do many music journalists collect or keep old music magazines?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

cos ive got about a thousand mags in my house but am wondering what on earth i am doing with them, as theyre just sitting there, and havent been looked through for ages. do other writers keep them for inspiration? research? just for fun? to show you how good music writing can be??? im debating whether to chuck mine out as they take up too much space.

― magcollector, Sunday, 17 July 2005 12:23 (twenty years ago)

I've got Melody Maker 1989-1994 (I think); I went through my NMEs from the same period about three years ago, cut out the bits I wanted - made mini-folders featuring each of my favourite bands of that era, that kind of thing - and then binned the rest. It's weighing heavily on my mind that I must sort out all the old Makers, if only cos my mum & dad keep threatening to bin the lot if I don't. My reasons for keeping them range from pure nostalgia, occasionally great writing, pretty pictures and (a bit unlikely, this) the niggling feeling that they may yet be worth something to someone.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Sunday, 17 July 2005 12:30 (twenty years ago)

I've also got one copy of each mag in which I'm published, including the above (a couple of letters, oh the joy!).

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Sunday, 17 July 2005 12:31 (twenty years ago)

i dont think i can be bothered cutting all the best bits out, but my parents keep threatening to get rid of my mags too. i should really get rid or or at least sift through them though. i dont even read them anymore!

― magcollector, Sunday, 17 July 2005 12:51 (twenty years ago)

I've got loads of mid to late 90s NME's, MM's, Q's, Mojos, Select stashed in my old room at home. They're under the bed, in bookcases and in the loft. I've always been a hoarder and I've always loved my music mags and zines. They can be useful for research (I came across a Mojo from 2001 that had Mojo Rising pieces on Electralane and Alasdair Roberts - handy as I was preparing to interview both) but mostly they're nice to have for enlightenment, particularly if you've picked on something belatedly and want to go back to earlier interviews, or get a retrospective on an older artist you've recently gotten into.
This is why I keep buying back issues and new mags all the time. There's a great Oxfam music shop in Glasgow where you can pick up old Mojos for 25p. I also picked up the fantastic Unknown Pleasures book there for 99p a few weeks back. There's also an overpriced bric-a-brac shop called Relics who have a big stash of 80s and 90s Smash Hits and Melody Makers. What years are good for SM? Don't have any in my collection.

― Stew (stew s), Sunday, 17 July 2005 13:39 (twenty years ago)

Gotta agree with Stew. I'm always on the hunt for old issues of Creem, Phonograph Record, Living Blues, etcetera, and it's safe to say that I keep old mags like some people keep old books. (The difference being that bound books are easier on the eyes than rotting yellow newsprint.) Do I read them? Hell yes. I could probably put together a better Lester Bangs compilation than the ones that are already out, based on the mags I've hunted down through the years.

― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Sunday, 17 July 2005 14:10 (twenty years ago)

I've got a pound of old downbeats twixt 56 and 81; anybody wanna buy? I'll recount the cover articles and dates if you're a potential buyer.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Sunday, 17 July 2005 15:19 (twenty years ago)

I hang onto all the really well-written ones (Roctober, Ugly Things, Kicks, Breakfast Without Meat, Caught in Flux, Cannot Become Obsolete, PRM, the Creems a roommate's cat peed on, Bomp, Back Door Man) and whatever especially lively vintage teenpop titles (like KRLA Beat, Teen Screen, 16, Dig) I can find. It helps if you spring for magazine holders from a library supply catalog or a home decor shop--then they can sit safely on bookshelves without falling apart.

― Kim Cooper, Sunday, 17 July 2005 17:32 (twenty years ago)

I'm not a journo, but I tend to keep the ones I get unless they're mass-market things (like RS or Spin) that have no special band I'm interested in, or if they're very amateurish and have no special band. I've also got one or two Phonograph Records, this is the LA area mag given out free by some radio station, right? I loved the whole tone of that mag. I have the Todd Rundgren and Krautrock issues from the early 70s, at least I hope I still have them.

― nickn (nickn), Monday, 18 July 2005 05:51 (twenty years ago)

I hoard magazines. Everyone who helped me move house yesterday is cursing this habit now. I tried to throw them out, but I couldn't. I have everything from Vogue through to Artrocker.

― Anna (Anna), Monday, 18 July 2005 09:35 (twenty years ago)

I've got a handful of old Creems and New York Rockers somewhere in my closet, maybe a couple other miscellaneous issues of whatever. (Actually, the New York Rockers are in a nice red binder, come to think of it, but there's only five issues or so. Also have a binder of pazz and jop sections from 1978 to 1991 or so, with pre-1978 ones xeroxed from microfilm years ago and taped to their own pages, plus another binder of christgau {and a few other people} voice consumer guides from the late '70s through mid '80s or so) And a gaggle of old articles filed in filing folders here and there. Also year-end best of critics lists from the mid '80s clipped from Melody Maker, NME, LA Times, Boston Phoenix, sundry other places in manilla envelopes. Wish I'd kept all my old Ops and Trouser Presses, but sadly I didn't.

― xhuxk, Monday, 18 July 2005 16:37 (twenty years ago)

I have almost every issue of The Wire from 1991 onwards. Also a bunch of early '90s Melody Makers and various '70s rock mags. I've also been trying to collect articles about synthesizers from '70s and early '80s gear/music mags. And right now i'm trying to make room for my latest mass acquisition: almost every NME from 1978-1982 or thereabouts! I also have lots of music-related zines (Why Music Sucks, originals of Re/Search, etc.)

The New York Public Library has a great and expansive Creem collection. I spent a few days there just reading as many as I could (they won't let you take them out--they're in the research stacks.)

I'm on the lookout for issues of Collusion from 81-83 if anyone has any...

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 18 July 2005 20:05 (twenty years ago)

Yup. Have old copies of: Select, Q, Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Face, plus 6 dozen manila envelopes' worth of clips from magazines accumulated over the years (most from the pre-internet days).

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Monday, 18 July 2005 20:21 (twenty years ago)

How many mags does everyone own though? Mine are in the region of about 2000.

― egotripper, Monday, 18 July 2005 21:10 (twenty years ago)

i kept a few hundred kicking around until we moved. then my wife (thank god she did it cuz i never could) just went and chucked them. i feel lighter for it. still kept most of my Wires tho...

― ken taylrr (ken taylrr), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 00:50 (twenty years ago)

I've got a complete collection of Careless Talk Costs Lives, but as there's only a dozen of them it's not that hard to store. Was forced to chuck a load of other things when my parents moved house as I was keeping them all in a childhood bedroom that no longer existed.

Have hung onto a couple of personal favourites though — the final issues of MM and Select, a copy of Q with a cracking picture of PJ Harvey on the front, that kind of thing.

But then, I'm not a music journalist so I suppose my input here is not required...

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 11:44 (twenty years ago)

the final issues of MM

Was that the one about "Keep with us, into the New Millennium!" and a note inside saying "Sorry, this is the last one..."

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 12:12 (twenty years ago)

Yes, I've got every issue of Uncut and Mojo and most issues of Q and Select, plus the last 10 years of the Big Takeover and a ton of No Depressions, XLR8TRs and Urbs.

― PopSarah (PopSarah), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 12:27 (twenty years ago)

Back home in Glasgow I've got an attic full of the stuff - MMs and NMEs going back to about 1969, plus generous helpings of Record Mirror, Disc & Music Echo, Street Life, Let It Rock, Zigzag, Smash Hits, Black Music, Jazz Monthly, Jazz Journal and a complete set of Wire back issues up to when I finally gave up reading it in despair, about four issues ago.

― Marcello Carlin, Tuesday, 19 July 2005 12:36 (twenty years ago)

indeed. though i've trimmed it down for space reasons, mostly just cutting out articles i was impressed by or keeping issues that are golden or nearly. i've got rolling stones, spins, punk planets, your fleshes, etc that date back to the early 90s.

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

(oh yeah, just rememembered, i do still have all the old why music suckses and radio ons as well. maybe a swellsville or too, two. why did i toss out all those old conflicts and forced exposures, though? that was dumb of me.)

― xhuxk, Tuesday, 19 July 2005 16:03 (twenty years ago)

I use to have so much crap its staggering. I still have way too much crap (according to my wife), but man have I ever purged when considering what I use to have. I have about 50 music magazines, 25 of which I'll probably never get rid of, and the other half just need to go. I never read the shit and it just sits there taking up space, so I really should throw them out already.

Its a bit of an obsessive thing I've come to realize and something that I have attempted to acknowledge and curb. One bad habit down, lord knows how many more to go.

― Brett Hickman (Bhickman), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 16:16 (twenty years ago)

Brett, your wife and mine should meet for tea.

― Raymond Cummings (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, 19 July 2005 16:54 (twenty years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.