Who do the British seemingly hate Q Magazine?

Some of the reviews are a little short on 'what the music is like' content, but the features are normally intelligent. I guess the cover artists never normally match my tastes so i flick through it and leave it.

I think you mean Mojo.

"Hipsters" need to realise that what was good music 10 or 20 years ago is also good music today, and will be good music in 10 and 20 years. Music is supposed to be timeless, not "trendy".

It certainly can be.

Innit. The problem with Q is that it writes for an audience who think that music is inherently "supposed" to "be" something.

[x-post - Alan beat me to it there but...]

For the better IMO, but that's another story ;)

Incidentally, I apologise to Uncut readers who might have watched John Cale on Later With Jools Holland on Friday night. The album really is much, much better than that. Why on earth come on and play the two worst tracks off the album?

Q is a laggards music mag - it is slow on picking up new artists, it features high profile radio friendly rock bands, the front covers are boring.

Every year it holds a useless Awards event.

It exists as an Advertising medium for Major record companies to advertise to the casual 20something male. Before Mojo existed Q had a higher age profile - but these days this magazine is aimed squarely at 20something blokes that have music tastes that reflect playlisted Xfm or Virgin radio or MTV2 or Radio 1 Evening Session.

Each year it's album of the year choices are laughable.

My idea of a music magazine - is too inform me about music I am unaware of - Q is the opposite - there are NO surprises - it's predictable and lame - and therefore of interest.

It ignores much of the most creative contemporary music i.e cross reference with my blog.

Q bites because of the style it employs and the criteria it has for music.

When was the last time Q magazine - stuck their necks out and proclaimed look this a great new artist. No they are flaming laggards of the worst order - that reflect the status quo.

In the late 80s - MELODY MAKER - SET THEIR OWN AGENDA - they didn't wait for anyone else - they had GUTS, SELF CONVICTION, BELIEF, OPINIONS, ATTITUDES, IDEAS and IDEALS.

Q is the complete opposite !

yes its obscurantism is getting a little wearing.

Dude, you'd make a lovely editor but a poor businessman!!

you want joyce, kafka and borges you do.

And, for the record, I'd wager certain classical music is inarguably "timeless". And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with music being disposable, fleeting ephemera as well, but what's wrong with something exuding an ageless beauty?

I disagree - there are more than enough people that are not being catered for by the teenager oriented rock tedium of the weekly NME and also don't want to wait a month for something to read [The Wire, Terrorizer, Jazzwise, Jockey Slut, Knowlege, Uncut etc]

If a publisher - launched a new diverse agenda setting fortnightly music magazine - in the UK - then i reckon sales of 50,000 - 75,000 - could be achieved within a year.

Hmmm, perhaps that's another thread, in fact.

Also ILM does like some magazines, Muzik was very popular until it went bust! (as I always say in these cases)

Martian (and anyone else), what d'you know about Bullit? I know it used to be North-East only, and it's music and film-oriented (perhaps going for the Uncut market) but possibly a younger audience, and a fairly modest initial print run, but more details are extremely scant.

i will save my venom for the "Why does everyone in the world hate all those awful american music magazines".

This is prob something suzy knows about better -- but the money in publishing (and obv it's not a fanzine and breaking even -- it has shareholders to please) comes from advertising. You might be right, though I gotta tell ya, I'm 23 and lame as fuck about new music -- and I'm more clued-up than most ppl I know, being ex-NME reader and all.

no mercy for the pop music thingy ;)

if Q mag was so terrible it would have gone bust already.

Well, the case I was resting was my assertion that people seem to hate it, and point that has been handily proved herein. I'm still waiting for a reasonable answer, though.

It never was about 'breaking' new bands. I was told this categorically by the Q editor once while raving about Belle & Sebastian. He said that I was too much of a 'championer' to ever write for Q, which prefers to wait a while before writing about bands. Of course, this was before they missed the boat woefully on The Strokes - they're now only two months or so behind NME when it comnes to new music.

In recent months, however, Q has nosedived pitifully. Last month there were three advertorials for stuff like cars and razors. One even appeared smack in the middle of a feature about Muse (I know, it was probably a beter read). Together with its irrelevant awards show (how contrived was that?), and the blurbs for the TV channel, Q has lost the few shards of credibility it ever had.

It was for this reason that many editorial staff left to set up 'Word magazine which is an infinitely better read, albeit something of a 40-somethings fanzine. 'Mojo' also cnotinues to be a good read for those of us who like to metaphorically kick off their tight shoes and luxuriate in a 10-page Mitch Ryder retrospective (ie, me).

As far as breaking new bands is concerned: for coroporate, XFM-playlisted skinny indie types it's still NME all the way. For corpse-painted metal loons and hapless British emo chancers, there's always Kerrang! As ever, the truly interesting stuff exists on the margins and one can do worse than listening to John Peel to find it.

When you're listening to it, how do you know it's timeless? The only sensible definition of 'timeless' I can think of is that people have always enjoyed it and you think they always will. How do you know?

Jesus! ALRIGHT, PEDANTS! Of course I don't know that it's definitively timeless, but the mere fact that people are still listening to stuff by Bach, Beethoven and the rest of those fat, long-haired Western Europeans centuries after they first scribbled down their tunes certainly lends creedence to the notion of the high quality of the music in question. It has legs. Its appeal has real longevity. Will people still be listening to, say, Wilco in two hundred years? I sort've doubt it, but ya never know.

My thoughts exactly. I wonder how Bullit'll differentiate itself? I'm hoping it'll be adventurous with its cover features at least; I mean, even Hot Hot Heat or The Rapture on the cover would be preferable to yet another Stripes/Strokes/Eminem/a n other already overexposed band.

I hope they won't be listening to them in two hundred minutes.

Cross-post: unlike Alex, it seems. Calm down.

Also remember that Geir's post which Alex said was 'spot-on' (and with which I initially disagreed) wasn't referencing music from centuries ago, it was very specifically talking about 10-20 years ago.

The only reason anything is percieved as "timeless" is because it got more attention than something else. To say otherwise is to invest too much faith in the scribes of past generations and basically throw caution to the wind.

That said, just because you don't like something, that doesn't mean its not timeless. For example, I happen to think that "The Mona Lisa" is no great shakes, but that doesn't mean the Louvre is going to chuck it in the trash.

You seem to be arguing that 'timeless' means 'enduringly popular' which I suppose is fair enough, but in the context of a magazine covering pop-rock that's not really a very useful concept. As Tom has pointed out before, the history of pop is littered with people second-guessing what would be considered to have lasting value and getting it very wrong.

because it's for old farts. semi-bald, somewhat overweight high school teachers in their late thirties who worship jimi hendrix' ghost and wish for the second coming of grunge. or U2. or both.

..implies as much.

Yes, but this syndrome is hardly limited to Q. At the end of the day, a near-naked Britney is sadly going to move more issues than, say, a profile of, say, Hamell on Trial or Elbow or ______ (your favorite artist here).

Are old, balding, pudgy educators in their late 30's not allowed to enjoy music?

Is defending Q Magazine in some way parallel to a Brit championing Coldplay (or, for that matter, a Yank championing Matchbox Twenty)?

Pretty close, Alex, pretty close.

Side question - does anyone dislike the magazine/publication, to which they contribute? Better to be on the inside, pissing out, sez I!

It's the equivalent of wearing an 'I am a complete c-nt' t-shirt, Alex.

tim lemme tell ya abt a chap called damian hurst (sp?)...

Matchbox 20 are for Clear Channel Rock Radio listeners.

Hahahaha.

-- Alan, November 3rd, 2003.

Most OTM thing I've ever seen on this message board. Ever.

Music is not supposed to be anything you think it is. including that.

ha ha ha! this would be so very true if it weren't so untrue. music can be whatever you friggin' want it to be! it's your life(don't you forget). music can even be a hat. and timeless just means that a piece of music doesn't know what time it is. unless it's a cuckoo clock. or a church bell. or a nokia cellphone. music isn't supposed to be anything you think it is. hah! what a weird empty unimaginative world some people must live in!

Here's how the advertising rationale works: you say to advertisers that your 50-70k circulation on average each let 4 other people see it, so a readership of 250,000 is what the ad sales guy tries to sell the ad buyers. S/he compares ad price to others in his market (Q is 25/34) based on what competitors' media pack rate is (easily available info) and believe me, it costs more to buy a full page next to Britney than it does to buy it next to the reviews. The outside back cover ALWAYS costs the most. So if you've got 1k a page and then 10k for the OBC and say 7k for the inside covers and you're running 90 pages of content to 70 of adverts you've got 88k in ad revenues (but that'll go to 80 or 70 once the ad people take commission). Say your cover price is £3 - you'd get £1 after distributors have had their gouge. So add say 50k to your 88k and you have £125k in each month to pay for EVERYTHING.

I have to fly but basically it boils down to cost per reader compared with others' cost per reader, who you've got on the cover (LIARZONE) and how much brandsex can be had. A lot of ads in fashion mags (especially fledgeling ones) are 'free' ads, meaning they are not paid for but donated by brand managers. If the staff of a fashion mag really want to hate on their competitor they'll gossip at parties that their Prada and Miu Miu ads were free.

(reminds self to grab media pack from Edgy Style Mag)

Courtesy of a disc enclosed with the latest issue of much-maligned Brit
music periodical, Q magazine, I've finally heard two bands those silly Brits
have been spilling their lager all over themselves in praising, notably the
Darkness ("Get Your Hands Off My Woman") and the States' own Kings of Leon
("Red Morning Light")....and I'm fuckin' shocked at how fucking **AWFUL**
they both are....and they're the first two cuts on a disc dubbed "The Best
of `03".

Fuckin' dire, dire crap.

......What did he we tell you about Q magazine! and those dodgy rock bands !

I didn't know you were a Gatherer, DJ!

Quite possibly true, but I guess I never make the connection as you never seem to post on the Gathering (unless you're doing so under a different moniker).

More of a lurker..only recent post of note...spotted Jaz & young PR woman in Camden about a month ago.

I work two twelve hour overnight shifts a week, so I snatch up pretty much every music periodical there is (within reason) to fill up those empty wee morning hours. I really should stop reading ROLLING STONE and SPIN, as all they seem to do is make me mad (way, way more so that Q, who at least acknowledge the existence of certain bands).

Maybe the reason people *won't* be listening to Wilco in two hundred years is because there probably won't be a large cultural and academic institution propping them up. If classical music wasn't so classical, wasn't so tied up in notions of good taste and refinement and a proper humanist education, would it be "timeless"? Certainly some people would listen to it, but any music you can name is liked and listened to by someone. Being accorded a privileged social status by the community as a whole has much more to do with how society sees itself in relation to the artistic form (and thus, simply, how society sees itself) rather than any inherent superiority within the music. The privileged status of classical music is as much about a dogged insistence upon the inherent rightness of the western musical tradition, and a reinforcement of class-based divisions of taste (see Bourdieu on this) as it is about the music itself. And one only has to look at Geir's frequent crypto-racist arguments for musical purity to see how deeply ideological appeals to Western Musical Tradition can be.

I'm not saying that classical music isn't good, but I don't think you can appeal to these notions of "timelessness" without noting the very glaring ideological dimensions to such a status (eg. we don't tend to call Chinese opera "timeless" - why not?). Maybe Wilco *will* be considered timeless in 200 years. If so, I'm sure society will have very good reasons for it and it won't simply be because Yankee Foxtrot Hotel or whatever it's called is some amazing album.

I think that is a quite fair kind of predictability. What is pathetic is when a magazine gives a rave review to a band, and then, two years later said band follows that debut album with another album that is just as great, but in the meantime said mag has decided that band is no longer "hip", and as such, they give a really lousy review to their new album, while pretending to have disliked their previous one too.

hahahaa

(All the shit they receive are probably from writers whose musical taste is so different from what Travis are doing they aren't given the job to review Travis at all - obviously, you don't ask a hip-hop/dance fan to review Travis)

what a cop-out. you agreed with geir!

But Tim is correct here: that is what happens with 'Timeless' music: you can't argue with hiw good it is, how music and the way its received changes over time: it becomes preserved as this great thing and then ppl stop caring abt it. What is the point of even checking out classical music from bach or beethoven's time. I'd rather spend my time with 20th century classical right now.

Well, some of it is nice to listen to julio!

little geeta: bah bach suXoR i hate playing these stupid inventions
little geeta's sadistic russian piano teacher: (hits geeta's hand w. stick) bach was beautiful, shut up and keep playing!!

(ducks)

yeah dave- kind of like listening to old blues/jazz records, the noisy/crackly recorded bits add another dimension.

good grief no julio!! (unless "i learned to play by playing along with the first 2 omd albums" counts as musick theory)

If the name of the magazine was Dave Q and content was reflected accordingly, this would be a beautiful world.

what a cop-out. you agreed with geir!

Yeah, it is a bit of a cop-out, but it was never mind intention to start a thread about "timelessness," but rather about Q Magazine (and I don't see them as interwoven topics.)

That's not actually true though is it?

Its a fair point.

Doesn't this tell you that while cutting edge creativeness does get remembered, it is still the really great tunes that are really remembered?

* Q will be:

Definitive

The inside story

Informative

Useful

Funny… but never whacky

Credible

All encompassing

Accessible

… And it will know what it’s talking about

* The 9 Do’s of Q writing/editorial:

1/ Do be smart, but never cleverer than the reader

2/ Do avoid stock phrases. Q will use language that is its own, not the latest in phrases/words/sayings. We stand apart.

3/ Do be the readers’ guide without patronising them.

4/ Do be irreverent, but do so with authority and affection.

5/ Do fear the pun.

6/ Do take our own view entirely separate from both hype and accepted wisdom.

7/ Do be passionate.

8/ Do be prepared to stick our necks out.

9/ Do deliver the complete picture.

* The 9 Don’ts of Q writing/editorial:

1/ Don’t dumb down for the reader.

2/ Don’t be lazy: ie. Using clichés, praising one artist at the expense of damning another.

3/ Don’t use flowery language.

4/ Don’t assume knowledge.

5/ Don’t be a smart arse.

6/ Don’t force the humour (ie. if a caption is best served with a simple piece of information, use it).

7/ Don’t assume knowledge.

8/ Don’t just ask the obvious question.

9/ Don’t ever write: ‘The best album since…’

the complete picture.

10. Do assume that all readers have the average mental capacity of a three-year-old Down's sufferer.

11. Do give at least four stars to new releases by major artists for fear they won't give the magazine an exclusive interview.

12. Scratch certain PR agencies' backs and they'll scratch yours. Particularly applicable to those contributors who are contracted to write exclusively about artists handled by one specific PR agency.

13. Do not use language. Emoticons and star ratings are all our thrusting Thatcherkid readership has time to require.

14. Emap shareholders pay your wages.

15. Do be compliant.

16. David Cameron will be the next Prime Minister.

17. Do remember that music has been shit since "Friday I'm In Love" by the Cure.

18. Do not under any circumstances cite track seventeen of the second Bubonique album.

19. We are in charge.

20. Any Trouble are the great hope for 2007.

1/ Don’t dumb down for the reader.

AAAAAAHHHHH what's a smart-ass to do????

also - who the flippin 'eck is Johnny Borrell?

The git out of Razorlight, prone to pronouncing his own genius at every given opportunity.

Yo, I don't fit into any of those categories and I read Q.

Although I am vaguely thinking of giving it up in light of the fact that they're going to dump their free CDs and their movie, DVD and game reviews. Of course, if the dumping of the above reviews means longer write-ups per CD, then I might stay.

Another thing is - why the heck do they kiss ass to Johnny Borrell all the ****ing time? His band's 'music' isn't even that good. I bought the first CD, and it was mostly crap, with only one half-decent song. I don't want to even touch CD#2 with a 10-foot pole, thank you very much. And yet they're claiming JB to be the greatest genius of the C21, or something like that. WHYYY?!

http://www.q4music.com/nav?page=q4music.about.currentissue

wonder which one my outer sticks newsagent will have stocked.

odds on for the britney spears cover ? doubtful.

while the choice of folks is obvious on the whole (no hip hop??), the dido one is rather baffling.

should mojo be getting concerned over this new direction i wonder, a direct assualt on the £50 man, or whatever tag they give the poor bugger these days.

though i do like the revised focus back onto music - i may just give it one last go (the dreadful naked courtney love issue was the previous last straw for me)

Loaded mag did this, years ago. Tons of alternate covers, all were spectacularly good.

After that, they'd jumped the shark. But what a shark!

apparently the dido one was a last minute change. it was going to be pj harvey - except she answered the question "what does q mean to you now?" with "er, not much, i don't really consider it a music magazine any more" and was immediately pulled.

The London Review of Books doesn't just review books, though - it also carries long, stand-alone articles about politics, current affairs etc. I like the idea of the London Review of Music, I must say.

I've often thought about this. The LRB did review a Herbert CD though!

"presumably an LRM would be done for love not profit. therefore I'M OUT"

I'm not sure I would seek assistance from the ex-bassist of Rhythm System, however.

But, luckily, that is not the case. As evident on Q covers and elsewhere.

Btw. Q does write about hip-hop. All major hip-hop releases are reviewed and the biggest names are also featured in articles. Plus there are usually a couple of hip-hop albums in their year-end list, which is a fitting number considering hip-hop is just one out of hundreds of music genres.

But, luckily, that is not the case.

It has also managed to start its own magazines, writing exclusively about hip-hop, and I guess hip-hop-fans are more likely to read those.

Besides, even though hip-hop may seem dominant in the singles list doesn't mean it is dominant within the entire population. Among kids, maybe (although not as dominant as it was a few years ago), but not among most people out of all ages.

I gave it a flick through at a petrol station. Umm, fine but that's the relaunch version?

It does cover all kinds of popular music. Including hip-hop/R&B/techno/metal, just not to the same extent that more specialized genre magazines too.

I promise not to assume knowledge or ask the obvious question.

I appear therefore to be Q's perfect target demographic. Unfortunately, I haven't bought it since 1996.

totally wrong ! have you seen this dreadful magazine this decade ?

Q is now aimed at casual 20somethings as it downshifted demographics as mojo now operates in the 30s/ 40s market. Q is aimed at mainstreamers who listen to virgin / radio 1 etc

q magazine
http://www.emapadvertising.com/interactive/portfolio.asp?ID=12
Audience profile:

18-34 year olds

I loved this mag and bout every issue from 1989 to 2002. I really thought it was funny as a motherfucker, and printed stuff like a story on the narcorrido subset of tejano music, among hundreds of other cool shit. I often thought "man, I'd love to work for an American version of Q."

then Dennis Publishing comes along with an American version, called Blender, run by a Q alum (who incidentally, was editor of Q for almost as short a time as he was for Spin earlier this year). I got a job with Blender about a year after it launched.

the englishman referenced above cited those rules often— these amounted to the correct way to review music, and the fact that American pubs did not adhere to those rules was why American music pubs (and implicitly Americans) were, to use his terminology, "shit."

Of course, those rules were often ignored in his writing and in that of his english cronies, whom he invariably would let get away with bloody ax murder. In retrospect, I don't see that those rules affected the reviews that I read in Q.

As my hatred for this man intensified, I was no longer able to enjoy Q. But I gotta say that I think that for a long time, they've been stuck in Oasis/Blur/ this year's guitar band fronted by a pouty dude k-hole. perhaps its because 1995/Cool Britannia was the last time English people could feel as if they were on the vanguard of culture that the world was intrigued by. You could that Spice Girls were like that, but they, like a lot of subsequent phenoms, are not exactly the kinda stuff that I think Q feels they can fully endorse.

they do get very excited by hip-hop customized for their own culture, cf the Streets, Lady Sov and so on. but I can tell you as someone who has edited copy from a lot of Q contributors, those guys DO NOT GET, or are at least uncomfortable, with American hip-hop. those guys get guitar bands, dance msuic and goofy pop music that is part of their heritage.

is this defensive nativistism? I don't know.

what I said is that when they try, it seems that english writers (again, this is both on based on raw copy and the finished product) don't seem to be able to adequately address hip-hop. many Americans wouldn't be able to address chanson or gamelan, but there isn't a huge effort to do so anyway.

I'm curious: are you from the UK or US? you express yourself in a way that is very hard for me to place.

(uh huh uh huh)

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), March 18th, 2005.

-- The Lex (alex.macpherso...), October 6th, 2006.

That wasn't you I saw bopping away to well-known black artists Christina Aguilera and Annie From Norway last night then? ;-)

Cut the dose, Marcello!

-- Marcello Carlin (marcellocarli...), Today. (later) (link) (admin) (userip)

It's only fair to point out that the "Geir" post quoted above was not actually posted by Geir at all.

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), March 18th, 2005.

Wasn't that the original raison d'etre of Q, i.e a British version of Rolling Stone. Obviously didn't last long.

those guys DO NOT GET, or are at least uncomfortable, with American hip-hop

But their interpretation of hip-hop is just as valid as an American's take on brit-pop. Just becaused it seems 'wrong' to someone steeped in the culture doesn't mean they don't get it or it's wrong per-se.

and frankly, Brit-pop and its variants seem to be easily grasped by Americans, since the genre is based on '60s British rock and pop, which is essentially music that never went away and was emphasized as the common currency —the signal achievement of western culture, rockism, etc etc—in both countries and all over the world. lots and lots of crits I know are very hung up on brit-pop.

But that's not to say it's impossible. Knickerbockers did some wonderful stuff in the mid 60s in mock British accent, while The Records' 70s powerpop sounded just as right with their mock American accents.

Dissensus > Miscellaneous

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I'm banning Marcello cos firstly because I was pretty sickened by the chest-thumping and general foul behaviour on the hip-hop thread. I fucking hated this and am guilty for just discovering the general unpleasantness therein (two people alerted me). Other people may have been stirring the shit and I'll be checking them out too.

Also, and just as importantly, I'm sick of him nitpicking blissblogger. What the fuck is your problem with Simon Marcello? Grow up. What it boils down to is this. If I'm going to have a forum in which either Reynolds or Carlin are going to feel comfortable, then it's a fucking no-brainer.

Banning people who don't match his quasi-intelligent musings on pop is just one step away from ethnic cleansing, no?

more insanity from Q magazine, some right turkeys in this list. Q magazine have just set the benchmark for the worst end of year list of 2009.

via
http://www.soundopinions.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=22173

Q Top 50 Albums 2009:

50) Further Complications - Jarvis Cocker
49) Together Through Life - Bob Dylan
48) My Way - Ian Brown
47) The Liberty of Norton Folgate - Madness
46) True Romance - Golden Silvers
45) Outer South - Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band
44) Which Bitch? - The View
43) Imidiwan: Companions - Tinariwen
42) Mariachi El Bronx - Mariachi El Bronx
41) Two Dancers - Wild Beasts
40) 3 Words - Cheryl Cole
39) Primary Colours - The Horrors
38) Truelove's Gutter - Richard Hawley
37) Tarot Sport - Fuck Buttons
36) The Eternal - Sonic Youth
35) Backspacer - Pearl Jam
34) To Lose My Life... - White Lies
33) Bitte Orca - Dirty Projectors
32) Sunny Side Up - Paolo Nutini
31) Only Revelations - Biffy Clyro
30) La Roux - La Roux
29) Wilco (The Album) - Wilco
28) Working On A Dream - Bruce Springsteen
27) Horehound - Dead Weather
26) Two Suns - Bat For Lashes
25) The First Day of Spring - Noah and The Whale
24) The Ecstatic - Mos Def
23) Invaders May Die - The Prodigy
22) Oh My God, Charlie Darwin - The Low Anthem
21) Kings and Queens - Jamie T
20) Fever Ray - Fever Ray
19) Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk
18) The Boy Who Knew Too Much - Mika
17) 21st Century Breakdown - Green Day
16) Walking On A Dream - Empire of The Sun
15) Tongue N' Cheek - Dizzee Rascal
14) What Will Be - Devendra Banhart
13) Veckatimeist - Grizzly Bear
12) Everything Is New - Jack Penate
11) Kingdom of Rust - Doves
10) Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix - Phoenix
09) No Line On The Horizon - U2
08) It's Not Me, It's You - Lily Allen
07) The Resistance - Muse
06) Humbug - Arctic Monkeys
05) Journal For Plague Lovers - Manic Street Preachers
04) Merriweather Post Pavillion - Animal Collective
03) It's Blitz! - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
02) Lungs - Florence and The Machine
01) West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum - Kasabian

lol, all lists are terrible - at least they get people to pay for theirs

23) Invaders May Die - The Prodigy

Make a Song Title More Reasonable

What an awful, awful winner.

i gets worse...

Kasabian luv in at the NME this week
http://www.nme.com/magazine

that Krissi Murison has shifted NME even closer to the Q mainstream

rewind...it gets worse

40) 3 Words - Cheryl Cole

How the hell did this get in there? And nine places above Dylan?!

no idea, however there is evidence in that Q list that Q writers are clearly tone deaf

huh, aren't there 2009 albums that haven't had their promos distributed yet? Being a few months early with decade lists is kinda understandable, but this...

also, Mika has a new album? Who knew. Is it a major flop or have I just successfully blocked him out?

also, Mika has a new album? Who knew. Is it a major flop or have I just successfully blocked him out?

you obviously don't read Britain's most read music mag - OMM, as Mika was on their front cover a few months back

Martian's been limbering up for this moment for the last couple of months, like Gary Neville on the Anfield touchline.

i honestly had no idea that half of that list were even still making music, let alone releasing albums this year.

cheryl cole, wtf.

Q magazine is so establishment / mainstream, most 2009 mainstream albums have been released, and the ones yet to be released seem rather ordinary

upcoming mainstream releases
http://www.albumvote.co.uk/albums/prerel.aspx

He's also glossed over that band Salem he's been bumming for weeks getting listed on the NME cover there xxp

i gets worse...

actual lol

He's also glossed over that band Salem he's been bumming for weeks getting listed on the NME cover there xxp

Also actual lol.

Wow wow wow wow. I've subjected myself to that Kasabian album twice and cannot imagine a world anywhere ever where it could be considered the "best" of anything.

I believe that all music should be based on the Horst Wessel Song.

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), March 18th, 2005.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 6 October 2006 11:41 (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Sure, white people have made a lot of interesting music. Black people too, although not too much after hip-hop started dominating. Stevie Wonder, Earth Wind & Fire and Lionel Richie have all made lots of great music with lots of melodic and harmonic qualities.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 6 October 2006 11:43 (4 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Do you think Streicher got a bum deal at Nuremberg, then?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 6 October 2006 11:45 (4 years ago) Bookm

Was this ever a question that needed answering? Q was awful back then, and it's probably worse now.

(Although there was a period in the 90's when it wasn't so bad, I suppose)

Still not sure that Geir ≠ Marcello. Though lately I've been wondering if Geir = another (fav) ILXor. I am prone to looking for patterns, though.

MC's Geir sock was too strident, he could never get the unflustered tone right

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSEoszUXIAADi9W.jpg

The Soft Bulletin on the cover i note. 2/5 they gave that, first time round. Blue Lines getting pride of place as usual. wasn't even in their Top 50 *of that year* when it came out.

it's almost as if stuff has to hang around for a few years before it gets to be in the middlebrow canon

Rod Stewart's Ultimate Guide To Life? Guy Garvey Solo LP

I had that edition as a kid, and remember the list well.

you had this edition? easy to think that looking at it, but it isn't out til Tuesday!

For my sins I did buy Q fairly frequently when I was a callow youth, until I got wise to the fact that those "Top 100" lists they are always running are pure empty page filler. For such a chunky mag it was often surprisingly short on content, you could get through the meat of it in about an hour and were left with a nagging feeling you'd wasted your money.

The bigger problem has always been how it continues to reinforce an extremely conservative rock/pop orthodoxy, never challenging received opinions and always dishing out five stars to the same canonical big names. I guess that's the answer to how it keeps selling, it's like comfort reading for people who have a passing interest in music but aren't really interested in anything they don't already listen to.

https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/bauer-reveals-plans-to-close-merge-or-sell-ten-magazines-q-planet-rock-simply-you/

Magazine publisher Bauer Media plans to close, merge or sell ten of its print titles it says will not be sustainable once the Covid-19 crisis is over.

The titles affected are: music magazines Q and Planet Rock, car brands Modern Classics and Car Mechanics, “true-life” title Simply You, Mother and Baby, Golf World, Practical Photography, Sea Angler and Your Horse.

Bauer said for each of these titles it is currently looking at whether to move them to a digital-only format, merge them with sister titles, sell them, or close them altogether.

rip big man, heaven needed a magazine i assumed had stopped production at least a decade ago

Claiming Sea Angler and Your Horse for the name of my terrible new band.

I'd be surprised if some other publisher didn't step in and buy Q tbh. But who will save poor old Sea Angler?

Call him Ishmael Reed Publishing Company

* advertising jingle plays* Pick up your monthly copy of Golf World, now incorporating Q Magazine.

Uh, anyone on here ever write for Q?

sure, music can be timeless, but what's wrong with music also being fleeting, ephemeral? something to enjoy one day and forget the next? the joy of pop music doesn't require it being 'timeless'. you don't need to get married to every single record you buy -- there's room for plenty of one-night-stands, too
― geeta (geeta), Tuesday, 4 November 2003

i wish i could still have one night stands

With a magazine?

The magazine in Darlimg Nikki was probably not Q.

cover of the last issue answers the thread question nicely

begging to be polled. somehow.

i like it when you tag crappy old pop stars with their first names only because they're our friends

I thought Q was good in the late 80s and early 90s. It once got the Trouser Press record Guide’s endorsement.

I wish Geeta still posted here

― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK)

geeta's presence on this board was fleeting, ephemeral, something to enjoy one day and forget the next

I have some bad news about @QMagazine. The issue that comes out on July 28 will be our last. The pandemic did for us and there was nothing more to it than that. I have attached our final cover and my editor’s letter for context.
On the plus side, we’re all available for work. pic.twitter.com/rm8qOcUBtB

— Ted Kessler (@TedKessler1) July 20, 2020

I haven't read it in a few years, mostly because it seems to have nearly disappeared from shelves around here, but that was formative for me in the 1990s. Really sad news.

I'm guessing this is a direct result of advertising budgets getting slashed in the pandemic?

The reader-submitted interview questions feature yielded some amazing results. Bobby Gillespie and Ian Brown’s were jaw-dropping

aw man, that's sad

good riddance to this fucking pile o' shite.

^ The genuine voice of the British

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EdYHPSeWsAYRQSD?format=png&name=small

aka Pyjama Boy and the Wifebeater

what's wrong with being sexy?

The Beatles!

Plus! Paul Weller

somewhere in Equatorial Guinea is a landfill site full of 80,000 tons of Q FREE CD!(s).

Q has never been my thing but it doesn't seem a good thing that it is going.

why? will a dearth of Noel Gallagher magazine covers in W H Smiths bring a famine or something?

Like I said, haven't read a single issue in years and, by 2010, it was so far away from what I'd look for, but at this point the death of almost any print publication dedicated to music is kind of a disappointment, esp considering the larger implications for other magazines.

brit-pop industrial complex would have been supported by the state if you cunts had voted for Corbyn!

Well, I don't generally believe people losing their jobs is a good thing - and there will be decent people losing their livelihoods.

For all the tedious Gallagher (or whoever) covers, I'd also guess that lots of other groups, who are easier to care about, will be affected by this.

it's always a good feeling when people you can't fucking stand lose their jobs, anyone who says different is lying!

lol

Dipped back into Q again during Ted Kessler's recent stint as editor and it had massively improved from the dark and increasingly vacuous days post-2000, seemed to be gearing itself back towards it's better years, even if it was sadly too late.

At my barber it is either this or a men's "health" magazine.

thank fuck for phones, Kindles, staring absently into the void

rip big man, heaven needed a magazine i assumed had stopped production at least a decade ago

― a denim head and an aficionado of Japanese craftsmanship (bizarro gazzara), Monday, 18 May 2020 20:31 (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

It was often great the last few years. Fascinating behind the scenes stuff here from Ted Kessler

https://www.qthemusic.com/articles/almost-famous-ted-kessler

Who do the ilxors seemingly hate Q Magazine?

thank fuck for phones, Kindles, staring absently into the void

― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague)

being stared into absently by the void

lol yeah that too

I'd agree with Ted Kessler that Andrew Harrison's appointment marked a significant uptick, after the grim listicle days. I settled into buying Q about 3 or 4 times a year to read on long train journeys, and the innards were always better than the covers suggested. Sylvia Patterson's stuff stood out, and having invented the "stars answer readers' questions" concept, they continued to execute it well. The reviews section was always the weakest section, though. Way too cautious. There's no accolade thinner than a four-star album review in Q.

They used to give pretty much every album three stars iirc

I have every q mag from sept 1989 to mid 2003 in a bookshelf; they are alongside every mojo from 1994 to the same end point. From an american viewpoint, or at least my own, from 1989 to 1995, the dad-rock-orientation seemed a million times better than that of Rolling Stone, and I aspired to write in that manner, although a lot less PG Wodehouse-ish. to me, it was a magazine that was simply concerned with the width and breadth of anglo and american popular music. Ear Xtacy in louisville Ky did not carry NME or the Melody Maker, and I probly would have not wanted to read it if it did. I have no doubt that this sounds clueless to english ILXors.

And so in 1995, around the time that Q (and every other english music magazine or newspaper) got in the tank for brit-pop, I worked for TimeOut NY for the first four years of its existence (Tony Elliott, TimeOut's founder/publisher, died this week; he was a great guy) and the tone that i had cultivated worked well there. And then in 2000-2001, after I was fired from TONY, my fondest hope would have been to work for an american version of Q. I got my wish: I worked for Blender, which was easily the worst experience of my life. Shortly after beginning to work there, I did not want to read Q any longer, seeing as the Blender EiC was a former Q editor, and having an entirely unpleasant working relationship with an individual who strongly disdained americans and touted the Q formula (and english writers in general) as an unassailable ideal utterly extinguished my former enthusiasm.

For a long time afterwards, during my time at that mag and after I was fired, I strongly disliked english people, as well as the Q formulas and the accompanying editorial tone. Once I got over that, I still was not going to start buying it again, particularly as they would go back to the well over and over again for Oasis, Blur and Radiohead, and could only muster a head of steam for the Strokes and other G/B/D acts that they felt their readership would understand… I guess that Kasabian cover above speaks to that… was Q all about landfill indie in the late 00s?