Word Magazine

sob,
m.

Music Sites

Radio 2
Dotmusic
Record collector

Other
Ebay

Bands
Bruce Springsteen
U2
David Gray
REM
David Bowie
Peter Gabriel
Rolling Stones
Beatles
James Taylor
Lucinda Williams
Tom Mcrae

jesus thats a grim list
its like a more conservative uncut

Hepworth & Ellen = classic rock dullards.

Hello Mr Hepworth it's NOT 1985 anymore and this is [NOT] Britain 2004.

I agree with what Neil Tennant said this week about the Smash Hits ethic having been taken over by Q: "they took the framework but left the commitment behind." In other words, sarky, WRY "humour" without any great belief in new music or belief in anything other than servicing their ready-made demographic who find the current format of Q "for kids."

There are some good writers at WORD; Peter Paphides, Jim "Arundel" Irvin, but it isn't Melody Maker exactly, but then neither is UNCUT...

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/observermusic/2008/03/inky_fingers_2.html

unusually, a piece of writing from omm that has some critical heft and perspective. naturally it's anonymous.

Anonymous? I bet Quantick wrote it!

hah. it's hard to place among omm writers. it lacks their usual superficiality and desperation to please.

I'm pretty sure it's Ben Thompson that does those music press bits...

ok, i don't want to be all 'lol old people' but...

word magazine this month has a feature introducing little-known auteur judd apatow. the films may be bawdy, but they are soft-at-heart, don't be put off by the swears.

I actually think this mag is better-written and more engaging, whatever its focus (and however out of it the eds may be), than any other U.K. rock mag right now.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n12/n63518.jpg

"I actually think this mag is better-written and more engaging, whatever its focus (and however out of it the eds may be), than any other U.K. rock mag right now."

Agreed. It's certainly more readable than Uncut.

I will say that it has visibly gotten worse the past couple years--if I were brand new to it I might not still be buying it. and their focus isn't mine by any means, musically speaking. I do like how un-top-down it seems; the writers seem to be encouraged to write in their own voices and not in some neutered quasi-omniscient way. but I suspect because I'm American this is more appealing to me at this late date than it would be for someone who'd grown up reading Smash Hits and Select (the latter I came to very late, via a stack of used copies I found at a record shop a few years ago--quite enjoyable, and it's probably not a coincidence that The Word was less impressive to me after reading those.)

^^ yeah basically what is good in word is like an echo of what was good in select. which is not really a surprise coz a fair number of their writers wrote for it.

but their younger writers are pretty lame imo.

which reminds me 'MONDEO POP: POPPIN OFF IN 09' has to get happened.

Pitchfork need to stop trying to make indie rock and dancehall happen and stick with proven formulas like Mondeo Pop, imo.

Saw the latest issue today. It's lost its binding and gained staples. The beginning of the end?

I've never read it because the cover features and lead stories seemed to make MOJO and Uncut look edgy. Gives a similar bland feel that Paste does, not sure if I'm correct though. I've been picking up Uncut lately, drawn to the cover features on Orange Juice, Kate Bush and "Lost Albums," but the magazine as a whole is just not worth the $10. I read Filter for the first time in a while, but it continues to lack depth. I might just have to try The Word. A look at their covers:

Featured on cover 3 or more times: Morrissey, Elvis Costello, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Keith Richards.

2 times: John Peel, Beatles/Lennon, John Martyn, Robert Plant, Leonard Cohen, Pet Shop Boys, Dylan, Roger Waters, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Paul Weller,

60s-80s: Ian Dury, Robert Wyatt, Bono, Iggy, Kate Bush, Lemmy, Gilmour, Johnny Marr, Van Morrison, Jim Morrison, Joe Strummer, Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Mick Jones, Ry Cooder, Eric Clapton, Prince,

90s-00s: Elbow, Radiohead, Rufus Wainwright, Amy Winehouse, Killers, Jack Johnson, KT Turnstall, Noel Gallagher, Pete Doherty, White Stripes, Jeff Buckley, Franz Ferdinand, Travis, Dido, Björk, Blur.

I'm so bored with the tradition of covers obsessed with 60s & 70s icons, it's pathetically refreshing to see a feature on a lesser known 80s group like Orange Juice. Why the relative lack of bands on covers? As the boomers reach retirement age and care less and less about music, will any of these magazines shift to 80s-00s before they close shop? And if so, will the relative lack of unifying blockbuster sellers from more recent eras mean they'll never feature anything like XTC, Sonic Youth, Fugazi, MBV, Talk Talk, PJ Harvey, Orbital, Disco Inferno, Massive Attack, Laika, Labradford, Tricky, DJ Shadow, etc.?

i think word is for younger-than-boomer people

idk i haven't read it, but the writers are mostly people i recognize from the 90s

so i guess you'll see a transition from articles about 70s weller to articles about 90s weller

and people younger than me are still interested in the smiths &c. there's plenty of unifying nineties shit.

> idk i haven't read it, but the writers are mostly people i recognize from the 90s

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/

hepworth was born in 1950 = 60, mark ellen was editor of smash hits in '83.

they is well old.

They got me name wrong.

The Word magazine folds..

(url)http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk(url)

Sad, cos it had some good writing and string ideas – more interesting at heart than any of the other UK music mags. But it was hamstrung by
a) Budgets
b) Inability to compete for topline interviews
c) This illustrations-on-the-cover business that made it reliably the least attractive publication in the newsagent
d) The Eeyoreish worldview of David Hepworth hanging over everything. Why would you want to read about modern music in a mag where one of the founders is telling you that music can be scientifically proven to have been getting worse every year since 1971?

Strong ideas. Probably had some string ideas too.

The articles were fine.

The 'funnies' were very hit/miss

the free CDs were immediate landfill afaiwc

and the general music policy was "nick lowe is our god" which I'd have agreed with back in 1978 or something, but.

RIP, I hardly read ye

wonder if the Rocking Vicar mailout will start back up again

rip 40 quid man

True, true: I rolled my eyes at the endless Nick Lowe references, and the CDs were bloody awful, and allowances had to be made for certain aspects of the editorial worldview... but I still read each and every issue cover to cover. Very sorry to see it go.

And they published my "Ella/Ele Guru/garoo" fridge magnet pic

d) The Eeyoreish worldview of David Hepworth hanging over everything. Why would you want to read about modern music in a mag where one of the founders is telling you that music can be scientifically proven to have been getting worse every year since 1971?

^^^^ this. Also Hepworth once did a Weekend Magazine Q&A for the Guardian in which he said the thing he despised most in the world was "liberals." In addition he used to have a show on the old GLR station on Sunday evenings called "Executive Drivetime."

He and his chums destroyed decent music writing in the eighties with Q and now it's payback time.

Perhaps if they had actually APPROACHED writers rather than relying on them to "submit their own pocket reviews" then they wouldn't have ended up like this.

He always reminded me of someone I met once, who when asked what kind of music he was into would always reply "I like all music".

Except if you asked him specifically about any band that wasn't Rush, would say "well, I don't consider that music"

(maybe that's unfair, but.)

guess i should not be tempted by this that hit my inbox then :

------------SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND #228------------

SFTW 228: 28 June 2012

-------------------------------------------

* Subscribe to The Word
@ [ http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/buy ]

i only ever picked up issue #1.

a fatal error IMHO was deciding that you could only hear their funny, warm, inclusive podcasts if you subscribed. they'd been doing them for about 5 years and when that happened, suddenly you were shut out from their world unless you gave them £30 a year. i didn't realise it at the time but it effectively ended my interest in and affection for the mag. hadn't even ocurred to me that i hadn't read an issue for a year until i saw this thread.

mm, when a mag starts trying really hard to get subscribers, they be havin dar cash flo probs, right?

kind of assumed Word was relatively safe by the standards of Our Dying Industry (partially BECAUSE of it's old-music-is-where-it's-at air, ie selling to people willing to spend £££ on magazines). don't think their taste and my taste intersected even slightly but it's depressing to realise that wasn't the case.

i'm always slightly surprised to realise that people have affection for podcasts. podcast commenters tend to be the MEANEST though.

To be fair, it wasn't just Nick Lowe they venerated. It was Robyn Hitchcock as well.

Wow, Lex … You never look at ABCs? Miracle is it lasted this long.

i never even heard of this magazine?

RobHitch I could understand...

hmm, why is that?

probably because NLowe looks older than my dad (and I am old enough already), whereas RHitch is wearing slightly better.

My dad was school chums with Nick Lowe and any mention of his name would throw him into a state of fond remembrance. Maybe I should have I bought him a subscription?

kevin rowland in fine form re the news :

'i wish it had ended before they reviewed our new album'

take it that the review wasn't as gushing as the rest of the gang ?

ah, they're all over Facebook at the mo..

Buy them a lil lisa simpson printing press!

http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/222839_5404604809_2257_n.jpg

South Lanarkshire could do with a music magazine (and some record shops), Marcello. Got any influence up here?

Given that I'm old enough to remember Bryce Curdy, probably not. Not lived there for nearly 31 years either, so I'm a stranger in my own back yard, as Gilbert O'Sullivan once named an album (see what I mean?).

Grouty xp - dunno, I'd love to get some big names on board so folk can read some really substantial stuff and I have drawn up and costed a business plan, it's just a matter of getting finance-type people/potential backers interested.

More power te yiz.

oh man first tom d talking about Mr Abie and now a Bryce Curdy mention. Next we will be talking about John Toye!

A rather sad story, is John Toye's:

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

Don't have to read that, booze is it?

My maw used to tut and shake her head and the mention of his name

Not unlike Marcello does with David Hepworth

Who the fuck is Nick Lowe?

Was in Brinsley Schwarz but, on their commercial failure, changed careers to read the news for STV in the 70s

xpost Why are you pretending to be Nick S, Lex?

I do occasionally have small areas of massive disconnect which could be said to be Lex-esque, to be fair. This is one of them. Was he in Haircut 100?

That was Nik Kershaw

Nick Lowe is awesome. The first couple of albums anyway

aaah

i was just gonna post that ACTUALLY i DO know who nick lowe is but then i looked it up and the guy in the pet shop boys is CHRIS lowe

no idea who nick lowe is then

Who's Nick Haywood? Or Hayward?

Nick Leeson?

Heyward.

No, Nik Kershaw used to do world music programmes on Radio 1.

Which insufferable cunt wrote "I Am The One And Only" for Chesney Hawkes?

i love the thought of nick lowe in the pet shop boys

After Brinsley Schwartz he went solo and was at the heart of Stiff records. So It Goes and Heart of the City were key early independent singles. Produced first Damned album and loads of other Stiff stuff. Married Johnny Cash's daughter.

For past 30 years he has existed largely as someone to be written about in music magazines aimed at men who were young in 1971. Allan Jones's back page column in Uncut seemed always to begin: "We're on the M1 just south of Sheffield when Nick Lowe says he knows a pub where the landlord sells double brandies for the price of a single."

Curiously, this month's raft of Lawrence coverage – for a record that will sell no more than 12 copies, all to middle-aged men - suggests he is to my generation what Lowe is to Hepworth's: a beloved underachiever who personifies one view of English rock.

That John Toye link is genuinely tragic... if only he was more famous, David Walliams could have played him in a sensitive BBC4 drame

wHO'S lAWRENCE?

xxp: sad to say I am one of those 12 middle-aged men.

SMouthy xp: hero of Arabia

For past 30 years he has existed largely as someone to be written about in music magazines aimed at men who were young in 1971. Allan Jones's back page column in Uncut seemed always to begin: "We're on the M1 just south of Sheffield when Nick Lowe says he knows a pub where the landlord sells double brandies for the price of a single."

lol and otm

Which insufferable cunt wrote "I Am The One And Only" for Chesney Hawkes?

That was his father, a famous pop star in his own right back in the day, Tony Hawkes of Morris & the Minors of "Stutter Rap" fame

tom d otm

xp: no, it was Bill McCue.

Of course, a couple of years back a scandal broke concerning Chesney Hawkes paternity when it was claimed his real father was one half of the hitmaking duo Flanagan & Allen, Chesney Allen

If it wasn't Bill McCue, then it would have been Colin McDonald, host of Radio Clyde's prog rock show Son Of Baroque And Roll. Definitely wasn't Ken Sykora.

xxp It's not Nik Kershaw, it's "Nicker" Shaw. He was a legendary burglar, finally nicked by "Nipper" Reed after breaking into Westminster Abbey and stealing Edward Lear's floorstone, which he had planned to sell to an absurdist crime syndicate in Catford.

Those Krazy Katford Kats!

Lawrence Hayward?

Star of Manchurian Candidate innit. Oh wait a minute that was Harvey Out Of So Solid Crew.

Nipper nicks Nicker over Lear.

Curiously, this month's raft of Lawrence coverage

I may have missed it but other than a review in your publication a couple of weeks ago I haven't seen any Lawrence coverage at all.

xp to Mark G yep or Go Kart Mozart as he now styles himself

Interview in Q, big review in the Times by Will Hodgkinson, respectful reviews in all the monthlies, and not all capsule reviews. For someone of his commercial stature it's an avalanche of press.

Will Hodgkinson? The organist from Henry Cow?

... sorry this is getting silly now

just want to say "aw" at Simpsgrouts

yeah, Alice did that a few years ago. Now they're both near to my wife's height.

Will Hodgkinson was always going to write a glowing piece on Lawrence. Will's book "Song man" has numerous interviews with Lawrence and sets him up as a tragic genius, which is only half true.

There was a feature on Lawrence in Mojo a few months back to tie in with the film. He was also on "The One Show" not so long ago - it's on youtube somewhere. Lawrence overload?

So who is Colin Dobbins then?

the late lamented nrq had a review of Lawrence of Belgravia is the most recent Sight & Sound too

No wonder I was reading the Nicks section of this thread as lyrics building up to a chorus of "these were the Nicks of the Eighties", approximately to the tune of "The Great Pub Rock Revival"

I've just been sent the Nik Kershaw's eighth studio album, Ei8ht (do you see what he did there?). Life gets no better.

Robert Smith on the front of the final issue: their most hideous cover illustration ever? Still, he makes a nice Goth Forefather bookend with Nick Cave on the front of the first issue. How far we have travelled!