Does Britain need a new weekly diverse and radical music magazine? to take on NME's dull complacency

Music and it's culture is at all time low - thanks to Pop these days just being a factory line with no room for being creative. The marketing is more important than the songs. Dance keeps repeating itself and people who listen to it are twats anyway. Indie has become boring and stale, and needs a good firm kick up the arse if it is to be at least a little fresh and exciting again. (Ha!).

god help us.

Bill

fact - taking an overall knowledge of contemprary music, there are few people who can match me with knowledge across the sound spectrum from dark metal to tech house to spacerock to electro industrial etc.

fact - However there are MANY people with specialist indepth knowledge of particular genres and music scenes that I continue to learn from on an ongoing daily basis.

Josh, even you mentioned the overload of keeping up with music in relation to Uncle Fester best of lists.

Why can't there be one weekly music magazine, that rather reflects sets and shapes the music agenda. With the best music writers, both cross genre types and other writers have a deep specialist and informed knowledge within particular genres. But rather keeping the best music locked into music ghettos, a quality focused eclectic music magazine - can inspire, rather than reading 10 average market researched niche music titles, give me one excellent one - that breaks the rules, challenges, questions, informs, has strong opinions and enthuses.

Music for me is about discover, sound exploration. Yes the internet is a very useful tool - but I also want to read an exiciting weekly printed music magazine.

Rather than keeping music in ghettos, interesting creative music deserves a wider audience.

josh stated "Your question implies (to me at least) that you think there's stuff you can't read about on the internet. Like what? "

that is not my intention, there are many websites that I check and read on a regular basis, see my website for details, it can be time consuming!. However most of the deep knowledge of new music, is initially locked into specialist genre scene websites - with few exceptions, the idea behind a radical, diverse, eclectic music magazine - is that it would break music out of scene ghettos, fasttrack new talent, inform a wider audience, interesting music deserves a wider audience.

This past year I have had a growing interest in artists in noisecore, metalcore etc such as Botch, Dillinger Ecape Plan, Isis, Drowingman, and there a growing number of artists that I am taking an interest in such as Taken, Zao, Sky came falling, Grade. Does MM or NME cover these artists no!

Does the MM/NME cover artists such electro industrialists such as Hocico or VNV Nation ? no

Has the NME/ MM picked up artists such as Ulver, Artcturus, In the Woods, Strapping Young Lad, Beyond Dawn,3rd & the Mortal, Anathema, Solefald in recent years? No

Why does the MM/ NME choose to put dumbasses such Fred durst on the cover? and not Cave in, Trans Am, or And You Will know Us by the Trail of Dead

Has the NME/ or MM - celebarated jungle - this year - no

Why have NME/ MM - ignored an exceptional talented artist such as Zan Lyons this year - Zan's talent deserves a wider audience

Why has NME not put Laurent Garnier - on the front cover this year?

Why has the NME not celebrated the excellent tech house music as featured on MR C show on Kiss? Circulation, Layo & Bushwacka etc

I could go with countless other examples !

So yes there are a range of artists (that I am aware of from the internet or John Peel or other music magazines/ fanzines)that NME does not cover that I would like to read reviews, interviews, and writers perspectives on, also a good music writer/magazine should also be able to introduce and switch me on to artists that I am unfamiliar with - e.g Terrorizer, Wire, Outburn, Knowledge, Beware the Cat, Wax, Side Line, etc - however these magazines range from monthlies - to quarterlys per year etc. However I want a weekly fix.

I simply would like to read an interesting, informed, passionate music magazine each week, - is this to much to ask for? the MM did this well in 87/ 88, and I also enjoyed reading Sounds in the 80s.

NME - does not inspire me, it does not cover the across the spectrum music that I enjoy and am interesting in learning more about, it offers poor analysis, and its writers are not given space and encouraged to voice their opinions.

Indeed a better approach to music journalism, would be to give key writers there own page, with their thoughts on music, internet websites to check out, playlists, albums of the week etc - rather the NME today has a dull house style of journalism - that is merely consumerist PR rehashed, inane waffle with mainstream musical non entities, single reviews that are through away, album reviews that are insubstanial, no analytical thought pieces, over familiar artists that offer nothing new, the ignorance of many areas of contemporary music, no fasttracking of exceptional musical talent regardless of sales figures etc. NME is way sort of what a music magazine should be.

NME, MM, Select, Q, Mojo etc - have failed music and discerning music fans over the the last decade. Surely we deserve something far better? I dont want indie smash hits (MM/NME), John Lennon/Q deadrock mags like mojo/Q, clubs and drugs lifestyle not music magazines such as Mixmag/ Ministry.

Now will EMAP relaunch Sounds(they bought the rights to the name) when Morgan Grampian publishers sold out to EMAP along with Kerrang in 1991.

EMAP in 2001 I believe will launch a rival weekly music magazine, instead of a 3 way tie, with MM out of the way, and the NME having so many weaknesses - this is too good a chance to take on IPC/ NME. They will do it.

DJ Martian djmartian.blogspot.com

Also, where does the idea that it takes skill or ability to keep up with music come from? I'd say it takes a lot more disposable income and spare time than skill. I can find out what records people recommend easily; it's having the money to buy them and the time to listen to them that I find difficult.

I suppose also we're nastier about music. Hmm. Okay, try this romantic analogy on for size - Tangents is about putting pop on a pedestal, whereas FT is about a relationship with pop, the downs as well as the ups. But if you think we're not 'devotional' you're not reading hard enough.

"WE'RE NOT REALLY IN COV HONEST MR AND MRS NICE SOUTHERN TORY PARENTS" :).

"Cherry red doc wearing stupid Bronx hat and shorts combo sidewinding Carter shirt over PWEI long-sleeve stripey-tights pony-owning drippy horse-faced please hit me Mazola-haired spotty sack-of-subservience girlfriend-having ... put 'Glory Box' on to show how hip you are and with every word of your cretinous jabber make me wanna rip your face off ... do the sailor's hornpipe to The Levellers have a zany 'Quotes Board' in your communal kitchen sneer at townies ruin every pub you set foot in for nine months ... tie chequered shirt round your waist goatee-beard attempting waiting for your balls to drop say pants when annoyed Terry Pratchett reading Vic'n'Bob quoting stupid dense thick crass sottish doltish dumb imbecilic dim idiotic asinine fatuous inane gormless banal snide mindless brainless daft backsliding pig cunt bastard scab insect bitch shiteating monkeyspunk gorging faced arseheaded sweaty ring-pierced fucking SCUM. Yeah, I'm talking to YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!!!

Oh, you'll *love* it."

MM, 15th July 1995. The only way to go was down ...

Go figure :).

As for Scott's article, well it's hardly surprising that a US piece would end up having such a skewed perception of the whole thing (Tim says, living in Australia, but then I bet Scott doesn't spend nearly as much on 2-step as I do) and so on average Scott did a pretty good job. The jungle comment was the only one that actually shocked me - how can you possibly like 2-step and not like at least some jungle?

Here's where the story (of music) ends

Maybe not.

Why not?
The original question is still relevant don't you think?

NME's dull complacency? I disagree, they seem frantically desperate to keep solvent by any means possible while bigging themselves up at every opportunity.

Apart from that, relevant.

Err...no.

riight. fine logic!!! does iraq need peace? no, becasue otherwise it'd have it.

Replace "Britain" with "the US" and "NME's" with "Rolling Stone's and Spin's" and you're ridiculously OTM.

Rolling Stone is ten times duller than NME.

What the Britan might have benefited from was if Q turned into a weekly mag, giving good reviews and positive coverage to the music that actually sounds good, regardless of time and trends, rather than what the kids decide they want to use to provoke parents and teachers with right now.

If Q 'enthused' about stuff that 'sounds' good, why criticise anybody? Everything 'sounds' good.

A completely wild guess on my part, but I'm thinking that maybe you're not incredibly familiar with the British dance press?

I did, I stopped buying the NME.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1821508769/decompression-music-magazine

getting a warm djmartian glow off of this

NME's coverage of industrial and darkwave is non existent.

first ilm thread I ever read. I recall a friend linking me to it saying that I would enjoy ILM.

If they're going for that design aesthetic, I'm already out.

That's horrible.

"Philosophy". Yeah, right.

oh my god WHERE IS THE APOSTROPHE in that massive strapline

The 'FREE CD' on the cover is kind of quaint.

"Sales of music itself" are not "rapidly declining."

Not exactly the Paris Review.

This would have been amazing for 15 y/o me in 1995. What is "Crossover"?

what is EBM

"electronic butt music"

9 results (0.27 seconds)

english black metal, they hurl eggs at football stadiums

nah sticking with mine

EBM in fairness was actually a thing - basically industrial dance music.

The only two photos visible feature a white dude with dreadlocks and a bloke in a balaclava. All they need is a dog on a string and they've got the hat trick.

the dreads guy is Aaron Spectre, I quite like him because I'm up to speed with the hot squat sounds of 2004

pledge £178.95 and they can upgrade to Photoshop CS4.

I don't think they've really thought this through if they think they can produce a decent print magazine for a grand.

i was gonna say they'd have a hard time selling it, but maybe a squatter/crusty revival is just round the corner.

looking at the sort of stuff they're talking about covering, I think it's more for metalheads who like a bit of dance music on the side as long as it reminds them of metal. the dummy issue has Anaal Nathrakh on the cover. if they're only printing 250 copies they'd prolly do better making it look like an authentic shonky cut'n'paste fanzine instead of something made on a government training scheme

Is Rock a Rolla magazine still going?

No, I think it married Kate Winslet.

A "physical magazine of musical style"? With a free CD and sticker bundle?

OMG TAKE MY MONEY

The 'FREE CD' on the cover is kind of quaint.

don't pretty much all the monthlies still have a covermount CD on every issue? surely this is no more quaint than printing on paper?

For extra redundancy there should be a PDF of the magazine on the CD.

The fact that they felt the need to list breakcore, speedcore and gabba seperately speaks volumes. Reeks of crusty.

Is Rock a Rolla magazine still going?

http://rock-a-rolla.com/main/