Brand New

I'm incredibly surprised that the NME can manage less than 60,000 sales. Uncut for my money is the only thing worth buying. For me it is a perfect mix.

I agree, but I can't work out whether I'm just older and appreciate Uncut more, or whether NME has actually become really terrible over the past 10 years?  Bit of both probably!

For me, it's hard to detach the demise of the music press from the turmoil that the music industry is in itself. Everytime I start to blame the quality of writing, the style of product etc, on the demise of the music press, I think I'm just showing my age. Perhaps it's more to do with the fact that it's so much easier to sample music on your own terms than it was - I don't need to read the press to find out that Radiohead has a new album out. And I certainly don't need to read what Paul Morley, say, thinks about it, when a sample or download is simply a click away. And, of course, my opinion as a music fan is even more valid than it ever was - because, via a blog, I can (potentially) tell thousands of other fans how much I like something.

I remember the thrill (sorry) of moving to London and realising that the NME was available a day early in the shops than it was elsewhere - how bizarre that seems now?

But, sadly, for me, Uncut no longer fills that void. I'm glad you both still like it but, for me, it seems to be caught in that endless loop of Stones-Beatles-recycling-history ... and, in both cases, I just don't feel there's anything new to say.

We are all journalists today. This is the reason why so many of our favourite newspapers and magazines have become 'generalist' and why their circulations are falling. We don't need specialist journalists. We are the specialist journalists ourselves. These newspapers and magazines can no longer inform us. We inform them.

Yes, Uncut has descended into turgid retrospective hell. It's become like Q was a few years ago when ever issue seemed to be OK Computer: The Greatest Album Ever? Isn't the latest Uncut  'Oasis: The Biggest Band in the World? Or some crap. It used to have CDs with The Magnetic Fields on the front. And the NME is Smash Hits, except it takes itself seriously and has Editors in it. No-one wants that.

IPC u l8ter.

It's a good point - I'm not sure that I believe that everyone is a journalist today. But, when it comes to writing about a matter of opinion - it's essentially true.

That said, as long as the 'professionals' are informed, balanced and write entertainingly then they will find an audience. Or at least isn't that the premise behind The Word? It's certainly successful but then it's not got a big audience in these terms.

certainly agree on the NME front, a quasi religious hoarding finally stopped when i moved to London, where I too marvelled at the 'day earlier than the provinces' situation.

fortunately there are plenty of alternatives out there, as well as a healthy fanzine scene , the likes of which I'd imagine haven't been seen since Punk, or the early days of i-D, sleaze, jockey ***, or dazed.

for me, this is a much healthier actually a healthier approach with a multitude of titles serving the niche to what is now mainstream rather than the homogenous 'coverall' approach...and whilst I certainly agree we all have an element of journalism in us now, I certainly flick through the below titles and discover unkown gems on a regular basis. We may be journalists, but most of us still need editors.

Vice, PiX, Plan B, Disorder, The Fly, Artrocker, The Beat Happening, Who's Jack, London Gig Guide, Sandman, Wire, FACT, Big Cheese...even the branded effort that is T-Mobile's Slices (DVD and mag).

Vote with your coins and support the scene...and for those media planners and brand managers out there, get your brands into the right environment in a credible way, and your support will be mightily appreciated!

d

I too am a fan of music but never relied on music printed music press for the latest info. Back then when I was a teenager, there wasn't much news about my favourite bands - it came via TV, Radio and gossip because a friend, knew a friend...

I once sat in on a focus group for a music and communities media company and listened intently on what the youth (and one older man) wanted from music media. They weren't interested in what a paid journalist had to say about an artist, event or music scene. The internet lends to discovery, exploration, learning and interaction. Print media only allows you to ingest what someone else is saying. It's one dimensional

Whilst I do don't agree that everyone is a journalist, I agree with Time magazine who designated that everyone is their OWN media. We consume media not journalists (sorry) and hence the youth and everyone else can get information in a few minutes after the story has broken compared with several weeks or  months with printed media.

I've always liked to get my news fresh and still do. The only way I can do that is via the internet. Whilst my genre preferences are not particularly niche, the paraphernalia around those genres are not that accessible here in the UK. I want to hear the music, see the video and search for various sources of independent information, reviews and news.

I hope printed music press lives but truly it's an art form - it's lost it's function. Just like the vinyl, cassette, beta, vhs, dvd and soon cd. Enjoy it while it's available.

I

Way back in '77, when I was 14, I used to rush to the newsagent every Thursday morning and buy all four of the weekly music tabloids: Record Mirror, Melody Maker, Sounds and NME. I used to read all of them cover to cover, cut out the articles I wanted to keep and use them to decide which records I wanted to spend my hard-earned pocket money on.

By the time I was 16, I'd trimmed my regular buys down to NME and Sounds, only buying MM and RM if there was something interesting on the cover. By that time I'd also discovered John Peel, who helped me choose the records I wanted to buy. I read the papers partly for info, but increasingly, for their own sake. There were writers - Paul Morely, Angus MacKinnon, Ian McDonald, Jon Savage, Chris Bohn, Richard Cook, even dear old incomprehensible Ian Penman - whom I loved to read just for the sheer pleasure of reading. At that time music was my life (now in my 40s I still spend much of my disposable income on gigs and records) and I wanted to read stuff written by people as passionately engaged with music as me. And I wasn't alone - rom the late 60s until the late 80s, there were tens of thousands of people who bought music mags for that very same reason. Committed music fans demand a committed music press.

And I think that this is the problem. OK, the tectonic shifts in da muzik biz have played their part ; and the proliferation of music and music info on the internet, TV, papers (when the "inkies" were in their pomp, the only music TV shows were TOTP and OGWT, and pop was of only the most peripheral interest to both the tabloids and the posh papers)  hasn't helped either.

But the biggest problem was that, by the 1990s, there was no writing worth reading. The rot set in in '86 with the launch of Q (although nobody, including me, noticed at the time), which swapped critical judgement for access, and good writing for pictures and surface gloss. There was plenty of engagement with he music biz and its PR machine, top stars and theiragents, but precious little with the music.

And the future looks bleak. I agree that NME is just Smash Hits with Editors in it, and that Uncit and Mojo have - to a degree - run out of classic acts to write about (it's so much easier to put Stones, Fabs, Zep or Floyd on the cover rather than take a risk with Can, Scott Walker or The Residents).  And don't even get me started on Q, which ceased to be in any way relevant some time ago. But by far the worst of the music mags is "The Word" - sickeningly smug, with that oh-so-public-school tone, and pathetic, self-conscious attempts at balance (and endless dribblings about the vastly overrated Van Morrison or some folk crap don't help either).

Where are he new Nick Kents, Griel Marcuses or Dave  Marshes? If the greatest music writer of them all, the late lamented Lester Bangs, were still alive he'd be appalled. What music mags need now is passionate, good (and definitely not "balanced" writing that engages, infuriates and inspires in equal measure.

But I fear it's too late now anyway. Shame.

A lot that Kevin has to say resonates with me, but I really like the line: "But the biggest problem was that, by the 1990s, there was no writing worth reading."

One factor that is often forgotten is the rise of dance music in the '90s. It's challenging enough for some to write something interesting about 'rock'; it's near impossible to write something worthwhile about a 'name' DJ, rave or Ibiza etc without taking the magazine into near-Loaded territory. It was popular so it had to be covered, but it didn't make for interesting writing/reading.

Yeah, I don't quite think we're all journalists.  We can all have an opinion, but whether everyone can write something that is entertaining and worth reading is another matter.  I think with a younger audience, who are more impressionable, quality writing can have a real effect.