It's Another Music Press Question

I am not convinced that any online publication can succeed as a professional endeavour paying actual money to its contributors and editors.

As for print media, I don't know. One thing you keep hearing is that demographic trends - less young people - are screwing the music press, and that is what is leading to disappearing titles. But stupid decisions (like the Maker's transformation into a sports metal rag) must play a part.

Niche marketing = major major major part of the problem. In 1978, how many "youth titles" were there?

Music = NME/MM/Sounds/Record Mirror/Zigzag/Black Echoes. All "of a type" (for those not old enough, RM was like current gay mags Fluid and Boyz w/o small ads for fisting...)
Sport: Shoot etc (comics, basically)
Gurlstuff: Jackie
Actual comics: Beano, 2000AD, a variety

NME/MM had readership c.200,000 — MM's larger mid-70s, punk reversed this but readership dropped everywhere w.punk — Sounds was the prole outsider (metal & punk, more zine-y design). Consituency was cross-cultural by default: we had NOWHERE ELSE TO GO (inc. preciously little TV and highly patrolled and delimited radio).

NME's policy c.81-87 — to counter steady decline (90,000-odd when I left in 1988) — was wanly PC-ish inclusiveness. Assumption that eg jazz frans would tolerate rap fans would tolerate indie fans = Rainbow Coalition of feebleness = didn't work.

Slightly gobsmacked and crackheaded positivity note: I've never come across anything LIKE ILE in media = zone of elective affinity based on premise of ANYTHING GOES?!?! To me (= big ole sap), it's the realisation of NME's secret and way bodged potential c.1981, where "rock" as audience-basis was blown WIDE OPEN by punk, and future = we ("we") can and MUST about ANYTHING.

Charging for it: here's a thing. I have discovered — it's a disaster but it's true — that I PREFER WRITING WHEN I'M NOT BEING PAID. (Do I write better? You decide...)

["blown WIDE OPEN by punk" = basis off my endlessly deferred official response to LIKE PUNK NEVER HAPPENED thread...]

I agree with Mark in that I don't mind writing when I'm not getting paid, but I REALLY REALLY dislike when I THINK I'm going to get paid, and then I don't. Nothing like telling people that your cheques bounced because the editor timed his Gary Glitter cover story VERY badly and the magazine folded.

i'd love someone to pay me for writing this. at least i know it won't be cut*. funnily enough, if you'll pardon the funnily enough, the only time i have ever really been cut in my writing life, if you'll forgive the in my life, is when i write for uncut. meanwhile, that thing you're talking about - i say the hacienda must be built. i'm afraid, though, as i am not being paid for writing this, so must stop and return to wherever, that i/we must leave it in your hands, tom. (can i be show business editor ?)

* no, i don't think i was cut.

"One thing you keep hearing is that demographic trends - less young people - are screwing the music press,"

Aren't people born between '77 - '94 the biggest generation since the baby boom? With tons more disposable income? This should be helping magazine sales, no?

I think "the kids" just don't care about music as much as those even a few years older - there's too much else going on.

magazine sales as a whole are far higher than in eg the 70s: the sheer no. of titles compared to "my day" (= Daily Pyramid and the tabloid mag Pharaoh!) is boggling...

Regarding what Fritz said, I find a lot of people the same age as I (I was born in 1980) do care a lot about music - they certainly buy enough of it - but not that many care enough to buy the press, or even *think* about music like wot we do here.

The Wire seems like a pretty good business model - management buy- out, good worldwide distribution, nice design, writing etc. (Mark, does it break even?) My only problem being the protestant, White Boy Modernist, chin-stroking aura of the whole enterprise. Could you do an avant-pop Wire? I guess you would have more difficult getting access to interviewees etc (since this tiny sliver of a demographic is irrelevant to the brand managers and marketeers of CultureInc.), little chance of getting into newsagents etc. Now I think of it, The Modern Review,(in its first incarnation, at least) in a weird way, wasn't that different to what you're talking about, ie popcult for smartfolk, unfortunately it was staffed by cockfarmers like T*by Y*ung.

My guess is any such hypothetical enterprise should be conceptualised in terms not of 'stuff covered' or 'niche' but in 'desired effect on reader', which might at least shift it from being an inevitable failure to an inevitable-but-glorious one.

The last attempt of a new radical British magazine with knowledge, insight and quality coverage across many music genres, was The Lizard, which came from Lime Lizard. There were about 6 editions in 1994-1995.

When Stevie T wrote

>>> My only problem being the protestant, White Boy Modernist, chin- stroking aura

I thought he was about to say: my only problem with all this arises from my being a protestant, White Boy Modernist, chin-stroking stick- in-the-mud, or something. Then I saw that he was saying the opposite.

He mentions 'avant-pop', but doesn't say what he means by this. I hope he doesn't mean 'super-pop' or 'machine pop'. If he does, I hope he never gets round to producing that magazine about it.

'avant-pop' - it does not include Lloyd Cole, and The Sundays don't exist anymore.

Is that a *definition*? If so it's practically the most damning definition of anything that I have ever seen.

"does it break even": when I was editor, HAH!! It was precisely because I reckoned it had 18 months tops before rug was pulled that I went for broke — the magazine *I* wd like to read, and fuck the other 208 readers. Rug was instead pulled from under ME by ambitious and career-worried publisher, long since left mag business altogether interestingly...

Now: well, unless the management (= staff) are Gravely Insane (cuz I *know* they ain't rich, from background or from present job), then I guess it MUST!?! Or must just be abt to: but even to gamble... Y'know those crap movies like Brewster's Millions? How to rid yrself of a kajillion in [x] weeks? Ans = start a magazine.

As far as I know, 'avant-pop' was nicked by the US lit-crit Larry McCaffrey from a Lester Bowie LP title, to describe a kind of, if you will post-post-modernism (see his introduction to the anthology 'After Yesterday's Crash' [but avoid the contents of the book, apart from the Steve Erickson extract]). "Avant Pop combines Pop Art's focus on consumer goods and mass media with the avant-garde's spirit of subversion and emphaisis on radical formal innovation". (Between you and I, McCaffrey isn't very convincing, and like all these US lit propagandists, thinks that avant pop music is Laurie Anderson and Talking Heads, but still it's a cute term, and more suggestive than LM's use of it.)

Definition - of course not, Pinefox - the artists mentioned, you particularly enjoy it was a harmless playful statement with no meaning. [You have stated many a time that you don't follow contemporary music, or feel the need to track down new music. So be honest a hypothetical radical music magazine is hardly going to fire you up?]

I agree with Tom the last thing we need is a niche music magazine tied to narrow parameters or with strong set allegiance tied down with following particular genre(s), but one that is radical, free thinking, diverse, selective, challenging and offering new perspectives. (Like The Lizard)

I believe that there is a need for new music magazine in Britain that bridges the time gap between the weekly NME and the monthlies. [And one that also offers oppositional viewpoints to the consensus positioning held at the NME who have a weekly monopoly on music opinions/news discounting the rockist Kerrang and the dance music weekly 7]

(NME suffers from a lack of ideas, it is forced and controlled, it has an inability to be critical. I would like to see more indepth personal opinions /theories about music, this means giving talented individual writers space to articulate and enthuse, the NME does not offer this approach, instead we have celebrity news at the front, many dull interviews with uninspiring artists, and reviews that are inadequate.)

A fortnightly magazine would also offer more quality and longer overview articles (like Simon Reynolds did so well at the MM) than the shoddy mess of the weekly production cycle that is evident at the NME.

I will add my thoughts on a blueprint of a proposed fortnighly publication, when I have some more time.

'avant-pop' - it does not include Lloyd Cole, and The Sundays don't exist anymore.

What's with this pinefox baiting/bashing, DJ Martian?

not bashing light hearted fun.

I for one thought it was JOLLY GOOD FUN.

Leave it to Josh to endorse joshing...

"[T]he last thing we need is a niche music magazine tied to narrow parameters or with strong set allegiance tied down with following particular genre(s)."

Whoah---do you realize what a tall order this is? Because let's agree that (a) the number of musical genres/sects is currently larger and more diverse than ever before, and that (b) fans of said genres tend to be so contentedly involved in their particular musical worlds that you can't even stir them up by consistently ragging on other genres. (IDM fans don't care to sit around bitching about how lame Elephant 6 bands are, nor vice versa---people mainly just want to know about the particular microcosm they inhabit, and this is enough of a full-time job to make other microcosms wholly irrelevant).

All of which is not to say that a publication could bridge genres--- one could, certainly---but here's the thing: if that publication is going to be anywhere under one thousand pages long, it's going to have to make very judicious selections about *what elements* of each genre make the cut. And then, even worse, selections about which of those lucky winners---say, the Parisian house sensation, the Canadian metal band, or the Iraqi pop singer---deserves honors like covers, features, etc. For one editorial staff to do this, and to do it in a way that didn't strike fans of individual genres as completely ham- handed and uninformed, would be a task well beyond the common uses of the term "Herculean."

The only way I could imagine a truly eclectic publication existing would be for it to employ several genre-based mini-staffs: a few people scanning the indie front for standouts, a few people in the hip-hop world, and so on and on. Such a publication would be ideal for a person who essentially wanted the effect of reading a few magazines in each genre---a sort of Gestalt overview/buffet of "the state of music." But for those who are fairly committed to a particular genre---which I think includes the vast, vast majority of even informed, open-minded listeners---such a publication would contain about ten pages of material that was of interest to them, and even that would be material they'd seen long ago, before it got big enough to register in the top-down view.

There may well be answers to this conundrum, but I tend to think they're pretty provisional: I think they're all about a keen editor who knows what he/she likes and has a good sense of when like-minded folks will agree. Such a model can still be ecletic, genre-wise--- but editor, writer, and reader will still be united by some defining taste-factor that sets limits, directions, and tone.

Arguing that The Lizard, much as I loved it, was in some way above genre defintions is a bit odd. It covered the interesting middle ground between MM and The Wire, which meant lots of post-rock and the more rockist side of post-techno, a dollop of hip hop and none of the LMC-centric improvisational stuff that The Wire seemed so fond of at the time. There was next to bugger all coverage of hardcore(evolving into)/jungle and nothing about anything else at all.

Yeah, the Lizard was good in scope (much good writing too), and it put on the best gig I have ever in my life seen, but it wasn't....It. If you see what I mean.

Hmm, launch a magazine about music which reaches people annoyed with demographics and the like? I was speaking with a very respected writer yesterday before this thread even got going and he came up with the same idea and frustrations. It would have to have a heavy aesthetic bent design-wise and coverage-wise. Some fixed templates for interviews, plus allow writers to riff. Musicians who write well given the opportunity to do so. Photography very, very important: high standards. Big features on little groups who will thank you for it later. Travel with a purpose. Enough female editorial staff. No 'brand sex' - what happens when the NME hook up with Miller Lite, y'know?

Start with a core team who are doing it for free for first three months, until adverts are paid for (that's how long it takes to get paid sometimes anyway). No discounts to advertisers. Good editors know how to keep writers happy.

Paul M? Writing for Uncut? Is it...?

With general exception of smut/porn, all mags make money from advertising rather'n consumer sales. If you haven't got advertising then, as Mark S says, you lose $ in hurry: costs a FORTUNE to print stuff, paper costs sky high [am currently sourcing print quotes: bleak!]. Thus advertising NECESSARILY becomes focal point for publishers rather'n editorial, = crap mags; what readers what, what advertisers want, two different things. Result: blunt yerself through compromise. Music mags: only viable area prolly dance culture cuz (despite being fuck all % of music sales) beverage and fashion companies currently align big $ marketing strats w/ it cuz dance perceived as cool (side issue: thus significance of dance MUSIC overrepresented in media vs. what music people actually buy?). Generalist music mags struggling cuz can't lure energy drinks, sneakers etc, and reliant on rec co. advertising and rec companies would rather advertise their audio product on audio medium (radio, TV), plus get bulk press free anyhow cuz music mags need it for content. Tom's vision, print version = mug's game (no matter how noble editorial intentions are). Doff hat to anyone who proves otherwise.

Despite spending plenty quality time in DJ Martian's Playground Of Fun, and despite the diligent and helpful notes supplied by Stevie T, I'm still not at all clear what 'avant-pop' is supposed to sound like. Possibly this doesn't matter, and possibly (as the Martian rightly implies) I wouldn't like it if I heard it. I am just wondering, though, whether anyone can name an instance of it (apart from the ones that ST mentions and swiftly disowns).

Should say "what readers WANT" above. Typos: ferkin' dud.

well, i don't know if i'm in the minority here but i actually think the wire is a damn good magazine, suits me fine.

Frequency is an issue, I am suggesting that there is a gap for a fortnightly publication, more quality focus than the shoddy NME/a weekly production cycle and more regular to respond to changes than a monthly.

Just to back up what all the old have said: as anyone who has ever worked on a struggling magazine knows, it's all about advertising. Which is why it matters comparatively little how many copies, say, i-D sells, as long as it's dense with ads. (Story went that James Brown - the Loaded one - ran into trouble at GQ because they were losing all the estate agents flogging £20 million houses in the back of the mag) Now, if you could come up with a business plan to show that people with a free-wheeling interest in theoretical but witty writing about everything from Britney to Albert Ayler spent a disproportionate amount on perfume, cars and upmarket stereos, you'd be laughing..

Oh, and the other problem is writers. Any magazine with a small budget relies on the sheer thrill people have of writing for that publication. As these people will have day jobs, you will have more trouble than a bigger magazine getting journalists to interviews that fit within PR schedules... of course, your imagined magazine will probably be too autonomous to bend to PR schedules, but... Incidentally, I used to work with a whole bunch of Wire writers doing TV listings back in the day. Ah, now there's noble work...

Hahahaha. I was laughing all the way to the bank...then I actually GOT THERE. Booo! Not to mention clothes, computers, booze, fags, whatever. Also you must remember that a lot of magazines will consent to running a 'free' ad just to make up the page numbers, and media sales twunts are always on the blag for same.

Gah, sorry, here is the thread that I've been looking for, bitching about music magazines and the very culture of music journalism on other threads.

Yesterday, in the process of packing for moving, I recycled about 2 years worth of Q, Mojo, The Face, NME, Makers etc. (but strangely, I kept all the Selects through some strange nostalgia.) I was sad, because I am a habitual packrat, and love to keep all that stuff, but honestly! Why does print media have to be so HEAVY and take up so much SPACE?!?!? And if yer whinging about the cost of paper, etc- go online, goddammit! The possibilities are endless, etc.

Though I have to say that despite the fact that I read it every day, I see someone like the nme.com, for whom the possibilities are endless, and it still disappoints me.

Someone needs to start a fucking internet charity for a decent online magazine without the pressure of advertising. Kinda like the intelligence of writing of Freaky Trigger without the obvious pop bias (sorry, Tom) - or like Pitchfork, but without the annoying cloying indie snideness.

This is my wish-list:

I don't want non-subjective "objective" reviews, I want totally subjective reviews, but I want to know what the *subjectives* are before I read the review. Have profiles of the writers, which list what they consider the ten best records of all time, so I can match my tastes to theirs, and judge their reviews accordingly! Get someone from each of the super-specialised genres- get an Elephant6 fanatic *and* and IDM fanatic, and a whatever fanatic, but have them STATE what their biases are ahead of time, instead of having us wondering if The Strokes' daddies are paying for them to write the way that they write. Cover bloody everything!!! It's the internet, you don't have to worry about space constrictions, really! No more trying to fit 3 obvious comparisons into 50 words! Have different writers with different biases review the same album! And gigs, too! I want to read reviews of brand new up and coming bands in toilets across the country *before* they become household names, not the same fucking endless live reviews of the 3 shows everyone in London was at. I wanna read reviews of the shows I *wasn't* at! Make it like a mega-fucking zine! There are thousands of people across the UK who review things for free, because they love them, free from the almighty advertising money. I don't want unpaid writers because they won't be biased by advertising, but because then I will KNOW WHAT THEIR BIASES ARE!!!

OK, I will calm down now. Sorry.

I think the problem with starting a new magazine is a classic marketing one. Either you invade a current market or you create a new market. Now, given that magazines need to attract both advertisers and readers -- unless they're going to be marketed as a literary journal (no ads but serious cover charge) -- the first is by far the easiest option. If the magazine concept has to appeal (instantly) to advertisers and readers, then music-writing fits into the following categories of magazine:

-- listings / previews / reviews, based around a local readership. -- hipster / cool / fashion / style mags. -- dedicated music mags.

Either way, the music writing is being used to sell gigs / local businesses; fashion and style; or CDs. Advertisers will only be interested in something which clearly does one of these things. Readers will only pick up the magazine in large numbers if it's pretty obvious what they'll be getting, as well.

As for the second option, that of creating a new market -- well, that's the interesting, but much more risky one. A general cultural bi-weekly or monthly covering music, literature, theory, the visual arts, etc. but written with attitude and without posturing is an exciting prospect, say, but the problems would be: [1] finding advertisers (who is going to read this magazine? what are 'they' into? If it's anti-brand, say, who would advertise in it?); [2] finding writers and editors who aren't wanks; [3] finding a readership.

By the way, in terms of niche marketing, what do people think of Musik. It clearly targets the populist 'dance' market, but with specialist coverage of the sub-genres as well. Do most people buy it for the Dave Pearce cover story and ignore the hip-hop reviews? Or is it genuinely covering a broader range than any other magazine in the UK?

i leaf through muzik and mixmag etc occasionally, but don't really bother with them. end up getting bored quite quickly

I think the problem with starting a new magazine is a classic marketing one. Either you invade a current market or you create a new market.

I’m sorry, that’s a noble thought but you can’t simply create a new niche/genre, the advertisers/distributors won’t let you. Hell, the labels won’t let you:

Me: Hi, we were interested in promos of the Aaliyah, NERD, Timbaland records for review? Virgin U.S. urban division: Aren’t you an indie rock mag?

It’s, as the Marks, Suzy, and others have said: a) advertising, b) distro, c) benevolent, skilled writers willing to write with flair for little money and d) access to the bands without having to scratch backs with the labels or PR people – and it’s damn near impossible.

Free ads, two-for-one ads and whatnot helps, makes the media kit look better as well as the mag, but hey there are still those pesky bills?

One slightly encouraging thing: PR companies are becoming less genre specific. One can go to the same place for access to DJ Assault, Spiritualized, GbV, Richie Hawtin, Magnetic Fields, for instance. An improvement, but still that is limiting – indie rock/pop big-name dance acts only, none of the "Parisian house sensation, the Canadian metal band, or the Iraqi pop singer" utopia mentioned above. (And Nitsuh’s editorial blueprint above is pretty dead on.)

AP hit on a good point vis-à-vis dance mags vs. rockist mags: Content means nothing to advertisers. They don’t care if you’re printing a music mag or a gardening mag as long as you convince them that it will reach the demographic they covet. Record sales are ancillary to them; they mean almost nothing: Nike may know Dave Matthews' records but not Daft Punk’s but they have a pretty good idea which they’d want to become associated with. (See: Sprite’s pains to be the official drink of hip-hop)

Launching a general interest mag (which a catch-all music mag, with no target genre would arguably be) is extremely expensive. Far easier to do in the UK (distro, print cost) than in the U.S. Who’s launched big-media mags in the U.S. in recent years? Dennis Publishing (Blender), Oprah, JFK Jr., Ashley and Mary-Kate, Rosie O’D, Tina Brown…well-meaning music lovers? Ahem.

And: Whoever it was that said (elsewhere) one result of the Internet is that everyone’s obsessions are validated is correct -- and in the niche-obsessed music/mag worlds, that’s a huge obstacle. Would a fan of the latest Parisian house sensation pick up a mag that also covered Iraqi pop singers, when he or she could go on the Internet for the same (better?) coverage?

Scott P -- I agree, pretty much, that you could not simply create a new niche in terms of music magazine publishing, but I didn't want to seem entirely negative. The point, which was that this is a classic question for marketing in general, still stands, as any book on the subject will tell you. (_Marketing Warfare_ is my personal favourite.) As CEO of a soft drinks co. I can go for a greater share of the market amongst those who already drink carbonated sugar water, or I can try and persuade people who don't already drink this stuff to switch from tea / coffee to my product. So for example, _Hello_ must have created a new market, which _OK_ was then also able to try and grab a share of. Expansion of market share and expansion of the market in general are not mutually exclusive. I was going to ask if anyone could think of examples of non-music magazine launches which have created a new genre / sub-genre of mag recently. 'Heat' certainly seems to have done this. Personally I can see no prospect at all of a new music mag being successful (and interesting)in the UK; everything anyone could want is on the web somewhere. *But* I think the prospects for other types of magazine aren't quite so bleak. There are a lot of people who are 'into' 'culture', but hate the triviality of newspaper coverage, and can't abide the smug superiority of the TLS, the LRB, etc.

Alex: In theory, I agree with you, and "Hello" and the Lad Mag market's are good examples of creating new niches but -- without seeming too us vs. them -- I think could be agreed are pretty lower-common denominator, and the main problem is your paranthetical point: a music magazine that is "successful (and interesting)".

Why has no one ever thought of putting more than one thing on the cover (O.K, maybe they have, I don't know). That way you would please all genres etc, plus maybe pick up sales. Of course, the pictures on the front might be too small because of this, or people unhappy with not being given dominance, but it does seem like a way out of the cover problem.

Bill

Bill - Q tried what yr suggesting for quite a while, but eventually gave it up in favour of the single image. Nowadays the newsstands are so crowded that a single dominant pic is much more likely to catch the attention of the casual browser, who the publishers hope will be sucked in by a pretty pic of their faves, rather than the core readership who will buy the mag regardless of who's on the cover. Straplines/banners are there to alert the reader to the 'wide range' of content inside.

Bill, Melody Maker (among others) tried this, back in, erm, 'my day' (ie early 90s) in attempt to appeal to a perceived splintered market - in practice you got Carter USM, Swervedriver, Altern-8 and um Arrested Development fighting it out in tiny little pictures, and the biggest aesthetic farrago ever to grace the newstands. I don't think it made one jot of difference to sales, either.

Stevie is correct: those multi-picture covers were exceedingly ugly.

I don't know. You might have got, say, Harriet Wheeler in a wee little picture on the right hand of the cover, which obviously made it a hundred times more attractive than it was with JUST that big picture of John Squire.

Re: pix. Something not much discussed here = photographers. Late 70s-mid-80s NME had call on three or four world-class b/w portraitists, obv. the one-of-a-kind Corbijn, but also Pennie Smith, Peter Anderson, Bleddyn Butcher etc etc. PLUS an editor who knew how to cultivate and use same = Tony Stewart (where now?) As long as it set itself as something other than glossy colour — used the graininess — it could still stand out on the stands. By mid-90s, the glossy aesthetic won out... Multi-pix = looks messily the same every issue (Q of old: which was DELIBERATE). The net point is really good: gossip plus insider info was still quite RARE even in the 80s. Another drain = tabloid stories on pop'n'rock...

It's not just nichism in terms of recordshop genre: also in terms of TYPES of INFO and DISCUSSION and OBSESSION. The unification of the old underground — pioneer porn PLUS radical politix PLUS pop babble PLUS [insert wot i forgot] is IRREDEEMABLE FRAGMENTED in print, I think.

It's strange that while the most interesting thing about this thread might be the fact that Paul M contributed to it (hence Marcello C's later link to it), only one person on the thread appears to have, um, adverted to the fact. Possibly this is politeness, possibly maturity, possibly ignorance, etc.

Possibly doubt.

Also in general pointing out that a 'celebrity' has posted is a bit vulgar and hierarchical - ILX is a leave-your-shoes-at-the-door kind of board, I would hope.

Naturally I agree - but still it's possibly hard to stop doing it; and elsewhere there are threads all about him, and pointing to this one; etc.

I didn't advert to it myself because I had no idea he was on the thread. In fact I probably had scant idea what was good about him anyway, at that time.