The Observer Music Monthly: September 2003: Launch Issue

The Observer Music Monthly: September 2003: Launch Issue

Today, The Observer [a leading UK Sunday newspaper, owned by The Guardian Media Group] launches a supplement magazine: The Observer Music Monthly - fear not overseas readers - most of the content is online, but you will miss out on a free [boring] Blur CD !

The Observer Music Monthly is better than I expected: music wise in the fairly large reviews section it pitches itself in Mojo magazine terriority with quite a diverse range of music reviewed, a bit of everything: rock, rap, electronic, country, jazz, contemporary classical, pop, dance - no extreme metal though.

The Strokes get album of the month - whilst every critics whipping boys Limp Bizkit, get worst of the month.

The initial reviews section is prioritized into a Top 10 including:

Stuart Nicholson [who also writes for Jazzwise magazine] reviews: Esbjörn Svensson Trio - Seven Days of Falling

The "music blogosphere" is represented by Simon Reynolds who reviews: LFO - Sheath

Also The next best 15 CDs

Elsewhere in the magazine, Ricky Gervais interviews David Bowie, Dizzee Rascal is interviewed, and there are features on The Distillers and Blur.

From a advertisers viewpoint - I can see this monthly magazine been a big success [with record labels and retailers] - after all The Observer sales/ and potential readership is far superior to any rock magazine.

So from Issue 1 [by default] the Observer Music Monthly becomes Britain's best selling and most read music magazine?

Dunno what the point in slating Limp Bizkit is when Kitty Empire's already done it in the newspaper's Review section... could say the same for most of the reviews in the magazine.

Billie Holiday article first time out! Record Doctor's genuinely silly, but where else would you learn that DJade built a disco lounge on her Ibiza finca? And who would have guessed that David Bowie would go out of his way to mention he appreciates his fans who've bought his records ...

thing is, Jade Jagger came across as having much better taste than Record Doctor! I'd rather have her choose music for people!

The top 10 list is a good idea but not well executed this week.

Things I liked about it:

Being bundled in with a broadsheet, it at least bothered to credit its audience with a bit of intelligence, and more importantly wasn't persistently trying to hammer home a point, which I found endlessly irritating about the first issues of CTCL and Bang, and find in pretty much every issue of NME I ever read.

The way in which they ordered the album reviews was ace - give most space to the records people are genuinely into, and it wasn't worried about making pages text-heavy

They got decent writers in... Morley! Reynolds! Its a shame Simon R spent more of his meagre word count banging on about the "perception" of dance music than actually talking about the new LFO album, mind.

It took pop seriously.

Didn't Dizzee and Mr Smith look fantastic standing next to one another? I thought it was a great angle to cover him from, and I'm amazed no one had got round to doing it before.

Actually what I liked about the Sawyer piece is that she crystallized something I hadn't quite perceived before, or if I had heard it, hadn't quite understood, namely the idea that one can be tuned in to a wavelength to perceive someone being a pop star in the wider sense -- not in the ground-down audition programs sense, more like a matching of similar signals between person/creation and the rest of the world. Since I'm relentlessly absolutely singular in my listening, that's not something I have a sense for -- I don't feel I lack something because of it, it's just different, and I liked the way it was expressed.

The Dizzee/Smith cross comparison was a treat indeed, and Bowie's still Bowie, bless him.

satisfied?

rare blur cd? please? those people have brit-pop cocaine hangovers if that is a selling point..

1. Is the avalanche of 5/5s a production error or does someone really think Stellastarr* are that good?

2. Did Sharleen Spitoon of Texas really instruct me to listen to Glass Candy or are my eyes going wrong?

Teen pop music is made and marketed by the over-40s in general, I would say they are perfectly qualified to talk about it.

Doomie it's a music magazine designed for readers of the Observer - i.e. a wide range of ages and a wide range of caring/not caring about music.

Nobody under 25 should be allowed to etc etc.

1) it's obviously not aimed at me, but i'd enjoy reading it of an occasion, sort of like, so this is how middle-class people in their 30s, etc, live... Not a diss, i read the Food section the same way - like, its fascinating and engaging and entertaining, but there's NO WAY that could ever be my life in there.

2) some great writers in there - Garry Mullholland, for example.

3) TERRIBLE subbing. Did no-one check this sucker before it went to the printers?

4) Distillers. I just don't get it (there you go, Tom!). Such a terminally ordinary piece of corporate rock product.

Could be a fascinating magazine, as much as broadsheet magazines can be that way. I enjoyed it, though it didn't tell me much i didn't already know, it was very very pleasant. If this sounds like faint praise it really isn't - again, it's not FOR me, and I can sense that the minute I walked across the pages... But it's fun. If it were a TV programme it'd be a late-evening channel 4 strand, like Wife Swap or Location Location Location or stuff like that...

I'm not quite sure what I;m trying to say with that last bit.

Miranda Sawyer looks a bit like a female Mark E Smith.

When it hurts appraisal of this piece to know too much: the assertion that going out with an interviewee (which I have done, but it was about six months after the interview, and I didn't fancy him nor he me until about five and a half months after the interview) is somehow wrong sits very uneasily in this piece, and to some of us seems slightly disingenuous when the writer spent all of the Britpop years dating its most successful PR, who before had dated a flame-haired pop-star from an aptly named band.

But I did like the mag.

Mark Rae
Grand Central label boss Mark Rae picks his five fave fish and their rapping alter egos

1 Cod
Big white belly and mouth to match. Over-popularity leads to collapse. So: Bubba Sparxxx.
2 Barracuda
Fast, sleek and vicious, hangs around built up areas taking out competition: Dizzee Rascal.
3 Brown Trout
One of nature's beauties, under pressure from Silver Rainbow. One for the enthusiast: Q-Tip.
4 Halibut
Insanely large and lean, hunts the weak at greatest depths, appears at the most expensive tables despite burying itself in the underground: 50 Cent.
5 Coelacanth
The world's greatest all-time survivor, it puts the dinosaurs to shame: Rakim.

awfully silly, awfully fun, and somehow it holds together.

Stevie - I do think the "middle class people in their 30s" thing is a bit flip... not cos I think it's inaccurate, but my housemate said exactly the same thing and I said, well what would you like to see in there then? He couldn't think of anything specific.

Hey, i didn't mean it to be flip, that's their market after all... What do i think should be in it? not even thought about that, because the stuff i'd like to see in it i'm pitching for the magazines that i write for, and would certainly not expect to see in the OMM. Its by middle class people in their 30s, FOR middle class people in their 30s, but that doesn't mean i don't enjoy it as a magazine. I just know they aren't talking to *ME*.

For the record, i'd want to read features on Lightning Bolt, Icarus Line, My Morning Jacket, Nikki Giovanni, Saul Williams, the explosion in Calypso music in 1950s Britain, Madlib, The Hunches, Albert Ayler, The Specials, Brainiac, Biz Markie, Stevie's Wonder's auteurist soul era, Erykah Badu etc etc etc... Most of those will never feature in OMM, and that's possibly the way things should be. I enjoyed the mag, but when I read stuff like Mojo, Kerrang!, CTCL, etc, I feel like I understand those mags, and they understand *me*.

But, OMG, did you SEE the horrendous air-brushing done to Brody Distiller's face in the centre spread? i thought my contact lenses had slipped out!

well, i suppose that was normal for him.

i met a nice guy the other...month who wries for G2. i asked him what the people were like. he said "oh, it's really varied. some are from oxford and some are even from cambridge..."

i laughed. he didn't.

I have a FACEBOOK EVENT INVITE to the same party as Rosie Swash next week. Any messages y'all want passed on, just drop them here.

http://drownedinsound.com/articles/2828564

Have at it.

Bald men, comb.

halfway thru the OMM article... can we just neutron-bomb east london? please?

World famous NME hack called John tries to make a name for himself; is it really that time of year again?

I enjoyed this article though.

i think this might be the worst passage of writing the english language has to offer:

These days, it's practically mandatory for any self-respecting new band to stitch together dizzyingly idiosyncratic sounds. Listen to synthetic futurists Late of the Pier, or the acid bleeps of Canadian duo Crystal Castles, the day-glo synth hooks of Metronomy, the schizoid grindie mash-up of Hadouken!, Vampire Weekend's 'Upper East Side Soweto' vibes or the avant-funk wigouts of Battles. Or perhaps you'd prefer Tigerpicks' fairground-punk, perky Mancunian boy-girl duo the Ting Tings, the gaudy electronica of XX Teens, or the eclectic art-pop of frYars. Not since the mid-Eighties' post-punk boom has indie looked so diverse and colourful, nor have there been so many bands with stupid names.

dingbod, you seem to know what's poppin', is it true that noted blogger marcello carlin has a job at the nme?

Not since the mid-Eighties' post-punk boom has indie looked so diverse and colourful

WTF'd at this especially yesterday - unless she's talking about Bogshed of course

No idea, Henry. Why don't you drop him an email and ask him? (xp)

the nme guy is only halfway there, obviously -- like noodle says, it's not really worth holding up other shitty indie music against these bands. but the OMM article is really disgusting.

what music do you like at the moment?

Macpherson, who goes by the stage name Frederick Blood-Royale, leads his own fight against modern vulgarity, covering pop culture ('I almost feel ashamed when I go home and watch Neighbours. I feel like I've let down my forefathers'), consideration ('If someone's made it their life to make music for you to listen to, I can't have it on in the background while I'm making a fucking bacon sandwich'), sobriety ('There's nothing to gain from choosing chemicals or alcohol to change your reality. Nothing can take you away bar death'), and artistry ('I write music for the mind. For the library'). He is immensely entertaining.

The New Yorker critic Sasha Frere-Jones recently ignited debate in US indie circles after accusing the likes of the Arcade Fire and Wilco of being musically myopic. 'Why did so many white rock bands retreat from the ecstatic singing and intense, voice-like guitar tones of the blues, the heavy African downbeat, and the elaborate showmanship that characterised black music of the mid-20th century?' he asked. This is not an accusation that can be levelled at any of these British bands in 2008.

Jesus fucking Christ. Man, I'm always going "Wait, is this Foals or X-Clan?" when I turn the radio on.

lots of disco

xposts

I'm assuming that this Macpherson chappie is no relation to Alex "The Lex" Macpherson?

modern or classical? xp

duh classical

“For one thing it was seemingly written by an idiot whose politics and ideology have been formed by books rather than life experiences and emotional toil.
“For another, its tone and the views expressed by the featured Public School educated bands reeked of inherent fear and disgust of the working classes.”

^ This (from NME dude) is some terrible writing/phrasing! It reads like cman at his most frenetic. I didn't bother reading the OMM article. Or the NME article, just the bit they excerpted in the DiS piece.

Who cares, I mean, really?

Good for MC if he's got writing work in NME, having someone who can ACTUALLY WRITE FOR SHIT on their staff can only make it better.

i figured (xp)

It all goes back to the point pscott made ages ago on these boards, that modern day "indie youth" culture, the culture of dudes like Foals, These New Puritans, that aspie cunt from Test Icicles, is the culture of the London free newspapers: Jeremy Clarkson-esque ironic-not-ironic "Mr Gordon So-Called Brown why do you allow our country to go to the dogs" news sections, party on down with MIA and Uffie in the "culture" pages.

i'm not reading this but fuck that guy from test icicles is such a clown

have yet to see the London free newspapers refer to 'aspies', alas

Wait til they profile H0ly H@il.

or til you take over chantelle fiddy's clubbing guide

Which guy from TI?

This (from NME dude) is some terrible writing/phrasing! It reads like cman at his most frenetic

Cut him some slack, it was conveyed in a text message! Er, all several hundred words of it. It says here. Yeah I'm confused.

McMahon was so incensed with the apparently haughty tone of the article that he fired out a text message to everyone in his mobile phone book detailing his concerns.

see, my pizza guy, landlord, doctor's surgery, etc., wouldn't be that interested in this debate.

Neither would "that pissed up redhead who sucked me off in Reflex"

Most sane people would be irritated at receiving some 180 word whinge about a fucking Observer article via a mass text, let's face it

Whereas a reasoned calm and frenetic 180 word thread post on a soothing white background is..

a choice

If somebody started spamming me with shit ILX thread ideas I'd be pretty unhappy, but thankfully that day has not yet come

Shit ILX thread ideas: what's on your iPod?

I noticed they quietly dropped that from the ES Magazine questionnaire since 99% of people they asked said they had no iPod. Instead they've returned to "what was the last CD you bought?" but since 100% of those answers are tedious beyond endurance ("Oh I bought Ella Fitzgerald Sings The B Shops For The Poor Songbook") it doesn't make much difference.

it's also an insane question. "about 4000 songs".

The DiS article is also unclear on why "man sends text message" should constitute a news item.

I will not consider it news unless Sir Trevor McDonald reads it out on tonight's News At Ten.

I for one am bored of music for idiots.

What about music by idiots?

I was just thinking about B Shops for the Poor yesterday. (x-x-x-x-post)

That These New Puritans album is my least favourite so for this year. Everyone I slag it off to sticks up for it tho'.

Music BY idiots can be great. Look at Jane's Addiction. For one. Of many.

Not sure why Perry Farrell was the first name that struck me as a musical idiot.

I for one am bored of music for idiots.

-- Scik Mouthy, Tuesday, January 22, 2008 9:04 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

this music sounds like it's for idiots though...

I was gonna say, Man Like Simon Reynolds makes the same mistake in one of his articles in "Bring the Noise", the one about Radiohead, where he basically confluxes the words "intelligent" and "middle class".

when you hear thom yorke interviewed, he doesn't seem that intelligent -- and i'm not even a big radiohead hater. it's just that he says really dumb 'obvious' things like 'email keeps people apart' -- that or he goes between 'the government put snipers on the rooftops during demos' to 'gordon brown is doing good stuff for the environment' -- and gets treated like he's alain bleedin' de botton.

Oh definitely; I've suspected for ages that Thumb's nowhere near as clever as people think he is.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/omm/story/0,,2241544,00.html
"Pop music has never sounded better or more vibrant"

haha

Alain Bleedin' De Botton would make crap records though.

Perhaps TY sees "email keeps people apart" as a good thing, i.e. be mates with everyone online but GET ORF MOI LAAAARND avec rifle if they approach within 50 miles of his mansion.

Thanks to Mr X for linking to the same article to which I linked upthread. Good article that.

You were told lies about the good old days. It was all Jim Reeves and Miki & Griff, trust me.