Q magazine closes...

There are good Music Websites out there that have replaced Music Magazines.
Try AllMusic.com

 

I hardly think AllMusic has replaced what Mojo used to be at its peak.

I would say that discussion forums such as this one and I Love Music have contributed to sapping some of the relevance of music magazines. If you can talk Beatles 24/7 online, Mojo’s twice a year Beatles cover stories become less essential.

Reviews are also less important in an age of Spotify and YouTube. Decades ago, I bought British imports unheard on the strength of a review in Melody Maker or NME. Now, for better or for worse, I can go on Spotify and YouTube and hear a new artist before I throw down money on their record. Reviews in Mojo and other music magazines are increasingly pointless as far as guiding listeners to essential new music, which is doubtless why they’ve degenerated into automatic four and five star love-a-thons for the classic geezer artists still recording.

 

Yeah, I get a bang out of the odd review from that site.

 

One of the last issues I purchased, Sept. 2019. So many rare photos in this one. That was another cool thing about Q. You'd flip open an issue, see some amazing photo and go "Wow, where the hell did they find that pic?"

 

Purchased and read it enthusiastically between 1987 and 1990. I loved Tom Hibbert’s ‘Who The Hell...’ pieces which would always be near the beginning and the general tone was respectful and serious. They weren’t afraid to look at some unfashionable acts.

But the public schoolboy tone occasionally grated (all that His Bobness/Dame David stuff got very old very quickly) and one month, I just didn’t bother with it. Think I bailed at the right time - don’t think I’d like to have been around when it went Britpop crazy.

 

Sad for it to go. None of the music they covered in depth had much interest to me from the mid 90's onwards, but the review section was pretty much unparalleled in print. I've certainly not found a website with such a vast range of reviews per month across multiple genres and mediums

 

It got a little weary how many Oasis covers they had, must have been more than R.E.M.?

 

If you can handle reading them on your phone or computer check your public library. Mine has an e-magazine service called RBDigital that offers both those titles and many others mentioned in this thread (including Q), with lots of back issues available for free and the new one posted every month.

 

I used to love to flip through Q when I was at Tower Records...At one time I tried to subscribe (in the US), and found that to be an exercise in frustration (they couldn't get their act together to take my money). But it was definitely the shizzle in the '80s/'90s, and maybe through the early '00s. As the market for physical product collapsed, so did their relevancy.

Sigh...

 

I was a dedicated reader during the 90's but bailed around 2000... I remember that the new Q, each month, was something to look forward to, buy on day one, and digest for hours...and go back to several times.

I was always surprised that they had such a half-assed website...I'm no web guru, but even looking at the Q website 20 years ago, you could tell that they just couldn't be bothered...Like they thought that the net was just a passing fad, and we'd all be back to buying paper magazines, soon enough...

 

I could see Uncut going soon.
It was very sloppy and tacky in the early years but has improved.
But I still feel it lacks an identity
Mojo has more personality

I will miss the passing of the magazines though. Even the ones I don’t care for. I prefer to see choice and we’ll all miss real journalism as time goes on
The 90s was a great time for hanging out in a newsagents and browsing. Or the mags section of hmv

So many industries dying. Including the high street. Now that clothes shops aren’t allowing people to try things on, I think their one major advantage is lost..!

 

A shame but I guess this is the way music mags are going. Bought it a few times a year mid-late 90s, then started only buying the albums of the year issue and maybe some special issues.

The last ones I bought were Dec 2015 with a big ‘100 greatest albums of the 90’s’ feature, and Summer 2018 because it had a big 40th anniversary feature on The Cure. I still have both & guess I will keep for nostalgia’s sake

 

100 greatest albums has always been a feature in mags. Believe it was the NME that started 100 best albums thing, in the seventies. Sgt Pepper ( Beatles album came out .. like eight years earlier) won best album.

 

I loved their year end CDs. In the 90s it was a cost effective way to find about about "import" bands (other than 120 minutes). Great memories. RIP.

 

I was an avid reader of the I Love Music forum in the early 00s. I also like Almost Cool.

 

I am so sick of those lists. And as for blogs that have "100 Best/Favourite Albums" features, well....

EG.

 

I hope the death was not CO-VID 19 related.

 

Any evidence regarding your opinion of Uncut?

They seem to do very well with their Ultimate Music Guides, that must make them some decent money. Their owners have access to the NME and Melody Maker archives, which will mean they can churn out the UMG’s indefinitely.

You only have to look at the number of UMG releases that are re-issued with a little extra content and a higher price a few years down the line to realise they are doing something right, at least from a business point of view.

 

I would totally buy a DVD set of the entire publication run of Q.

I had several boxes containing just about every issue of Q from around 1991-2005 in my garage and finally sold them to a guy for around $300 a couple of years ago.

At their best (late 1980s through the late 1990s), Q redefined the business of writing about and reviewing popular music. A huge and mostly worthy legacy.

 

Agree about the public schoolboy tone, but while in theory I shouldn't like that, I actually found it really funny. It's kind of a parody of public school.
On the other hand, I absolutely hated The Word, all the writers I couldn't stand, all in one place. Yet I know lots of people loved that mag, and still miss it. Some on this thread. Couldn't stand it. I think because it was unironically public school.

 

Actually the Dame David was carried over from the editors' time at Smash Hits..they were still using the term even after they left there!

 

I prefer to not be so cynical.

 

It was probably just a heart attack.

 

I read it a lot through the 90s and early 2000s but it definitely went downhill. I stopped buyint it a few years ago because it seemed they were padding out each issue with countdowns like Top 50 Brit pop albums, that would take up 25 pages and less and less original content.

It’s always sad when publications go out of business because it’s a slippery slope to others following (Long Live Vinyl has also gone bust). If I read anything now it’s Mojo or Uncut.

 

I did end up cancelling my Word subscription a few months before it went under....the tone just became so tiresome. I think I told them how unimpressed I was by its self-satisfied style of writing and "I'm so wonderfully middle-class but enlightened and have a nice appartment in Islington, did you know Tony Blair popped in for a coffee, blah blah", and the guy said well don't worry, once you've cancelled we won't offend you anymore.

Q, early Q, was more of a grown-up Smash Hits feel, before Ellis and Hepworth just got too self-satisfied with their own status. It felt friendly and inclusive, rather than smug and look-how-amazing-we-are.

EG.