Who do the British seemingly hate Q Magazine?

thank fuck for phones, Kindles, staring absently into the void

rip big man, heaven needed a magazine i assumed had stopped production at least a decade ago

― a denim head and an aficionado of Japanese craftsmanship (bizarro gazzara), Monday, 18 May 2020 20:31 (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

It was often great the last few years. Fascinating behind the scenes stuff here from Ted Kessler

https://www.qthemusic.com/articles/almost-famous-ted-kessler

Who do the ilxors seemingly hate Q Magazine?

thank fuck for phones, Kindles, staring absently into the void

― À la recherche du scamps perdu (Noodle Vague)

being stared into absently by the void

lol yeah that too

I'd agree with Ted Kessler that Andrew Harrison's appointment marked a significant uptick, after the grim listicle days. I settled into buying Q about 3 or 4 times a year to read on long train journeys, and the innards were always better than the covers suggested. Sylvia Patterson's stuff stood out, and having invented the "stars answer readers' questions" concept, they continued to execute it well. The reviews section was always the weakest section, though. Way too cautious. There's no accolade thinner than a four-star album review in Q.

They used to give pretty much every album three stars iirc

I have every q mag from sept 1989 to mid 2003 in a bookshelf; they are alongside every mojo from 1994 to the same end point. From an american viewpoint, or at least my own, from 1989 to 1995, the dad-rock-orientation seemed a million times better than that of Rolling Stone, and I aspired to write in that manner, although a lot less PG Wodehouse-ish. to me, it was a magazine that was simply concerned with the width and breadth of anglo and american popular music. Ear Xtacy in louisville Ky did not carry NME or the Melody Maker, and I probly would have not wanted to read it if it did. I have no doubt that this sounds clueless to english ILXors.

And so in 1995, around the time that Q (and every other english music magazine or newspaper) got in the tank for brit-pop, I worked for TimeOut NY for the first four years of its existence (Tony Elliott, TimeOut's founder/publisher, died this week; he was a great guy) and the tone that i had cultivated worked well there. And then in 2000-2001, after I was fired from TONY, my fondest hope would have been to work for an american version of Q. I got my wish: I worked for Blender, which was easily the worst experience of my life. Shortly after beginning to work there, I did not want to read Q any longer, seeing as the Blender EiC was a former Q editor, and having an entirely unpleasant working relationship with an individual who strongly disdained americans and touted the Q formula (and english writers in general) as an unassailable ideal utterly extinguished my former enthusiasm.

For a long time afterwards, during my time at that mag and after I was fired, I strongly disliked english people, as well as the Q formulas and the accompanying editorial tone. Once I got over that, I still was not going to start buying it again, particularly as they would go back to the well over and over again for Oasis, Blur and Radiohead, and could only muster a head of steam for the Strokes and other G/B/D acts that they felt their readership would understand… I guess that Kasabian cover above speaks to that… was Q all about landfill indie in the late 00s?