Last week, a colleague at work left me a couple of back issues of Mojo and Uncut – “I’m done with these – you may be interested”.

One time, I used to read both regularly, I even briefly took out a subscription with Mojo. In pre-Mojo days I would buy Q every week.

Way before that (in the late 1970s to be precise) I would devour NME every week and was grateful for articles explaining how bands like MC5, The Doors, The Stooges and The Velvet Underground had paved the way for the ‘overnight sensation’ of Punk rock.

So what is it about all these titles that I now find so depressing.

Here are some of the main reasons:

  • They unearth meaningless trivia about rock ‘icons’ and ‘classic’ albums .  Pink Floyd, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Nirvana, REM  etc. etc.
  • High profile imitators like The Libertines or Oasis are routinely treated as innovators and elevated to ‘classic band’ status.
  • They run articles about rock history as if they were writing exam pass notes.
  • They run retrospective articles with celebrity endorsements – like we need to know which ‘stars’ are into a band to make us feel we are cool.
  • They make endless lists of best and/or life changing albums.
  • They constantly reminisce about ‘memorable’ gigs from a time when many of their readers were still in nappies  (e.g. Uncut  September issue 2010 : Alexander Palace 1964, Isle of Wight Festival 1970,  Rick Wakeman’s King Arthur on Ice 1975)
  • They run more features on artists who are dead or dying than those who are alive and kicking.  (e.g. Mojo  March issue 2010 : in-depth pieces on Charlotte Gainsbourg, Sly Stone, Dr Feelgood Captain Beefheart and Syd Barrett and none on current performers).

Not all these articles are about the ‘swinging’ sixties but that era is held up as the benchmark with the heavy subtext being that ‘they don’t make music like that anymore’.

This view is similar to one which was so eloquently expressed by  Ian Macdonald in ‘Revolution In The Head’ ( his definitive analysis of The Beatles’ records) :

“The sixties seem like a golden age to us because, relative to now, they were. At their heart, the countercultural revolt against acquisitive selfishness – and, in particular, the hippies’ unfashionable perception that we can change the world only by changing ourselves – looks in retrospect like a last gasp of the Western soul. Now radically disunited, we live dominated by and addicted to gadgets, our raison d’etre and sense of community unfixably broken”.

For MacDonald, rock music as countercultural statement was dead by the time The Beatles went their separate ways.  If we look at the contents of most music magazines, he is right.

Personally, I still cling to the romantic notion that music can have a subversive, even countercultural potential. I still search music that challenges me and makes me feel human.

Now my magazine of choice is The Wire which is not perfect  but at least acknowledges that we are now in the 21st century. The downside is that you have to put up with pretentious writing exemplified  by Joseph Stannard’s  review of Eternal Tapestry’s Beyond the 4th Door in the current issue which he describes as: “gesturing at entropy while craftily dodging its embrace”

Probably it is best to treat all these ‘professional’ arbitrators of music taste with a pinch of salt .

For the most part, bloggers and internet forums are now a far more reliable guide to music worth investigating than any of the glossy mags.

[n.b. Skeleton image from T-shirt design obtainable from Zazzle clothing]