Some of my favorite Music Magazines

In the summer of 1987 I was recovering from an operation and that was roughly the same time that I started to have a love affair with music magazines which was to last for over 20 years. The publication that I bought, literally every week between October 1987 and January 2000, was the New Musical Express (NME) and at that stage it was quite a wide ranging magazine. World Music, Hardcore Trash, Hip Hop, as well as Indie and Mainstream Pop and Rock - all these genres were catered for and I learned, quickly, a lot about music from reading that publication. Another thing I liked about NME was its news coverage. A typical edition, in its first six pages, would devote considerable journalistic skill in informing music lovers of what was happening. By looking up a copy of NME you would most likely be the first person to be aware of the various trends in the music business. Many have described it in glowing terms as ' The Music Bible'.

I can remember many wonderful entertaining and poignant interviews carried in its pages. From Van Morrisson's grumpy sobriety to Morrissey's refreshingly honest Asexuality (a huge attraction to many NME readers at the time who were late sexual developers). I can recall an emotional interview with Ian McCulloch. He spoke about the loss of his father and I think the interview got across the pain of the bereavement that he felt. I loved the NME and it was my first choice of magazine for years, however by 2000 I had become divorced from it. No longer the important journal - it had lost almost everything that attracted me to it in the first place and I decided not to carry on paying for the continuing depreciation in quality.

Around 1988 I came across another music paper which was equally as attractive to read as NME. Sounds was more in the vein of an indie Kerrang! or Metal Hammer and I loved it. The magazine specialised in noisy, rough Rock and it hardly ever disappointed as a read. If NME represented 'Madchester' with its baggy clothing and rave culture, then Sounds stood for the greasy, sweaty rockers who listened only to John Peel(RIP) or Tommy Vance(RIP) and preferred to attend Reading rather than Glastonbury.

Some of the 'scribes' that I read and respected at the time when I believe music was still extremely exciting to read about were:

• EDWIN POUNCEY/SAVAGE PENCIL (NME, now at WIRE)
• STEVE LAMAQ (NME, now BBC)
• SIMON WILLIAMS (NME)
• STEVEN WELLS (NME)
• STUART MACONIE (NME, now BBC)
• MR. SPENCER (Sounds)
• MICK MERCER (Sounds)
• EVERETT TRUE (Melody Maker)

Growing up as I did, before the Internet meant that the UK's music mags were an extremely important way of accessing information on everything happening: Gigs, new releases and specialist music styles. Getting a look every Thursday was essential in my development as a music fan.

In Ireland we didn't have the same breadth of homegrown mags to choose from however we did have an irreverent, bawdy, hedonistic fortnightly journal which I now think of being the most reliable magazine in the Emerald Isle. Hot Press was founded in the late 1970's and I was obviously too young to appreciate it then. But by around 1987 I had started to read and buy it. At that time it was printed on relatively poor quality paper and was, unlike these days, frankly not that attractive to look at. Furthermore I wouldn't have been surprised if certain newsagents equated it with porn which it, most emphatically, was not. Well these days Hot Press is a slickly oiled machine and now boasts a strong circulation level and I would say that things bode well for its future. It's a long way from when legal action by a former Lord Mayor of Dublin threatened its existence. It is now unrivalled for coverage of Irish popular culture.

In 2000 I started to subscribe to Wire Magazine. I regarded it as being a cutting edge publication and it frequently informed me as to what was new to hear in the world. However it was essentially an 'Avant Garde' music guide and after 5 years of subscribing I stopped getting it. Most of what it covered didn't chime with me despite my initial enthusiasm for reading it. To fully 'understand' the music it's journalists wrote about, you would have to be, most probably, on drugs or under the influence of alcohol. It continues to move in the same direction but can no longer accommodate me.

Over the years many music magazines have come and gone and many are still with us: Smash Hits (RIP), Vox (RIP), Q, Select (RIP), MOJO, Record Collector, F. Roots, Rock n Reel, Melody Maker (RIP), Songlines, Underground (RIP), Offbeat (RIP), Jazz News (RIP), Spiral Scratch(Seen as an indie alternative to Record Collector, RIP). American magazines don't really grab me but my favorites would have to be MAXIMUMROCKNROLL (Punk journal extraordinaire) and No Depression (Specialising in Country/Folk with an American twang). As a music fan I have always enjoyed looking at and reading a wide variety of publications and I still try to find magazines that will inform me on that subject. Recently I came across a wonderful mag from the UK which specialises in that most labyrinthine of genres,Garage Rock. It is called Shindig and I think it conveys well the excitement of being a fan of that kind of music, rather like a fanzine.

Fanzines are basically mags written by people who were in bands or 'trainspotters' (obsessive fans) with nothing better to do with their time. I loved them for eschewing the bullshit of the bigger music papers and the fawning over the current 'stars' that they indulged in. You usually had to send away to the UK or further afield to get them, but fanzines were a real treat when they arrived in the post. A selection of my favorites would be: Suspect Device, Continental Restyling as well as React and Gearhead Nation (both based in Ireland). All the publications listed were written by, and for, those who had a high level of enthusiasm for what they listened to - THE FANS!

These days I no longer have a burning desire to hunt down music magazines in the same way I did in my teens. Probably because of the cost but also because everything in the magazines has been homogenised and cleaned up. In short this translates as less excitement and music magazines have now given way to the Internet. I spend much of my time listening and viewing Myspace and other sites and that means that I no longer have to blacken my fingers on newsprint, but I think I'll always remember the importance, especially through my adolescence, of good, stimulating, music magazines - an essential diet not to have been missed.