Alternative Press: Useless Rag or Insightful Bit of Lit?

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I picke don e up the other day becasue i hate rolling stone. THey seem to focus on the dull bands. Any feelings gentle posters? PLease share.

― -- Mike Hanley, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Last time I looked, 10-page cover feature on Creed. Enough said.

― tarden, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

AP doesn't have actresses showing their tits off on the cover, that's really the only discernable difference I see between it and RS. It just replaces the blandness of RS approved artists like Dylan with more alterna-friendly faces like Reznor. Therefore, a dud.

At least no one has brought up magnet yet.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

yes magnet (well, you did bring it up!). i've never seen magnet, what is it like? i heard that bardo pond were on the cover once or something...

― gareth, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

They have some insightful t-shirt slogans.

― scott p., Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I didn't mean to say that Dylan himself is bland, but the predictable and fawning attention paid to Dylan, Beatles, et. al in Rolling Stone is bland.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Alt Press: Oh, lord. Useless, though they might have an Insightful Bit ON Lit (the band - don't worry if you haven't heard 'em). If you're willing to weed through the damn photo spreads & the over-long coverage of mainstreaming crap (of all varieties), then you might find something worth your while. It's so much work, though, and it's really not worth it. It used to be, though. Hell, it used to be that you didn't HAVE to work through the crap. However, please note the relative lack of hip-hop/R&B coverage.

Magnet: A solid li'l magazine. Eclectic selection of articles, decent writing, comprehensize reviews section (though I think it's a bit light & fluffy @ times). The latest issue features articles/interviews with Ennio Morricone, Air, Spoon, Joe Pernice, & other stuff. Might not be your cup of tea, but it's a great mag for the indie+ crowd. Barely any coverage of hip-hop/R&B, though - if it's guitar-based, you'll find it here.

Once again, though, I've found that my best source for most of the music I'm interested in is the Internet. Thank you, cable modem(s). If you subsist solely on e-mail lists, boards like this little jewel, and the occasional homemade mag/web-zine, you'll do just fine.

― David Raposa, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Insightful bit of info on LIT: They suck, and should be summarily ignored.

Alternative Press aid and abet the homogenization of "alternative" rock, paving the way for meaningless, cookie-cutter piffle like Marilyn Manson, Blink 182, No Doubt, Sum 41, Fear Factory, blah blah blah etc. etc. Absolutely devoid of credibility.

― alex in nyc, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yes, but the sucky thing about the internet is you meet all these cool people who know so much about music and will tell you little pieces of information like having the new Spiritualized album but cruelly refusing to make mp3's of it. You don't get that kind of mental torture from the dullards at Rolling Stone!

This has led me to go a little more batty and send postcards of apes to indie boys. No, really.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Unless, of course, the mix of the new Spiritualized album that said indie boy has is absolutely AWFUL, and TERRIBLY BADLY MIXED with all the RAWK mixed out, and you really would be better off not having your faith tested by hearing it until the Prophet Jason Pierce has saved it.

Not that I know anything about anything, cause of course I don't.

Oh, wait, sorry, Alternative Press. They are DUD because they did a review of one of my sister's bands, and used a PHOTO of her that *I* had taken in the article, and NEVER gave me credit. For that, they suck.

― masonic boom, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Would anyone here actually wear those T-shirts? Go-on, own up.

― DG, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I don't care I don't care I don't ca-hare...it's akin to telling Jason you have drugs but you refusing to give him any. Do you think he would care about the quality?

I never said the person who had the album was an indie boy, just the person I am sending ape abuse to. Two different people.

To be sorta on topic, I did read AP back in the day (early 90's) when they would feature bands like Bark Psychosis and Seefeel, etc. However, it didn't take them too long to bland out.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Magnet is decent enough. Loses points for closing almost every review with some inexcusably pat statement- "So if you like your music sunny- side up, then Damien Toast and the Breakfasteers are ready to serve your ears". Splendid-e-Zine is guilty of that, too. And those Magnet back page editorials rarely venture beyond dissing manufactured pop, and propagating back to '91 nostalgia.

― Mitch Lastnamewithheld, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The features in AP are beyond terrible, the design is nauseating, but they usually have a good review section. Dave Segal edits the back half of the mag and does a nice job, w/ writers that cover diverse music fairly well (good electronic music coverage for an American mag, much better than Magnet, if that even has any.) They had a special multiple-cover thing for Insane Clown Posse, so that's pretty hard to forgive. As noted elsewhere on ILM, we take what we can get here in the States.

― Mark, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Which is why I spend an inordinate amount of green on UK music mags (ie Mojo, Uncut) - totally different type of coverage, less pretentiously hip verbage, and less emphasis on FASHION! (God help me if I actually buy a copy of NME.)

― David Raposa, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Dave Segal edits the back half of the mag and does a nice job, w/ writers that cover diverse music fairly well

My main beef with Segal is that he used give an inordinate amount of coverage to his brother's band.

― Nicole, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I love Alternative Press because it gives such a fabulous amount of space to alternative and unknown bands like Nine Inch Nails! Wow! Imagine that!

― Sean Carruthers, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hey! I still have all my AP Trent covers taped up on the wall of my old bedroom. Anyway, yes Alt Press sticks huge MTV gross bands on the cover, probably so they can actually make money. But they do a ton of coverage on smaller bands, and electronic music, and they have a ton of reviews. Also they've seemed to increase the amount of "low profiles" they do on up and coming bands, which is a good thing. So speaking as someone who was stuck in the midwest for 24 years where the hipster 'zines don't reach, Alternative Press is a blessing.

― bnw, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

it started as a zine but since about the mid-90s they see to have had a push towards the mainstream inhabited by spin and rs. it is completely useless and i wish they would come up with a ratings system for their reviews and stick with it. i don't think fred mills reviews for ap so they have something going for them over magnet.

― keith, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

We keep a copy in the bathroom here for a laugh... I like to see a photo of Shirley Manson when I pee. I seem to remember the mag was better a few years ago, but it just sucks now. I prefer National Geographic...

― andy, Tuesday, 19 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

whatever happened to easy listener?

― gareth, Wednesday, 20 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

seven years pass...

I don't really read magazines, but noticed a copy of Alternative Press in my Safeway last night. Instead of being grouped with Guitar World and Blender and SPIN or whatever, it was placed right next to the Advocate.

The really weird thing is, I can't imagine anyone in my neighborhood reading either of those mags. Like, where are all these emo kids and homos?

― kingkongvsgodzilla, Friday, 13 March 2009 12:38 (sixteen years ago)

where do you live that doesn't have emo kids and homos?

― congratulations (n/a), Friday, 13 March 2009 13:01 (sixteen years ago)

three years pass...

So I subscribed to Spon because it was cheap and it allowed me to catch up on mainstreamy alternative musical stuffs. Now they are dead and I haven't read AP regularly in several years. Is it worth subscribing?

I am aware that subscribing to print magazines marks me a Luddite but what can I say? I want to support the scene.

― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative), Tuesday, 19 February 2013 22:06 (twelve years ago)

I don't think AP is for you, and I say that as a regular contributor since 1997. They cover whatever 15 to 17-year-olds like. Period.

― 誤訳侮辱, Tuesday, 19 February 2013 22:48 (twelve years ago)

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