What's Up With Uncut's New Two-Line Capsule Reviews?

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Is it just me or did Uncut shorten their capsule reviews to, like, 30 words or less when they redesigned a few months ago? They barely get through the title of the record before it's over now! What's up with that?

― Chief Wiggum, Tuesday, 25 February 2003 17:42 (twenty-three years ago)

They somehow seem to think that cramming hundreds of tiny reviews per month, some of them uncredited (the shame...), so they can put a bloody «4000 reviews inside» sticker on the cover, is the best way to satisfy their readership. That, I think, is a very stupid misjudgment.
(Or maybe printing 30 word reviews of electronica and hip hop albums is their way of showing how Uncut is still more than the Americana/beatlesstonesdylanspringsteen covers onslaught with which they've been testing our (my) patience.)
...And I only care about this because it's still, by far, the best (American/British) music magazine around (although, true, the competition is rather appalling these days).

― JML, Tuesday, 25 February 2003 18:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Couldn't have said it better myself.

― Chief Wiggum, Tuesday, 25 February 2003 21:23 (twenty-three years ago)

C'mon, Maxim's Blender rules!

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Tuesday, 25 February 2003 22:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Blender is just an Americanized "Q" (not really an insult, just an observation.) But have you noticed that even Rolling Stone has started splitting the "New Releases" from the "Re-Releases" just like "Q"/"Blender"?

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Tuesday, 25 February 2003 23:52 (twenty-three years ago)

35 words in actual fact.

Uncut do it, just as Mojo have this month started doing it, because IPC Media assume that the median Uncut reader is a lapsed 35-year-old Clash fan who doesn't give a shit about electronica or hip hop and just wants a ticksheet. As an Uncut reviewer I found it extremely irritating to try and sum up the 50 Cent album in 100 words when even Alexis Petri-Dish in the Guardian gets a whole page to do so - particularly when 500-word lead reviews in Uncut are going to people like Turin Brakes and Mull Historical Society.

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 08:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Lord Custos is wrong. There is nothing remotely American about Blender

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 08:10 (twenty-three years ago)

The setup is "Q"-ish, but It's aimed at a more American audience. (Also, Where "Q" would put the ugly mug of the Gallagher Bros or Thom Yorke on the cover, Blender would put some hot American babe on the cover.)

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 17:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Marcello, I would imagine that Uncut going to that format upset a few people. Was it AJ's idea to cram more reviews in or a mandate by people even higher up? And is there any chance of it reverting in the near future? I mean, we WANT to read your thoughts on 50 Cent!

― Chief Wiggum, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 18:07 (twenty-three years ago)

On the contrary, Chief: since changing over to that format, Uncut's circulation has rocketed - in the UK, its circulation's now nudging 100,000 a month. So I'm afraid that this seems to be What People Want.

For my full thoughts on 50 Cent, read Monday's entry on CoM.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 27 February 2003 08:15 (twenty-three years ago)

500 words on Turin Brakes? I can do it in five!

"Turin Brakes for no man."*

*i've never heard turin brakes and don't know what they're like.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 27 February 2003 09:26 (twenty-three years ago)

IPC Media is probably right.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 27 February 2003 09:32 (twenty-three years ago)

To give its readers what they want? Surely not.

― ArfArf, Thursday, 27 February 2003 09:47 (twenty-three years ago)

*sigh* 06:00: "babe - i got you babe"...

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 27 February 2003 10:32 (twenty-three years ago)

I meant about the median Uncut reader. Their track record in producing innovative magazines which create their own market (and hence get talked about and hence bring in advertiser ££££s which matter lots more than reader ££££s I suspect) is poor.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 27 February 2003 10:44 (twenty-three years ago)

I mean "Mojo readers have enough money to buy two titles per month" is not a groundbreaking insight, as the mag will probably learn when the market next changes (cf Select/Vox and Q)

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 27 February 2003 10:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh no, I absolutely agree about the 35-year-old lapsed Clash fan - if anything, the move away from quasi-Americana mag to mainstream retro probably accounts for the circulation rise more than anything else (fear of emulating the fate of Select once the Britpop bubble had burst?).

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 27 February 2003 11:35 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually though I think they're probably still Clash fans :)

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 27 February 2003 11:38 (twenty-three years ago)

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