4 stars (Q104) May 1995, album released September 1991 Come their traditional retrospective at the end of 1991, Q put 24 Years Of Hunger in the Top 50 albums of the year, but I can’t remember the original review…if indeed there was one (the online database of Q reviews doesn’t have any listed for 1991). If you haven’t heard this album, investigate online forthwith. As I wrote in 2017, 24 Years Of Hunger is impossible not to love! EG.
I once saw Quincy Jones on the opening day of the Paris Casino...he was playing single-zero roulette... Oh, wait!...different Q!
I can hear the Steely Dan influences now (mainly because in 1991 I'd never really heard them), but...Carpenters? Hmm... EG.
5 stars December 1991, album released November 1991 Oh Achtung Baby, you blew my mind. What times we shared. It was, in so many ways, my album of the 1990s. Of course Q fell over themselves to praise it, but what else could they do? We’re now exactly halfway through our 100 albums of the Q era, and it’s not even 1992 yet! EG.
Describing Ultra Violet as a weak moment tells me everything I need to know about this review. Q got it so wrong sometimes.
It's one of my favourite tracks. There's not much on the album I don't like, to be fair, but that is a highlight. EG.
God, I used to love Q. I made an unkind comment on this forum when the magazine wound up last year, and was justly pulled up on it. My bad! If you don’t have anything nice to say, etc... I was chomping at the bit when it came to the first of the month, though. I only got into Q in around April 1993, but it gave me a good five years or so of solid education in non-chart music. I’d never heard of Neil Young, Led Zeppelin or Steely Dan until I’d read Q. (sniff)
Thanks to all for posting these old school review images! They’re great. I love the Smash Hits ones as well! I used to laugh my ass off at Smash Hits. It was hilarious in the late 80’s, very early 90’s. Quite close to the bone in parts as I recall!
I think Massive Attack’s Mezzanine got either 3 or 2 stars from Q. I hope it was the former, although that’s still an underrated score if ever I saw it!
There’s a couple of great blogs that feature practically every issue of Smash Hits. Shame there isn’t one for Q...
Interesting thread. Q was THE British music magazine I bought, and I started buying it early in its existence and continued (by subscription) until the bitter end. As an American in love with British music, it was a godsend in those early pre-internet days. It was the only way I knew some of my favorite bands were releasing new product, and frequently pointed me to similar bands in the reviews. I don't much care about Qs take on the mega star releases, as I already knew about those and didn't much care what a reviewer thought about them. But for those obscure (in America) import-only releases in the days before amazon.co.uk, Q was invaluable. Plus, every month was chock full of stories and photos of Kate Bush, ABC, Tears for Fears, Madness and those countless other musicians I value so highly. Perhaps it outlived its usefulness but I have every issue in the basement and expect I'll look back fondly on its coverage for some time to come.
When I was an undergraduate in college (fall 1991 to spring 1995), the school library used to have a subscription to Q, and I used to read it regularly. (I was also a regular reader of Rolling Stone, Spin, and Musician magazines during the same period, as well as a few years before and after my college days in the case of the U.S. music magazines.) It was the one British music magazine I read on a regular basis. Some U.S. bookstores (not many but some, like Borders and Barnes & Noble) would also carry it and I'd look over the issues when I went there. I always liked Q; it was a change of pace and had a different style than the three U.S. magazines I mentioned above.
I liked it for a while, then it became insufferably glib. Not a great fan of Hepworth, I have to admit.
The early editions of Q - I started in early '88 with the Chuck Berry interview - are special for me. I was 18, at university, trying to fit in with a crowd who were much 'cooler' than I was - or so I assumed! In those pre-Internet days, Q seemed like a friendly, non-judgemental older friend who would share insights about music and culture that you probably would never have picked up on. That sounds cheesy and sentimental ... but that's how it was for me
I managed to find a copy of 24 Years Of Hunger on Discogs a couple of years ago for £8. Near mint condition, too. Reading about the album’s near legendary status whet my appetite and I really wanted a copy. Not quite desperate enough to pay £40-odd for a ‘good’ condition copy on Amazon, though... I was even half-tempted to plead with Apple to release it on iTunes, not that it would’ve done any good. Nice sounding CD, too. Early 90’s mastering engineers were kind to our ears.
