Are there any magazines which intelligently cover electronic dance music?

I don't think any of them are just drugs and lifestyles except perhaps Mixmag.

DJs strikes me as a fairly essential thing for a dance music magazine to talk about.

seriously, I think I am going to start buying muzik... i like irreverant brit mags made for being drunken at 4am, and this seems to be the best one. as for us mags, i dont like Urb that much... it seems to be headed into the yuppie coffeeshop music ghetto, though maybe that is more impression than fact... xlr8r can be pretty good... i think none of the magazine satisfy what i really look for, which are articles that deal with larger social issues, etc. everymagazine has something like that every sof often, but not enough for me :-(

XLR8r seems to be the one then? Will check it out, thanks folks.

I think the issue is money more than anything else. and considering the talent avaialble on ILx i would probably end up being like office supplies manager at the magazine of my own creation ;-)

can't agree on this one and i write for muzik - it's not bad but generally i leave its pieces wishing i'd learned more. Jockey Slut is the most loathesome publication on earth: so snidey and unpleasant with very dull writers (Nick Doherty and Tom Magic Feet being notable exceptions - they're friends of mine so I'm biased on this point). XLR8R gets the balance as close to right as possible, but it still needs that little extra push. (I write for it, like Phil, so am similarly partial.)

I still maintain DJs shows should be reviewed in magazines, make the fuckers accountable, name and shame.

I don't really find JS snidey or unpleasant, a bit tepid maybe but not too snide. I suspect part of my tolerance may be to do with them promoting so much stuff I am into, with Bugged Out the obvious connection.

What do people think is wrong with the current lot? Format? Bad Writers? All of the above?

All that said I don't read magazines for in depth analysis, that's what I come on here for. Also I'm not sure the problem here isn't that so many people, the writers themselves even, don't really believe there's anything new to say about what they're listening to. Particularly in the Muzik/JS popular house record carousel.

I don't know if I believe there is.

absolutely OTM - whenever mags have guest reviews from artists/producers, you get to see just how true this is. I'd buy any magazine that promised NEVER to print artists' opinions on music! Re Ronan's position that DJs need to be covered, I agree, definitely. As they are the central, public face of a whole musical culture, it's essential that they are. However, I think interviews and profiles are totally the wrong way to go... I've only ever done two DJ interviews in almost a decade of writing and both (mentioning no names coz it's hardly fair, they were nice enough people) were dull as fuck - made me vow never to do one again after.
I'd say reviews of performances, the mood they create, how well they react to a crowd/interect with them etc is far more important than the usual cobblers about "taking a club on a journey" and any DJ who refers to themself as an "educator" deserves to be strung up in my book! (btw, has anyone ever noticed how this old chestnut always comes up from v dull, boring MOR types like Digweed et al and not people who really do cover a huge amount of musical ground or who are genuinely pushing boundaries and who could probably teach you something?)
Also record reviews should be fewer, much longer and not broken up into ridiculously arbitrary genres (at least part of the reason that Jockey Slut so stupidly and short-sightedly ignored both drum & bass and UK garage for so long, along with being pretty clueless).
Plus, magazines should get better writers in, I mean all they have to do is look on ILM if they're short of good, reliable, clued-up and massively opinionated talent – hell, I'd have Tim Finney, Ronan and Couzen writing for any magazine I edited in a heartbeat (which, no offence fellas, may be why you won't see me editing a magazine in the near future!)
Also I'm not so sure that lifestyle stuff isn't valid in some ways, provided it can be tied back to music and isn't just there for the sake of it. I actually really like decent, long pieces that really get to grips with a scene and show every facet of it, centring around music, but also taking account of fashion and all sorts of other things. Only problem is that you need writers capable of doing this and a publisher willing to take a few risks and very few are in either case...

Just realised, that sounds terrible, hope y'all know what i mean!

Agree also about the DJs doing reviews thing, that's really a travesty, they take 10 records they've been playing and already like and give them all positive reviews. What nonsense. Is there a breaks DJ who doesn't review his own singles on the side?

I hate the way in genres like breaks you get shitty versions of all the big house tunes with some silly pun for the title like "Break Me With You" or whatever. It's never a good sign for a genre.

www.groovesmag.com

As Simon said maybe the sign something isn't street anymore is when it breaks through these walls, in this case gets printed in JS.

I'm not sure that's something to blame on the magazines though.

if there's anything by me in Muzik, please be nice to me steve - i'm not well at all!!!

sean
grooves magazine
groovesmag.com

Jockey Slut is going quarterly "very soon", according to someone high up in their editorial team. They're apparently going to step up their online presence via www.jockeyslut.com. Hmmm.

Sleaze Nation is relaunching any week now as, er, Sleaze, and is gonna be every two months now.

So, ILM pretty much killed my desire to read music magazines - what else is responsible for the continued shrinking of the music mag market?