xpost

-- chuck (cedd...), October 1st, 2004.

Well, that would explain your dislike of The Big Takeover. Have you always hated indie rock or is this a new development? Or is production an element that weighs heavy in how you respond to music? I apologize if you've been through this before, but I've been reading your reviews/posts for a while now and I'm a bit perplexed.

xpost

Ah...that makes sense. You seemed to have been a bit harsh on ye 'ol indie rock recently, but I guess I'm barking up the wrong tree.

Back to The Big Takeover - I defend it soley on how massive the review section is. And yes, as pointed out earlier, some lousy local bands have been reviewed, but also some great ones. I love picking up an issue and seeing my friends' bands in an international magazine. Reviews for bands with virtually no other national coverage pop up in nearly every issue ( I live in Portland, OR BTW). It's nice to have one magazine that acknowleges the "little guy" when very few others do.

i guess that's still what it's trying to be, but they've gotten more glossy and less geeky over time, which makes me sad.

i still read it pretty much cover-to-cover, as does everyone i know who's ever been within 100 yards of a recording studio. and you can't beat their free subscription policy.

otm
so out of touch that it's embarrassing

Chuck, re;Big takeover, i reckon its the archetypal FANzine, which is not to denigrate Jack Rabid's work at all, but its always seemed a niche title to me, and back when i wanted to read 400 punk/indie album reviews in one go, it was a good place to be. i'm not that kid anymore, and wehn i've read it recently, its spoken to me less and less.

I often hope Loose Lips Sink Ships doesn't fall into that trap; its very much 'deep' into whatever music it covers, but hopefully a casual reader would get something of value from it too...

i really liked some of the old ones mentioned: conflict, motorbooty, forced exposure, ugly american, creem, option, etc. you know, all the good ones.

The door bell rings and guess who it is - Don fucking Henley from the Eagles. Henley's there to check out the worst song on the record: a cover of "Desperado". Joe Strummer walks over to him, extends his hand and says, "Hi, I'm Joe Strummer." Henley snubs his handshake and snottily adds, "I know who you are." Don Henley is an asshole. No big news there, but man, I loved repeating that story. - Bob Bert

And so did I. The Michael Gira interview in this issue is also interesting, and Ian Svenonius' essays are always a hoot. I also have the infamous Index one where IS makes a case for Paul being the coolest Beatle.

I just bought a single-issue of WaxPoetics (the "Africa Issue") and liked it so much I'm going to subscribe. It's the best, most enjoyable print-based music magazine I've read in a long time.

Wax Poetics has prolly been the best american music magazine for like four years now imo

I keep meaning to pick up a Wax Poetics, but it's bloody expensive.

xp in the UK.

for a one-year us subscription, it's either $38.00 or $60.00 (if you want the "premium service").

I always glance at it at Borders Book stores here in the Wash. DC area, but rarely buy it. Maybe I will get this one

Anyone here read Signal To Noise? The contents always look interesting but I've never seen a copy of the actual thing.

i know a guy who keeps his stacks of wax poetics in his bathroom. just seems wrong.

Wax Poetics has prolly been the best american music magazine for like four years now imo

― batlike darkwing cartoonduck (Whiney G. Weingarten), Thursday, April 1, 2010 6:17 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

yea this

anyone subscribe to the "premium" service? it's a (relatively) steep price-hike to get "premium," and you can't tell much from the basic website what the extra materials are.

I've been buying Signal to Noise off and on over the past couple years, but I got fed up with the extremely tiny print and the overly tight binding (tight in the sense of not having much of a margin where the page is bound). I also just think my taste is not experimental enough for much of what's covered in it. On the other hand, the recent article on the status of Sun Ra's legacy, and the interview with Matthew Shipp, were both good. (But even in terms of articles, they publish a lot about people involved in music as non-musicians--e.g., college radio programmers--and much of that seems a bit boring to me.)

i was going to drop in and ask if there are there any print music magazines worth buying these days besides Decibel, but it looks like ppl rep for Wax Poetics too, so my question is: are there any music magazines worth buying that aren't Decibel or Wax Poetics? any genre, really. just looking for interesting writing

I'd second that Signal To Noise has some good stuff
Sound Projector doesn't come out so often & may have head up its own timeliness

required disclosure: was briefly in a band (Magic Pants) with S2N publisher

I kinda like the once a year music issue of the Oxford American, a publication that focusses on Southern American culture. While it's interesting, it is overly focussed on NPR-friendly dead, old, and retro blues, soul, rockabilly and country.

I think the cover story on Konono No. 1 in the latest Wire is worth reading.

i barely ever buy music mags anymore ... last one I got was probably a wax poetics, but yeah, they always seem pricey. Good looking mag though!

Past: Creem [until it became a schlocky heavy metal rag. hell, we already had Kerrrang for that!], Bomp, Punk, Option, Trouser Press, Bucketful of Brains, Kicks, Matter, Next Big Thing, Forced Exposure, Crawdaddy

Present/Recent: Perfect Sound Forever, Sound Projector, Signal to Noise, Maximum Rock & Roll, Ugly Things

So, does anyone besides me remember Beetle and/or Zoo World? Did I hallucinate those?

Rock Scene was a bit of fun, with its tabloid-like content & tidbits from the glam & punk worlds.

Bixobal magazine from former Anomalous Records dude Eric L is really good, the schedule got derailed last year cuz he was sick but there's a new one coming soon. It's the first google result.

I was just wondering what the story was with Bixobal the other day! Thanks for the update, hope he's on the mend.

Does anyone here get Oaken Throne or Convivial Hermit? I've always wanted to check them out, but they're a bit pricey.

hey, thanks for the tips everyone! i'm going to look into all of them today

The problem with "music" magazines is that they only focus on music. No one notices how boring this is.

*bump*

So, does anyone besides me remember Beetle and/or Zoo World? Did I hallucinate those?

I just want to point out that THE absolute worst music magazine is Rolling Stone. The album reviews are bias, lackluster, and just big pieces of corporate crap. I'm not saying that everything corporate is like an evil demonic force, but the fact that the only album in 2009 that received a 5 star rating from Rolling Stone was U2's "No Line On The Horizon,"is just appalling. It's nice to see that there are still a couple of decent music magazines being put out these days.

I cant believe anyone would give current U2 5/5. Once great band that is so so so shitty now.

Very true. U2's first few albums were actually good. "Boy", "October", "War", "The Unforgettable Fire", and even "The Joshua Tree" were really good records. After those it goes way downhill for me.

Achtung Baby was their last good record, everything since has been rotten.

Worst Magazine contender
Revolver

http://cdn.celebuzz.com/cb/assets/imgx/4/6/5/4/4/4/1/gallery-4654441.jpg?v=1287003608

who the hell is taylor momsen anyway? what tv show/films was she in?

i think she is like a kim kardashian "famous for being famous" type iirc

probably wrong, but dont give enough of a fuck to find out either way

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Momsen

tv actress and film star it seems

i have not heard of this music magazine

"REVOVER"

OMG WTF @ REVOLVER

i'm just shocked that a magazine would put a marginally talented yet sexy young woman on its cover! and look what she's wearing!! hint: nothing!! omg revolver how could you

borders isn't carrying waxpoetics any more (at least not the borders closest to me). bummed.

thinking of subscribing to their premium service.

i thought hottest chicks in rock specials ended with grunge

especially 17 year old ones

lol music magazines

she is a scream-queen.

then you obviously haven't read a magazine since the end of grunge

i've been trying to find something that cover rockstyle music with the same kind of depth that wax poetics covers its territory with, but i think its a fruitless search

I'm shocked that "Algerian goalkeeper" might not be up on music since grunge

grunge is dead???

print rock magazines seem uninteresting to me, in general. i can't decide if it's just uninspiring writing, the limited scope of their coverage, or a combination thereof.

(xp)

Gossip Girls star who sings plus a free Slipknot poster. What a deal

she's no cristina scabbia imo

print rock magazines seem uninteresting to me, in general.

I read this at first as something about magazines covering a hip new music scene called "print rock".

i'd like a new journal that covers only print-rock and blog-core.

Algerian Goalkeeper if you can name one metal magazine that has better writing than Revolver, I'll suck your dick on the Brooklyn Bridge, you failed troll

GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!

WGW needs better pick-up lines.

http://4gifs.com/gallery/d/168399-1/Cocky_soccer_goalie.gif

Select was the best mag ever, although the past couple of vintages were not as good as their heyday during the Britpop explosion.

i would say that Terrorizer & Decibel are probably better and they dont feel the need to have a hottest chick in rock issue , which is quite frankly pathetic.

also let me guess, whiney writes for it?

let me guess, you don't know what writing is

Looks like you cant defend the sexist issue and are trying to argue about something else.

Do you really think it's ok to have a hottest rock chicks issue?

like real talk dude, realize that maybe a magazine with Slipknot and Avenged Sevenfold as coverlines may not be aiming for a 40-year-old Coffinworm fan as their target demo.

oh well that makes it okay then. Keep talking down to your readership, that will help them grow up.

yeah, I'M the one being condescending

"why do you teenagers have to like the incredibly popular music you like. Why can't you be more like a grown man who posts to the internet about Landmine Marathon all the live long day"

like i said, you cant defend the fact that revolver magazine have published a sexist issue, so you have to be abusive and personal. fwiw im not 40 nor do i know who landmine marathon are but whatever.

It's possible to like Slipknot and Avenged Sevenfold and still dislike Revolver.

a 40-year-old Coffinworm fan as their target demo

Dude, don't drag me into this.

i am sure revolver magazine is very disappointed to lose the enlightened readership of algerian goalkeeper

yes it frees up one "hottest chicks of rock" issue for me to buy.

bonus: that issue has in-depth interview with coffinworm.

lol whiney just can't wait to turn fifty-one

Anyone opinion of FADER around here? It's the mag that recently switched to the (obnoxious) horizontal format. I dig their actual selections and taste but the magazine is incredibly limited in actual page numbers (something like a bare 60?) and only comes out on a bi-monthly basis. And insists on at least, I think, $35-$40 for a subscription. I hope these guys aren't entirely confused when they realize they're out of business.

even if fader the magazine eventually goes out of business, i really, really hope the fader fort doesn't

kel, Fader the mag is just a public face of a much more powerful and lucrative marketing enterprise. They ain't going out of business any time soon.

ugh, sorry, what I meant was FILTER magazine. I love Fader's photography but find its taste preferences a little beyond me/too rap-centric
http://filtermagazine.com/

I can't account for Filter's top 10 of 2010 list tho.. I'm having a slightly hard time regarding them as an authority with LCD's album - plenty fun as it is - topping everything to have been released thru-out the entire year. Everything the staff voted for seems to already have been for well-established & pre-existing bands, sans Surfer Blood.

bonus: that issue has in-depth interview with coffinworm.

lol'd hard @ this

as per Whiney's post, can he or someone else link to a good article or w/e from Revolver? I'm genuinely asking cos I've read maybe one issue ever and recall it being not good but it was years ago

TBF: Coffinworm would probably be a lot less angry if some of their fans looked like the young lady off the front of Revolver.

Ooooh, Select went totally shit-wards after Britpop wound down. Lost all of it's charm from the Beck cover onwards. They were recommending Taproot by the very end. It appeared to be born again as the unlovable and largely unbought, 'Bang'.

the taylor momsen album is ok! in a placeholder ashlee simpson kind of way

Obligatory plug here for The Sound Projector, new issue just out. Interviews with Mattin, Inecto School and Blue Sausage Infant and dozens of reviews, a few of them by me.

http://www.thesoundprojector.com/current-issue/

XX-Post: Select did have a makeover around the time Britpop seemed dead, and that makeover was obviously no good idea because they ended up alienated their most faithful readers. And Britpop haters already hated Select with a passion so how would they make them buy Select?

i remember an article in select making fun of uk garage/2step for being like a y2k version of hardcore. but... that's why it was good, you twats!

They were recommending Taproot by the very end.

i bet markers can tell us about early '00s taproot. would wager he's seen them in concert, even?

~educated guess~

so that's two posts about markers in five minutes, u wanna dry hump him or somethin?

ilxor: no joke, i was listening to the taproot song "poem" on youtube recently -- that's the only song of theirs i know; i used to hear it on the radio all the time back in tenth grade i think

i remember an article in select making fun of uk garage/2step for being like a y2k version of hardcore. but... that's why it was good, you twats!

It was even shorter lasting than hardcore rave though....

XXL is pretty useless

tho their Shyne article/Yelawolf articles recently were p. good

xxl can often be great but they run too many stories that are just transcripts of interviews with artists and those are always terrible

i've been trying to find something that cover rockstyle music with the same kind of depth that wax poetics covers its territory with, but i think its a fruitless search
no kidding, i think what you're looking for is MOJO.

well case in point the most recent issue I read, which featured Dr. Dre, which was an interview about Detox and it managed to not say one damn interesting thing, all softball questions and very few asking specific questions about Detox other than "is it coming out" and "are you excited?"

in fact, as you mentioned, all but the Nicki Minaj article seemed to be transcripted two page interviews, and really the only one I gave a shit about was the one with WAka Flocka's mom...which was sadly way too short.

but then again they did get me into Yelawolf and Shyne so *shrug*

It was even shorter lasting than hardcore rave though....

Don't know why I'm bothering to school Geir on 2-step but:

1) First wave of 2-step classics appeared in 1997
2) Style basically transformed into grime in 2002

= 5 year run.

It's not like it only came into existence the moment Select noticed it.

Well, given that hardcore is still a going concern, technically he's right.

yah and thanks to the all-powerful force of the 'nuum 2-step is still with us as funky

I worked at Select in 1999-2000 and remember the 2-step-as-rave piece and I think max arrrrrgh misread the tone because the office was in general agreement that this was a good thing, especially given the fact that at least two people there, including the editor, had only recently moved over from the world of Mixmag and Muzik. I remember Select publishing a rapturous review of Zed Bias's Sound of the Pirates mix album.

The Select piece was on a bit of a bullshit "breakbeat garage is better than 2-step because uni student ravers wear cargo pants and trainers not shiny shoes" tip though. Getting into 2-step only to claim that Dee Kline is much better than Dreem Teem is a massive case of point-missing.

Ha ha, now I remember the precise angle. Fair criticism but v different to the rave-is-rubbish slant that max remembers. Rightly or wrongly, rave-noize was more in the Select ballpark than Dreem Teem two-step. (Then again, tunes like Sweet Female Attitude's Flowers were embraced by Select - iirc, it was more the champagne-and-shiny-shoes lifestyle aspect that was played for lolz than the actual music)

No it wasn't rave-is-rubbish at all! I agree. If anything the opposite, a celebration of rave's eternal spirit premised on a wrongheaded identification of rave's superficial trappings (sporty clothing, breakbeats, comic vocal samples) with its more intangible vibe, shock-of-the-new, energy etc.

Okay this is what I actually said about this article at the time!

"The Select article avoids a number of issues that would tarnish its hypothesis that breakbeat garage is rock boys' dance music, like the fact that breakbeats are springing up all over the garage spectrum, and all sorts of established producers are incorporating the general sound into their work (for a great example check out the fabulous Shanks & Bigfoot remix of jungle act Kitachi's "Boost Dem"). Not to mention that the main exponents of the style like the Stanton Warriors and The Wideboys are getting a lot of support and props from the scene's major players. Meanwhile Zed Bias's classic "Neighbourhood" was released on Locked On Records, perhaps the highest profile garage label around.

Significantly, all three acts use a lot of female vocals or remix vocal tracks all the time. Indeed, my favourite breakbeat garage tracks are the ones which unify the two extremes - the shrieking diva on "Neighbourhood", or the Stanton Warriors' excellent breakbeat mix of Jocelyn Brown's house classic "Somebody Else's Guy". At any rate Select's proposition that breakbeat equals non-girlpop is way off base.

What distinguishes the current breakbeat garage sound is not a musical paradigm shift so much as a socio-cultural struggle within the scene. Much is made of DJ Donna Dee's army-pants uniform because it directly contravenes the dress codes of clubs like Twice As Nice or Pure Silk. In a reversal of the classic "back to the clubs" push within most rave-derived scenes, the artificial separation of breakbeat garage is largely about the white working class fans of garage wanting squat clubs that reflect their values and bank balances. The harder, dirtier music is a reflection of the fashion, not the other way round.

More insidious is the fact that nearly all of the producers interviewed in the article were originally from other scenes, and have arrived in garage only recently. Zed Bias used to be part of The Almighty Beatfreakz, a nu-skool breakz duo, and similarly Dee Kline was releasing tracks on Botchit & Scarper, a prominent breakz label. DJ Zinc's "138 Trek", a contemporary landmark for the breakbeat scene, sounds just like slowed down jungle, which is not surprising since Zinc is actually a member of the drum & bass collective Ganja Kru, responsible for the '95 hardstep classic "Supa Sharp Shooter".

Now normally this wouldn't make a difference - quality music is quality music and crap is crap, and in the face of that a pedigree or lack of it counts for little. But it seems to me that a lot of the "underground" artists that complain about garage's pop success were originally producers working in other, less successful breakbeat styles. Having noticed that they weren't shifting units and garage was, they've cannily switched scenes, only to try and turn garage into what they were making in the first place. So now who's being opportunist?

As I've said before, I love a lot of breakbeat garage. It's just that from here the future for the garage scene seems all to depressingly clear and familiar. Breakbeat garage will probably be for garage what techstep was for jungle - initially invigorating, but rapidly degenerating into a creative cul-de-sac of purist minimalism (goodbye twinkling xylophones and vocal cut-ups, hello nothing but breakbeats and basslines) and unnecessary and unconvincing poses, and in the process quite possibly taking the whole scene with it."

Luckily my dire prediction at the end didn't really come true - the real techstep of garage was dubstep obv, which at the time of writing the above (late 2000) still seemed pretty girly and seductive!

ITT list passionate music opinions you had 5-10 years ago that you now believe the complete opposite of

^dunno if anyone remembers it but this one Deekline & Donna Dee mix CD was like 90% respnsible for me rescinding the above - kinda lol given that it was still v much at the cargo pants end of the garage spectrum but hey

There has never been a genre that has died out completely. All genres continue existing in the underground after their mainstream reign, and they do of course also have a history before they get mainstream.

But, in terms of mainstream popularity, rave and UK Garage were both very short-lasting. Particularly the latter.

1999-2002 (uk garage's popularity peak) isn't a terrible run as far as dance styles are concerned. That's about half the Beatles' career, if I'm not mistak.... OH WHAT THE FUCK WHY AM I TALKING ABIOUT THIS!!>!?!?

xpost Skiffle. Or is there still a skiffle underground?

1999-2002 (uk garage's popularity peak) isn't a terrible run as far as dance styles are concerned.

Eurodance lasted for 10 years or so.....

Interesting to read that response Tim. I think you're right, basically. I didn't write that Select piece but thinking back, I'm sure it was driven by general excitement about dirty rave noises and daft samples rather than any in-depth analysis of different strands of UK garage, so it was bound to seem wanting from a more scene-savvy perspective.

Any report on how Blurt Magazine is doing? I noticed Fred Mills is the editor, which is cool. Did he work on Harp?

Article after it's 2009 launch: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/22/AR2009042204090.html

wow...half of the magazines that were discussed earlier on in this thread are now dead!