Okay, since we've established that Spin, Rolling Stone, NME, MOJO and Q are doomed and useless, what about....

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First off:
Are the Hip-Hop mags just as blinkered, shallow and useless when dealing with their chosen niche as Rolling Stone and Spin are with their niche?
In other words are Vibe and XXL just as useless as RS and Spin?

Also (after you deal with the main Hip-Hop magazine thread...) are Terrorizer, Circus and Kerrang! just the RS, Spin and Blender of the "Metal" Niche?

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Thursday, 15 May 2003 22:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Welcome to the interweb, you know, that thing you are using right now to find information on music.

― Mike Taylor (mjt), Thursday, 15 May 2003 22:18 (twenty-two years ago)

"Terrorizer" is very good, I find. "Mojo" I usually quite enjoy.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Thursday, 15 May 2003 22:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Thanks, Mike...I hadn't noticed.
But its awfully hard to slip the interweb into yer inside jacket pocket and read it while waiting in line at the post office.

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Thursday, 15 May 2003 22:30 (twenty-two years ago)

have you checked Nokia's latest catalogues, Custos?

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 15 May 2003 22:34 (twenty-two years ago)

< HILLBILLY VOICE >I don't cotton to no new-fangled cellular telephone doohickeys. Donchaknow those are just Commie mind control devices?< /HILLBILLY VOICE >

― Lord Custos Epsilon (Lord Custos Epsilon), Thursday, 15 May 2003 23:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Murder Dog is excellent for rap that is ignored by the other mags. I personally read Mojo, Terrorizer, Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles, SOD, Rolling Stone, Spin, Sound Collector, Big Takeover, Ugly Things, and sometimes Uncut. Mojo has really pretty pictures. So does Uncut sometimes. Rolling Stone takes 8.5 minutes to read and Spin takes 6.4 minutes to read and they are both almost worthless, but i read them anyway in much the same way that i watch saturday night live every saturday, because every 3 years i find something worth watching/reading-granted on snl it is usually something that they, the cast, are not responsible for like a commercial or a cartoon(robert smigel is some kind of genius) and in R.S. it is usually non-music:some killer kid and/or kid in jeopardy, but still.Terrorizer, BW&BK, and SOD are all excellent, especially the latter two cuz they come with free mostly excellent music. Vibe and XXL are mostly boring and I don't have that 25+ years bond like i do with R.S./SNL so i can miss them easily.Sometimes I read A.P.and Magnet cuz i like reading record reviews. I miss Option a little. Seconds was a great magazine if you enjoy the Q&A format. I do! I bought a copy of the Wire last month and they had an excellent picture of David Toop's writing desk. I will buy almost any magazine that comes with free music. Make that ANY magazine.

― scott seward, Thursday, 15 May 2003 23:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I am finding more and more that the best music writing is turning up in newspapers. My local rag is fanfreakin tastic. My theory is as paid journos whose newspaper really isn't dependant on record company advertising they are way more impartial and willing to actually a) criticise and b) be a real bloody journo.

yo.

― gallantseagull, Friday, 16 May 2003 03:21 (twenty-two years ago)

damn straight

― Bruce Urquhart (Bruce Urquhart), Friday, 16 May 2003 05:49 (twenty-two years ago)

MOJO's latest issue is rub, really tiresome. I like WORD.

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Friday, 16 May 2003 08:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Hip Hop Magazine has recently got really good, amazingly enough coinciding with the entire editorial staff getting off of Jay-Z's jock.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 16 May 2003 09:36 (twenty-two years ago)

That should be Hip Hop Connection

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 16 May 2003 09:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Word is nice - the Morrissey interview was great. Are there enough people buying it to keep it going?

The relaunched Hip Hop Connection looks lovely, and it is good to read some informed UK writing on non-UK hip hop. Unfortunately half the writers are still unreadable and it hasn't lost it's bolshy little attitude - in the 'we understand rap better than those silly Americans' sense. I guess this makes it more entertaining though.

I read The Source and Vibe to get the 'official' US perspective, but I don't have much of an idea how those magazines are received over there...?

― pete b. (pete b.), Friday, 16 May 2003 09:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I actually find most mags really irritating, but i have to work for them and have to read them just to keep up/keep annoyed/have an informed perspective/glean the scant amount of reviews and features from writers I respect and enjoy reading from each... word is beyond all doubt the most boring magazine i have ever read with the possible exception of x-ray (x-ray is a little more exciting coz it pisses me off enough to make it worth the effort occasionally!)

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 16 May 2003 10:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I may just be being prickly but in Word and Mojo this month I noticed loads of little snide asides about dance music being over, no good, "lame house music" etc, obviously it's not their 'patch' but they don't usually just treat it as a whipping boy... I wonder if now ROCK IS BACK the rock mags are breathing a sigh of relief that they don't really have to give lip service to other kinds of music any more.

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Friday, 16 May 2003 10:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Word surprises me then Tico. One of my old bosses was part of the start up team and he was a back-in-the-day raver who still got enthusiastic about new dance stuff.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 16 May 2003 10:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I think that's been going on for a while now: dismissing 'dance music' offhand has become more acceptable in rock mags in the last few years - probably this corresponds to the rise in the number of hand-wringing 'where is x scene going' articles in the dance press over the same period? The non-dance press leaps on this anxiety and celebrates it ('Yes! dance is dead! They're saying it themselves!') but misses the essential point that this obsession with the minutiae of changes in a scene's climate is exactly what gives the dance press a reason to exist. A lot is lost in translation - the rock mags don't lend themselves to giving a shit about tiny fluctutations, they prefer the monolithic 'hip/not hip' dichotomy.

― pete b. (pete b.), Friday, 16 May 2003 10:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Well Word's angle was kind of - it used to be so great but in its dying days there is still good stuff if you look for it - it was written from very much a back-in-the-day raver's perspective. Mojo was more just "phew, thank god that's over"

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Friday, 16 May 2003 10:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I bet he wrote it. Andrew Harr!son?

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 16 May 2003 11:11 (twenty-two years ago)

pete - the source still carries (TOO) much weight in the hip-hop community, although you gotta figure the benzino-eminem thing cut into their cred somewhat, if only cuz it exposed so many of the source's dirty secrets and cuz the 'feud' was hilariously lopsided. plus (most importantly, probably) - no 50 Cent cover! 'just fan pics'. you really should check out XXL, which is gaining on them.

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 16 May 2003 11:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I may just be being prickly but in Word and Mojo this month I noticed loads of little snide asides about dance music being over, no good, "lame house music" etc

It's been going on for quite some time — drives me nuts. I'm betting we won't be seeing Dizzee Rascal in Word or Mojo, just like i'm betting they'll miss the new Cécile album... it's not their "patch" but it could be and it could be written about well, too, if editors only had the foresight not to just call on the same old names to trot out the same reactionary viewpoints and scouted round for talented writers and bring in some new blood now and again...

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 16 May 2003 11:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah that was the one Anna - the used-to-love-dance-music kind of outweighed the still-do stuff TBH, maybe that's not the tone he was after. I think he wrote something non-musical in that issue I really liked though.

― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Friday, 16 May 2003 11:22 (twenty-two years ago)

this just in: Hip Hop Connection clearly positioning itself for Dizzee Rascal's imminent ubiquity - interview and single of the month in the new issue, plus the claim that "if he doesn't fall of he's shaping up to be the greatest British MC ever." what're the chances of him being on the cover when the album comes out? (and will it provoke fewer letters of protest than the Oxide/Neutrino cover did?!)

you gotta love this mag - the editors are clearly in love with garage, but every time they try and bump it up a bit the readers go nuts!

― pete b. (pete b.), Friday, 16 May 2003 12:33 (twenty-two years ago)

(Is Tico Tico a regulah under a new name?)

― Cozen (Cozen), Friday, 16 May 2003 12:36 (twenty-two years ago)

I actually quite enjoyed the latest issue of Word (Benny Hill, Morrisey, some other article, oh yeh, Luke Haines) but it's taste is appalling. Urgh.

Is the VV a print magazine?

― Cozen (Cozen), Friday, 16 May 2003 12:38 (twenty-two years ago)

the village voice is most definitely a print mag, and tico tico is an ilxor gran pubah quasi-incognito

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 16 May 2003 12:45 (twenty-two years ago)

you gotta love this mag - the editors are clearly in love with garage, but every time they try and bump it up a bit the readers go nuts!

re: HHC, i think that this will work far better with Dizzee than with O&N just coz the link to street rap is sooo much more explicit in gutter garage than ever before, plus Dizzee Himself flatly refuses to be called UK garage and has termed the Rolldeep/gutter/8-bar sound "new British street music" rather than anything else... this is the tack to take w/ ref to a hip-hop audience...

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Friday, 16 May 2003 13:00 (twenty-two years ago)

It's him, int'it? Defending Word, I should've known. (Come to my FAP!)

― Cozen (Cozen), Friday, 16 May 2003 13:01 (twenty-two years ago)

tico tico is an ilxor gran pubah quasi-incognito

I really did think that this person had some relation, however tenuous, to Tico Torres until the truth was revealed. Imagine my disappointment!

I think Word should be defended -- on the cover Morrissey looks like Mr. Fantastic with those grey streaks in his hair! I hope I find a copy soon.

― Nicole (Nicole), Friday, 16 May 2003 13:03 (twenty-two years ago)

You can have mine if you want, Nicole, e-mail me via ilxor's swanky e-mail function - or if you realise how silly an idea that really is just... wait.

― Cozen (Cozen), Friday, 16 May 2003 13:06 (twenty-two years ago)

I always liked Creem the best, back in the late 70's - early 80's. They are publishing again, which is pretty cool.

http://www.creemmedia.com/index.html

I'll give them a chance based on their history. I hope that Creem will be what it used to be and maybe even better. If so, it will definitely be tops!

― Davlo (Davlo), Saturday, 17 May 2003 14:37 (twenty-two years ago)

nine months pass...

I'm really enjoying The Big Takeover lately. Also Resonance. For electronica, i like The Wire and XLR8R. For straightforward alt-rock i like Magnet, and for Americana i like Harp. I also agree with the posting that it's still worth spending 5 minutes a fortnight on Rolling Stone, at least to skim the reviews.

― david nowell, Tuesday, 16 March 2004 22:33 (twenty-one years ago)

it's not a "music mag" thread if I don't plug ARTHUR, so uh, here: http://www.arthurmag.com

― Shakey Mo Collier, Tuesday, 16 March 2004 22:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Arthur and the Wire are the best reads, and I wish Sound Collector came out more often. I like to skim a lot of other mags when I go to Tower or Borders. I'll buy Songlines sometimes if the cover mount CD looks good.

― Jeff Sumner (Jeff Sumner), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 00:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm worried about the Wire. When Biba Kopf took over, I was nervous that the magazine would turn toward non-critical cheerleading reviews, lots of features on bands that broke up before 1990, and Germans, Germans, Germans; Issue 241 featured lots of non-critical cheerleading reviews, two bands that broke up before 1990, and Austrians, Austrians, Austrians.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 10:22 (twenty-one years ago)

... you forgot turning Wire into yet another rest home for 80s/90s music journalists: see David Stubbs.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 10:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I like Punk Planet.

― subgenius (subgenius), Wednesday, 17 March 2004 16:34 (twenty-one years ago)

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