| doremi 19.04.2005 12:13 |
I am from the USA. As you all have been discussing, Rolling Stone is a crap rag sheet that just left Queen off of their Immortals list, and RS has dismissed Queen for both RS's entire career and Queen's entire Career. Mojo Magazine, (and their partner Q Magazine) on the other hand, as you all know, regularly covers Queen, and they just did the Q/Mojo Queen Classic Special Edition, which is extremely well done, informative, insightful, affectionate, and full of tributes. When I was a kid....a long....time ago, Rolling Stone was indeed a great publication that while it had it's failings...and yes...did always diss Queen (hiss, boo) it was still a very informative publication that covered music and popular culture, news, politics...Watergate..Vietnam. It was good...but that was like until maybe 1985. Since then, RS has gone out of its way to become the very antithesis of what it started out to be, and now as we all know, is a commercial even tabloid piece of crap, caters to sponsors, advertisers, and teen/tween fans covering crap like Britney & 50 cent. Since about 1985, myself, and ALL of my music industry colleagues and friends consider Mojo Magazine the Ultimate, informative, insightful, cool, cutting edge music magazine. Mojo is much more Universal and recognizes music artists from ALL over the world. Also time is irrelevant to Mojo. Whether an artist is from or started their career in 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990..or now..they recognize the Impact, Influences, and Contributions artists made on the landscape of music, other music artists, popular culture, history...and cover them based on that merit...as so they should. You can see Queen, Pink Floyd, Joy Divison as well as The Strokes, The White Stripes and Doves in Mojo. Also Mojo doesn't pander to advertisers and targeting youth culture demographics for fear of losing an almighty buck. They also do entire issues, as you see in well researched, extremely informative tribute to artists and music genres, each and every month with their Classic Editions and Special Editions. Many years ago, Mojo did an ENTIRE issue on how Marvin Gaye conceived, developed, wrote, recorded his landmark album of social conscience, "What's Going On"...and the struggles he had fighting the corporate nimrods at Mowtown records who didn't want him to do it and fought with him constantly over it's release, because (how ironic), it wasn't commercial enough! (love that issue)! I also still have my Mojo issue with the 100 Greatest Guitar Players from like 1988 or something. Old and faded but still much loved. Anyway...what's your opinions about Mojo versus Rolling Stone? Here is your place to vent and to discuss differences, which is better, and why? |
| Benn 19.04.2005 12:26 |
Do you not think that because RS is pretty much the ONLY US music magazine of any note? They've pretty much had the market covered since launch....... In the UK, there is a plethora of magazines available - Q, Mojo, Record Collector, NME (and associated spin-off magazines), Classic Rock, The Word etc. All cover pretty much the same material. What else is there in The States, *OTHER THAN* RS? |
| doremi 19.04.2005 12:36 |
Benn wrote: Do you not think that because RS is pretty much the ONLY US music magazine of any note? They've pretty much had the market covered since launch....... In the UK, there is a plethora of magazines available - Q, Mojo, Record Collector, NME (and associated spin-off magazines), Classic Rock, The Word etc. All cover pretty much the same material. What else is there in The States, *OTHER THAN* RS?Actually tons of decent music publications...Spin..which for a few years there, Spin almost put RS out of business when Spin started out as a pretty good magazine with decent journalism and covered damn near every music artist and genre..now it also has become a blatant commercial piece of crap. As well as,...Performing Songwriter Magazine (quite good, very much like The Word) American Songwriter Magazine (which I write for, also quite good, very much like The Word), Blender Magazine, Revolver Magazine, Vibe Magazine (urban music), all the guitar publications here of which in my opinion ONLY Guitar World is very good. Not too techy and they ask artistic insightful questions and YES they regularly cover Queen and Brian. Blues Revue, Harp, Jazz Times, Filter (Very much like NME...pretty decent but only covers modern rock/Indie music). These are the BETTER A and B list of the publications in the USA. Also, the states has seen tons of EXCELLENT music publications GO OUT OF BUSINESS the last half decade because people here in the USA, (and I'm not dissing my fellow USA citizens...just making an observation that the music journalism and entire journalism industry in the USA has seen), because alot of people in the USA just aren't BUYING and therefore NOT READING periodicals and newspapers anymore. THE BEST music publications that competed with RS, being Musician Magazine which was outstanding,it went bankrupt 1999, Billboard Magazine which is the 2nd best magazine to RS is laying off staff left and right and is close to going under. Acoustic Musician Magazine went bankrupt 1999. Guitar Magazine (which was great) went bankrupt 1999. Blues Access Magazine (which I wrote for) went bankrupt 2001. Our (at one time)excellent versions of Record Collector Magazine...being Goldmine Magazine (which I have written for) & Discoveries Magazine have shrunk to barely nothing in size and are now crap. Tons of state newspapers throughout the USA have gone under or nearly so, including The News American here in Maryland which went bankrupt after over 100 years, around the early 90's I recall. Now our 1 news source, The Baltimore Sun, has laid off it's music journalist of 25 years that was about 2001...and most of its top writers as they keep announcing that readership and buyers keep dwindling. USA people like to get their news, even about MUSIC, from TV, the Internet. People are different in the UK. They still read and love and BUY, both periodicals and newspapers so the publications flourish and still maintian high standards of quality. In fact every time I go to Tower Records or Barnes & Noble, I see a NEW UK MUSIC magazine that sprouts up. Clash Magazine, Rip & Burn Magazine, The Scene Magazine, etc. so people in the UK LOVE to READ about music, but in a hard copy magazine..and they are happy to BUY those magazines. Also, with due respect to my fellow USA music artists, music journalists and music industry...You Brits ALWAYS were better and outdid us. We may have "invented Rock & Roll...but The British Invasion, The Beatles, The Stones, Queen, The Who...then later in the 80's with Live Aid, and all the great new artists then..hey you Brits make better music, have more artistic, talented artists, even better events...I'll take Live Aid over Woodstock any day. And for artists of social conscience and talent...I'll take Brian & Roger, Bono, Sting, Bob Geldof, John Lennon, any day over Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. I take my hat off to and bow to you... |
| Mr.Jingles 19.04.2005 13:02 |
'Spin' is nearly as bad as Rolling Stone. All they do is praise The Strokes and The White Stripes like they were the biggest musical phenomenon of our generation. Critics consider them the future of music, while rock fans are still wondering what's all the freakin' hype. Pure bullshit. On the other hand they don't pay much attention to bands that are well on their way to become legends like Green Day, Muse, and Franz Ferdinand. |
| doremi 19.04.2005 13:11 |
Mr.Jingles79 wrote: 'Spin' is nearly as bad as Rolling Stone. All they do is praise The Strokes and The White Stripes like they were the biggest musical phenomenon of our generation. Critics consider them the future of music, while rock fans are still wondering what's all the freakin' hype. Pure bullshit. On the other hand they don't pay much attention to bands that are well on their way to become legends like Green Day, Muse, and Franz Ferdinand.Arlene Wrote, said, "Actually tons of decent music publications...Spin..which for a few years there, Spin almost put RS out of business when Spin started out as a pretty good magazine with decent journalism and covered damn near every music artist and genre..now it also has become a blatant commercial piece of crap." [quote] I said that see above. Spin now reeks and I heard it's owner or former owner Bob Guccione is filing bankruptcy...the magazine gets thinner and crappier each month. |
| Benn 20.04.2005 05:46 |
Arlene, re: >because alot of people in the USA just aren't >BUYING and therefore NOT READING periodicals >and newspapers anymore. This is because information is more "freely" available via the Internet. Why spend $10 on a magazine when you can just open up a web browser and get the information for nothing. Record Collector is just as bad - the news section is generally "old news" by the time it hits the street because wb sites have already carried the information for weeks. If you relied on monthky publications for your news, you'd miss out on lots of things - for example the upcoming Cream shows at The Royal Albert Hall - details of ticket availability were published, but CLEARLY not going to be available because they had sold out. Teh only use these publications now have is for archive re-issues as in the Special Editions. Unfortunately, it's an exercise in re-hashing the same old stories...... |