UNCUT- "world's best rock magazine"
11-18-03, 09:56 AM
#1
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UNCUT- "world's best rock magazine"
As according to the Washington Post (and I whole heartingly agree)
The Magazine Reader
Pumping Up Their Volumes
By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
The problem with most magazines is that they don't make any noise. They don't sing, they don't have a good beat and you can't dance to them.
Apparently, you're supposed to just sit quietly and read magazines. This is old-fashioned. It's anachronistic. It's archaic. Let's face it, silence is passe. These days, people want something they can slip into a CD player, then turn up the volume.
Many publishers are responding to this demand by including free CDs with their magazines. The first one I saw came in the Oxford American's "Southern Music" issue in 1997. It was a wonderful collection of country, jazz, rock and gospel tunes by Southern artists, old and new, famous and obscure. Since then, the Oxford American has produced a "Southern Music" issue every summer, each one including an excellent CD.
Back in 1997, getting a CD in a magazine was a delightful surprise. Now, newsstands are thick with mags that feature CDs. The economics work out nicely for publishers: CDs are cheap to produce -- about a quarter apiece -- and some record companies will pay hundreds of dollars to get a song on a magazine's CD to promote the artist.
Recently I went out and bought a bunch of mags with CDs, then sat down to check them out. Let's take them one by one.
UNCUT: This is a British rock monthly that's widely available on American newsstands for $7.95 a pop. That's a tad pricey, but it's worth it because each issue comes with a CD of songs picked by some rock star -- it's like getting the mix tapes of the rich and famous.
Last fall, Rolling Stone Keith Richards picked the songs -- a collection of vintage blues, R&B, country and soul that was so good I gave the CDs out as Christmas presents. This month, Uncut's CD features music chosen by the rock band R.E.M. It's not quite as dazzling as the Richards CD, but it's very good -- 20 songs by an eclectic group of artists, including Merle Haggard, the Band, Louis Jordan and Ornette Coleman.
These are the kind of surprising, genre-busting collections of songs that you used to hear on progressive radio stations before they were bought by soulless monopolies that turned them into predictable, formulaic money machines.
Uncut's CDs alone are worth the purchase price, but the mag also features smart, well-written articles. It's a combination that makes Uncut the world's best rock magazine.
Q: Another British rock magazine, this one available here for $8.75. It doesn't always come with a CD, but there's one in the December issue. It's billed as "2003's Greatest Tracks!" If that's true, then 2003 wasn't a particularly good year for music, though there are memorable songs by Johnny Cash, OutKast and Jane's Addiction. The magazine touts this as: "The perfect way to dip your toes into this year's musical waters. Or to lick at its aural ice cream."
Lick at its aural ice cream? Obviously, Q's prose can get dippy. In fact, you can safely skip most of these articles. But there is a photo spread of Britney Spears looking even sluttier than she looks in American magazines, if that revs your engine.
PASTE: This Atlanta-based bimonthly includes a CD in each issue and sells for $5.95. Paste's taste is for quieter music -- folk, country, soft rock. "It's what we wish we heard on the radio -- real diversity bound by immaculate songcraft," the editors write. The October-November issue features 22 songs, some by such well-known artists as June Carter Cash, Rufus Wainwright and Guided by Voices, others by artists you've probably never heard. The music is solid, straightforward stuff and so are Paste's articles, which are short profiles of such musicians as Wainwright, Emmylou Harris and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
MOJO: Another excellent British rock mag, Mojo retails for $8.75. It doesn't always come with a CD, but the November issue features a collection of 20 songs that celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Ryko label -- cuts by Warren Zevon, the Flaming Lips, Kelly Willis and the Spanish Harlem Orchestra. Plus the late comedian Bill Hicks mocking the first Gulf War.
Inside is a tribute to Johnny Cash by Sylvie Simmons, who spent five days with Cash shortly before he died in September. An interview with Ozzy Osbourne reveals that the bat-biting rocker recently had "a benign polyp removed from his colon." That's more than I want to know about Ozzy, but it does indicate that Mojo's coverage goes deeper than most mags.
ALTERNATIVE PRESS: This glossy Cleveland-based monthly features profiles of punk and hardcore musicians. AP's December issue, which sells for $3.95, includes a CD that features six songs -- two each by Alexisonfire, Coheed & Cambria and Give Up the Ghost. All of the songs are very noisy. Alexisonfire sounded like Alexis really was on fire. I think they should have squirted water on the poor guy instead of recording his hideous dying screams and putting them on this CD.
GRAMOPHONE: This British classical music magazine usually comes with one CD, but the latest issue has two -- one featuring the mag's choice of the best music released in 2003, the other billed as "The New Generation: Classical Music's Rising Stars." All that, plus profiles of classical musicians and lots of reviews, for $8.75. The music is very soothing, particularly after you've heard Alexisonfire. And this guy Bach, whose music appears on both CDs, has talent. I think he'll go places.
AMP: The title is short for American Music Press and it's a bimonthly punk mag that comes with a CD in every issue. The October-November issue, which retails for only $1.99, contains Q&A interviews with punk rockers, plus a CD with 21 songs. Unfortunately -- or perhaps fortunately -- I couldn't hear any of them because the CD I got didn't work. Maybe that's because a sticker that read "Anti-Flag: The Terror State" had stuck to it, leaving a black streak of glue. Now I'll never get to hear Boys Night Out sing "Got Punched in the Nose for Sticking My Face in Other People's Business."
THE NEW REPUBLIC: The Nov. 17 issue of this venerable old political mag comes with a CD-ROM. It's called "The New Republic's Symposium on Public Policy" and it is "Sponsored by The People of Saudi Arabia, Allies Against Terrorism." This isn't music, it's a video of a bunch of policy wonks jawboning about the Middle East at a recent symposium that was also sponsored by America's favorite theocratic dictatorship. It's like watching C-SPAN, only less exciting.
After countless hours of listening to these CDs, my ears were ringing, and I longed for a nice quiet place and a good magazine to read there. You know, the kind of magazine that makes no noise except for the sound of a unique human voice telling an interesting story through the magic of black letters on white paper.
Alas, excellent writing is rare these days -- much harder to find than mags with CDs
It's a very interesting article addressing the merging of CD that accompany magazines. Yet Peter Carlson, doesn't mention these other magazines (with CD's):
CMJ - monthly US magazine with somewhat hit or miss music selection
Muzik, Mixmag and Jockey Slut - UK magazine specializing in the 'dance' genre.
Am I missing any?
The Magazine Reader
Pumping Up Their Volumes
By Peter Carlson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
The problem with most magazines is that they don't make any noise. They don't sing, they don't have a good beat and you can't dance to them.
Apparently, you're supposed to just sit quietly and read magazines. This is old-fashioned. It's anachronistic. It's archaic. Let's face it, silence is passe. These days, people want something they can slip into a CD player, then turn up the volume.
Many publishers are responding to this demand by including free CDs with their magazines. The first one I saw came in the Oxford American's "Southern Music" issue in 1997. It was a wonderful collection of country, jazz, rock and gospel tunes by Southern artists, old and new, famous and obscure. Since then, the Oxford American has produced a "Southern Music" issue every summer, each one including an excellent CD.
Back in 1997, getting a CD in a magazine was a delightful surprise. Now, newsstands are thick with mags that feature CDs. The economics work out nicely for publishers: CDs are cheap to produce -- about a quarter apiece -- and some record companies will pay hundreds of dollars to get a song on a magazine's CD to promote the artist.
Recently I went out and bought a bunch of mags with CDs, then sat down to check them out. Let's take them one by one.
UNCUT: This is a British rock monthly that's widely available on American newsstands for $7.95 a pop. That's a tad pricey, but it's worth it because each issue comes with a CD of songs picked by some rock star -- it's like getting the mix tapes of the rich and famous.
Last fall, Rolling Stone Keith Richards picked the songs -- a collection of vintage blues, R&B, country and soul that was so good I gave the CDs out as Christmas presents. This month, Uncut's CD features music chosen by the rock band R.E.M. It's not quite as dazzling as the Richards CD, but it's very good -- 20 songs by an eclectic group of artists, including Merle Haggard, the Band, Louis Jordan and Ornette Coleman.
These are the kind of surprising, genre-busting collections of songs that you used to hear on progressive radio stations before they were bought by soulless monopolies that turned them into predictable, formulaic money machines.
Uncut's CDs alone are worth the purchase price, but the mag also features smart, well-written articles. It's a combination that makes Uncut the world's best rock magazine.
Q: Another British rock magazine, this one available here for $8.75. It doesn't always come with a CD, but there's one in the December issue. It's billed as "2003's Greatest Tracks!" If that's true, then 2003 wasn't a particularly good year for music, though there are memorable songs by Johnny Cash, OutKast and Jane's Addiction. The magazine touts this as: "The perfect way to dip your toes into this year's musical waters. Or to lick at its aural ice cream."
Lick at its aural ice cream? Obviously, Q's prose can get dippy. In fact, you can safely skip most of these articles. But there is a photo spread of Britney Spears looking even sluttier than she looks in American magazines, if that revs your engine.
PASTE: This Atlanta-based bimonthly includes a CD in each issue and sells for $5.95. Paste's taste is for quieter music -- folk, country, soft rock. "It's what we wish we heard on the radio -- real diversity bound by immaculate songcraft," the editors write. The October-November issue features 22 songs, some by such well-known artists as June Carter Cash, Rufus Wainwright and Guided by Voices, others by artists you've probably never heard. The music is solid, straightforward stuff and so are Paste's articles, which are short profiles of such musicians as Wainwright, Emmylou Harris and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
MOJO: Another excellent British rock mag, Mojo retails for $8.75. It doesn't always come with a CD, but the November issue features a collection of 20 songs that celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Ryko label -- cuts by Warren Zevon, the Flaming Lips, Kelly Willis and the Spanish Harlem Orchestra. Plus the late comedian Bill Hicks mocking the first Gulf War.
Inside is a tribute to Johnny Cash by Sylvie Simmons, who spent five days with Cash shortly before he died in September. An interview with Ozzy Osbourne reveals that the bat-biting rocker recently had "a benign polyp removed from his colon." That's more than I want to know about Ozzy, but it does indicate that Mojo's coverage goes deeper than most mags.
ALTERNATIVE PRESS: This glossy Cleveland-based monthly features profiles of punk and hardcore musicians. AP's December issue, which sells for $3.95, includes a CD that features six songs -- two each by Alexisonfire, Coheed & Cambria and Give Up the Ghost. All of the songs are very noisy. Alexisonfire sounded like Alexis really was on fire. I think they should have squirted water on the poor guy instead of recording his hideous dying screams and putting them on this CD.
GRAMOPHONE: This British classical music magazine usually comes with one CD, but the latest issue has two -- one featuring the mag's choice of the best music released in 2003, the other billed as "The New Generation: Classical Music's Rising Stars." All that, plus profiles of classical musicians and lots of reviews, for $8.75. The music is very soothing, particularly after you've heard Alexisonfire. And this guy Bach, whose music appears on both CDs, has talent. I think he'll go places.
AMP: The title is short for American Music Press and it's a bimonthly punk mag that comes with a CD in every issue. The October-November issue, which retails for only $1.99, contains Q&A interviews with punk rockers, plus a CD with 21 songs. Unfortunately -- or perhaps fortunately -- I couldn't hear any of them because the CD I got didn't work. Maybe that's because a sticker that read "Anti-Flag: The Terror State" had stuck to it, leaving a black streak of glue. Now I'll never get to hear Boys Night Out sing "Got Punched in the Nose for Sticking My Face in Other People's Business."
THE NEW REPUBLIC: The Nov. 17 issue of this venerable old political mag comes with a CD-ROM. It's called "The New Republic's Symposium on Public Policy" and it is "Sponsored by The People of Saudi Arabia, Allies Against Terrorism." This isn't music, it's a video of a bunch of policy wonks jawboning about the Middle East at a recent symposium that was also sponsored by America's favorite theocratic dictatorship. It's like watching C-SPAN, only less exciting.
After countless hours of listening to these CDs, my ears were ringing, and I longed for a nice quiet place and a good magazine to read there. You know, the kind of magazine that makes no noise except for the sound of a unique human voice telling an interesting story through the magic of black letters on white paper.
Alas, excellent writing is rare these days -- much harder to find than mags with CDs
It's a very interesting article addressing the merging of CD that accompany magazines. Yet Peter Carlson, doesn't mention these other magazines (with CD's):
CMJ - monthly US magazine with somewhat hit or miss music selection
Muzik, Mixmag and Jockey Slut - UK magazine specializing in the 'dance' genre.
Am I missing any?
11-18-03, 11:49 AM
#2
DVD Talk Platinum Edition
Had I not actually seen it before I would have had a hard time believing that a magazine with that name had anything to do with music.
I think including a free CD is a great idea. Also, many times as I read through a music magazine I read about all these bands I've never heard before but would like to, maybe they should include CD with songs from bands they actually feature in the magazine, as well as songs that artists pick out.
I think including a free CD is a great idea. Also, many times as I read through a music magazine I read about all these bands I've never heard before but would like to, maybe they should include CD with songs from bands they actually feature in the magazine, as well as songs that artists pick out.
11-18-03, 08:36 PM
#3
DVD Talk Hall of Fame
Urb used to have a CD with each issue (subscription only), but I let my subscription lapse, so I don't know if they do that anymore.
I saw some MTV magazine with a CD over at Barnes & Noble the other day. That was the first time I'd seen the magazine, so I don't know if it's a regular thing.
I saw some MTV magazine with a CD over at Barnes & Noble the other day. That was the first time I'd seen the magazine, so I don't know if it's a regular thing.
11-18-03, 09:06 PM
#4
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Uncut really does have the best freebie CDs. It's cool when they do the 2-part themed tribute CDs; they've done Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones in the past. The CDs contain both previously released and previously unreleased cover versions of the tributee's songs by both likely and unlikely artists. Sure, it's pure marketing to make someone buy a magazine twice because there are two versions of a CD, but these CDs have had some awesome exclusive tracks recorded just for Uncut.
The writing for Uncut isn't so bad; though, sometimes their reviews are a bit generous. I'd subscribe, but $78.75 for a one-year magazine subscription seems a bit much for me right now.
The writing for Uncut isn't so bad; though, sometimes their reviews are a bit generous. I'd subscribe, but $78.75 for a one-year magazine subscription seems a bit much for me right now.
