Uncut: last time something modern was on thecover?

Depends on what your definition of 'modern' is?

I mean, the wire have put SY on the cover, which is surely Mojo territory.

Agree on the ''alt.country'' stuff though I've heard a couple of things by Giant sand which i liked.

Some alt country is good.

I don't want to read about Bob Dylan or the Beatles or the Stones. It's total fuckin overkill.

I'd go as far as say that most of the alt.country that Uncut championed between 1999-2001 is better than OK (exceptional?). With a few exceptions of course (Jim White, et al. sorry Ronan). The bottom of the alt.country trough has now been breached now (Pete Yawrn, Be Good Tanyas, Eileen Rose, The Arlenes bore bore bore bore bore).

Stuff like (not exhaustive list):

ABBC, Ryan Adams, Calexico, Noahjohn, Damien Jurado, Richard Buckner, Marah, Smog, Will Oldham & Palace Brothers, Willard Grant Conspiracy, Jay Farrar, Wilco, Freakwater, Uncle Tupelo etc are all exceptional bands in my poor eyes. All brought to me by UNCUT.

Not answering the question though. The true answer is never, I think. Not since I've been reading it. The closest they came was Oasis in 2000. Hardly new, or modren.

But I'm not so favourable to UNCUT's unquestioning fawning fanzine praise/prose. A modicum of restraint et cet.

Ehh...Electronic were on the cover once. That's about as modern as it gets.

The problem with the Dylan special is that they had no actual access to Dylan (gah!) and didn't really add anything to the status quo of Dylan's critical perception, i.e., they spent 40-odd pages saying 'Bob Dylan: He Has Made Some Bad Albums But Is Otherwise Really Quite Good'.

I still bought both covers for the CDs, God help me. They aren't very good either, are they?

Actually, nothing in this month's Uncut - the first time I remember buying it - really said anything I didn't know already. (the other two biggish features being 'Tom Waits: He Likes To Act A Bit Mad' and 'Arthur Lee: He Was in Love, You Know')

it's nothing against alt country, i really like quite a lot of those bands and i do play new sounds of the old west quite often. a lot of the bands/artists mentioned are in my record collection but really uncut does over do it sometimes and i wouldn't be an avid reader of No Depression. the point is that uncut is a bit of an old hacks magazine sometimes. i'll still buy it though.. have to haul myself to the shop soon.

Yet again the proprietors of Uncut succeed in dissuading me from buying their mag. The Nick Johnstone arselicking last month was bad enough.

Strictly speaking, of course, it was Kim Gordon on the cover of the Wire rather than SY en masse (for purely aesthetic reasons of course) but their getting on the cover of Mojo is frankly beyond the pale of realism. Why that would only make the mag 17 or 18 years out of date instead of 35!

Nick Johnstone arselicking = Nigel Williamson's handi work.

Google this now Nigel.