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| NME, Smash Hits … they made me what I am. But now even I’ve ditched magazines | NME, Smash Hits … they made me what I am. But now even I’ve ditched magazines |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| The pile of magazines is still on my coffee table, untouched and growing dusty, reminding me that my old obsession is dead. | The pile of magazines is still on my coffee table, untouched and growing dusty, reminding me that my old obsession is dead. |
| One Christmas, a couple of years ago, I was given a subscription to a service called Stack. Stack sends out a different independent magazine, with a letter discussing it, once a month. There was Boat, about travel; Victory, which combined art and sport; Works That Work, which was, loosely, about creativity. | One Christmas, a couple of years ago, I was given a subscription to a service called Stack. Stack sends out a different independent magazine, with a letter discussing it, once a month. There was Boat, about travel; Victory, which combined art and sport; Works That Work, which was, loosely, about creativity. |
| It was the perfect present for someone with bookshelves full of old magazines, and hardback anthologies of cover designs, and “best of” interview collections. Yet somehow, slowly, I stopped spending money on them. Worst of all, I stopped really reading them. I flicked through Stack’s monthly selection once or twice, putting it to one side, saving it for a bath or a train journey that never came. | It was the perfect present for someone with bookshelves full of old magazines, and hardback anthologies of cover designs, and “best of” interview collections. Yet somehow, slowly, I stopped spending money on them. Worst of all, I stopped really reading them. I flicked through Stack’s monthly selection once or twice, putting it to one side, saving it for a bath or a train journey that never came. |
| I still “consume” (forgive the verb) magazines, but differently, with less nerdy affection, and without subscriptions: usually on an iPad or phone, or piecemeal articles online, or weekend supplements over breakfast. It looks like I’m about to start reading the NME weekly again though, since it is joining Time Out in ditching its cover price and being doled out to students and commuters. (In going free, it aims to distribute 300,000 copies a week, hugely increasing its current readership from a miserly 15,000.) | I still “consume” (forgive the verb) magazines, but differently, with less nerdy affection, and without subscriptions: usually on an iPad or phone, or piecemeal articles online, or weekend supplements over breakfast. It looks like I’m about to start reading the NME weekly again though, since it is joining Time Out in ditching its cover price and being doled out to students and commuters. (In going free, it aims to distribute 300,000 copies a week, hugely increasing its current readership from a miserly 15,000.) |
| Melody Maker and the NME provided access to the idea of bands long before it was possible to hear them | Melody Maker and the NME provided access to the idea of bands long before it was possible to hear them |
| Perhaps a new generation of readers will fall in love with print. Or perhaps they will start to see it as a disposable, throwaway read, without value, just as many perceive the music it will be discussing. | Perhaps a new generation of readers will fall in love with print. Or perhaps they will start to see it as a disposable, throwaway read, without value, just as many perceive the music it will be discussing. |
| I hope it works out for NME. The news about it gave me a jolt of nostalgia for a time when magazines were everything. Pocket money and wages went towards whatever looked good on the shelves, and these discoveries shaped my tastes and outlook in a way it is impossible to imagine now, with such a range of options and flexibility, where you read not one take on the new Rihanna video, for example, but dozens, should you wish to. The choice is wonderful, and exhausting. | I hope it works out for NME. The news about it gave me a jolt of nostalgia for a time when magazines were everything. Pocket money and wages went towards whatever looked good on the shelves, and these discoveries shaped my tastes and outlook in a way it is impossible to imagine now, with such a range of options and flexibility, where you read not one take on the new Rihanna video, for example, but dozens, should you wish to. The choice is wonderful, and exhausting. |
| The magazines I loved foisted their personality and voice upon their readers, who did not have this choice. They taught me about music and the love of music. The tail end of Smash Hits celebrated pop stars at the same time as teasing and deflating them; there was a democracy to its wit, and I don’t think music has been written about with such a sense of joy or fun since. | The magazines I loved foisted their personality and voice upon their readers, who did not have this choice. They taught me about music and the love of music. The tail end of Smash Hits celebrated pop stars at the same time as teasing and deflating them; there was a democracy to its wit, and I don’t think music has been written about with such a sense of joy or fun since. |
| Later, Melody Maker and the NME – one mischievous, one more slick – provided access to the idea of bands long before it was possible to hear them. I bought records based on whether the people who made them were entertaining in interviews, which usually worked out (Kenickie), but not always (60ft Dolls, Gay Dad). | Later, Melody Maker and the NME – one mischievous, one more slick – provided access to the idea of bands long before it was possible to hear them. I bought records based on whether the people who made them were entertaining in interviews, which usually worked out (Kenickie), but not always (60ft Dolls, Gay Dad). |
| They taught me how to be a teenage girl: first Sugar and Bliss, as sweet as their names suggested, gently broaching “issues” without seeming threatening or offputtingly sophisticated. Then More!, which someone smuggled into school, where we would marvel at Position of the Fortnight, curious and afraid to admit that it was terrifying. | They taught me how to be a teenage girl: first Sugar and Bliss, as sweet as their names suggested, gently broaching “issues” without seeming threatening or offputtingly sophisticated. Then More!, which someone smuggled into school, where we would marvel at Position of the Fortnight, curious and afraid to admit that it was terrifying. |
| Just 17 was like the big sister from Almost Famous, into bands and straight talk, funny and honest. One issue, daringly, had a poster of Jon Spencer from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. My favourite was a short-lived mag called Minx, which seemed impossibly glamorous and tasteful and gobby, and was really into Shirley Manson. | Just 17 was like the big sister from Almost Famous, into bands and straight talk, funny and honest. One issue, daringly, had a poster of Jon Spencer from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. My favourite was a short-lived mag called Minx, which seemed impossibly glamorous and tasteful and gobby, and was really into Shirley Manson. |
| Related: Will NME hit the right note as a free magazine? | Related: Will NME hit the right note as a free magazine? |
| Then came the style mags, which described parties in faraway cities that seemed alien and exotic to the inhabitant of a small northern town, and promised escape: Sleazenation, Jockey Slut, Dazed & Confused, i-D. I ripped out their beautifully designed pages and stuck them to my bedroom wall as if they were talismans. | |
| When I was older I went on pilgrimages to the club nights they reported on. Soon afterwards, one of them, the Face, gave me my first full-time job, where I opened the editors’ post, pocketed the odd free CD and decided very firmly that I had made it. | When I was older I went on pilgrimages to the club nights they reported on. Soon afterwards, one of them, the Face, gave me my first full-time job, where I opened the editors’ post, pocketed the odd free CD and decided very firmly that I had made it. |
| This is not a lament for a better time: it was a different time, and things have changed, and this is inevitable. There are plenty of sites that act as the clubhouses that magazines once were: Rookie, Vice, Sick Chirpse, Slutever, to name the tiniest of selections. | This is not a lament for a better time: it was a different time, and things have changed, and this is inevitable. There are plenty of sites that act as the clubhouses that magazines once were: Rookie, Vice, Sick Chirpse, Slutever, to name the tiniest of selections. |
| Magazines formed my experiences because they existed at a formative time for me. I hope that NME going free extends its reach, and that it can serve that purpose for someone new. And besides, you can’t take your iPad into the bath – can you? | Magazines formed my experiences because they existed at a formative time for me. I hope that NME going free extends its reach, and that it can serve that purpose for someone new. And besides, you can’t take your iPad into the bath – can you? |
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