Observer Music Magazine

It is very dull...

Not yet had time to listen to the CD.

First impressions of the magazine are disappointing. The Sport monthly is one of the best of it's type. The Food monthly is pretentious but still well put together.

This one looks like it was put together during a rainy lunch hour in a school.

Haven't listened to the CD yet - there's 5 Blur tracks on it, most live. The magazine I guess is finding it's feet, I'm just not sure how it apeals to the Observer/Guardian reader given the content:

1 Top ten music publicity stunts - dull
2 A double page spread covering Britney
3 How to improve Jade Jaggers' music collection
4 A Hip Hop/car show in NY
5 Seven pages of Blur
6 About 15 column inches on Billie Holiday
7 A 7 page article on Pygmy music
8 Hearsay (!!)
9 Dizee Rascal (of course)
10 Reviews section with 8 ***** reviews out of twenty-five albums which will no doubt look good on marketing copy

as in "...*****..." Observer Music Monthly

11 A 10 question/answer sesh between Ricky Gervais and his Lordship Bowie which makes Jonathan Ross' interviewing techniques look objective...

Actually...I take that back, it is SO Guardian reader....

I would have settled for an expanded 'The Guide' music section, but I find the Observer dreary. So much of it reads like a Guardian/Daily Hell hybrid. The 'You hate me cos I am thin' article last week had me vowing to leave it at the corner shop from now on.

It's not at all bad, for a freebie, I think.

A darn sight better than Q, which has been going downhill since about 1995. It's also very different from Mojo and Uncut (both of which are very good). And it's free.

Liked the thing about pygmy music and the hing about improving Jade Jagger's record collection. The design's not bad either.

Can't understand all the coverage Blur got though. That's so Guardian reader.

What it needs is a bit more scabrousness, a bit more passion, a bit more snobbery, a few more cutting-edge artists and it'll be a gripping read.

Kevin

"What it needs is a bit more scabrousness, a bit more passion, a bit more snobbery...."

My sentiments exactly.

Chaps

The Observer is a dull prentious rag read by dull pretentious people who think they are worldly wise etc.

Mainly lefty pinko's who sit on boring committees taking several meetings to decide what wonderful politically correct drivel they can next dream up.

The musical taste is likely to reflect this.

If you buy a decent paper such as the Daily Mail then you get given decent CD's.

Regards

Mick

However reading the Daily Mail will not guarantee that you can master the apotrophe.

And that's the Daily Mail where to father a child outside marriage is a sin (unless you are the proprietor of said newspaper), that has openly supported Mosely, Hitler and Idi Amin, has been forced to apologise for overt racisms at least twice, and once ran the headline "Gays to CAuse the End of Civilisation".

All in all giving away a Blur CD seems trivial by comparison.

Matthew

quote:

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
And that's the Daily Mail where to father a child outside marriage is a sin (unless you are the proprietor of said newspaper), that has openly supported Mosely, Hitler and Idi Amin, has been forced to apologise for overt racisms at least twice, and once ran the headline "Gays to CAuse the End of Civilisation".

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So it meets Kevin's requirements of "scabrousness, passion and snobbery".

Alex,
The new Unkle...any good? How may Unkle releases have there been as a matter of interest? As for the Beth Orton / Finley Quaye revival, I am pretending its not happening. Unfortunately XFM aren't inclined to cooperate on this one (have been listening to radio all day whilst decorating) - they have it on heavy rotation. Still, it provides the opportunity to switch on the sander.
As for the Observer Mag, its not much cop.
Cheers
Simon

Quote: So it meets Kevin's requirements of "scabrousness, passion and snobbery".


Ah yes, but those requirements apply to music papers only. As qualities in human beings or newspapers, well...

Kevin

quote:

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If you buy a decent paper such as the Daily Mail then you get given decent CD's.

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The recent Mail CDs have been quite decent.

FWIW. Anyway stealing them from Mick's letter box would provide the necessary scabrousness by proxy.

Paul

I guess the main problem with the OMM, even though it's not bad for a freebie (can't see anyone paying for it, whereas I know scores of people who would shell out for the Observer's Sport Monthly) is that it is edited by a chap with a duble-barrelled surname (Caspar Llewellyn Smith or somesuch) who probably went to public school and Oxbridge (and probably worked on some student rag while there) and currently resides in Hoxditch. Perhaps daddy had conections too. He probably knows bugger all about music and bugger all about editing mags, but them's the breaks (I am a chippy lower middle class grammar school boy who went to London University in case you're wondering).

These types completely clog up the broadsheets and are probably responsible for their decline.

In the broadsheet sector, it's not what you know or how good you are, but who you know and what connections you made while at skool/uni.

Music mags should be edited and written by people who live, breathe and sleep music, who are not afraid to stick their necks out (as opposed to trying to please everyone or appearing kewl, or penning fawning guff like the Blur piece), people who love and hate in equal measure.

People just like me, of course

Kevin

He did go to Oxford (he's a FOAF) and then did the Hackery postgrad at City University.

Matthew

Apparently he went to Cambridge not Oxford. And my mate who knows him speaks very highly of him noting in parituclar that the description "people who live, breathe and sleep music, who are not afraid to stick their necks out, people who love and hate in equal measure" is actually a very apt description of Caspar himself.

Also -- despite that dodgy looking shirt and a tendency to a Hoxditch mullet in his pen pic -- he's not remotely a Nathan Barley either.

Matthew

So, Matthew, if you know someone who knows him, does that mean we have an "In" here and maybe we could influence next months content?

"When is a CD not a CD?" perhaps..

quote:

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Originally posted by Mick Parry:
Chaps

The Observer is a dull prentious rag read by dull pretentious people who think they are worldly wise etc.

Mainly lefty pinko's who sit on boring committees taking several meetings to decide what wonderful politically correct drivel they can next dream up.

The musical taste is likely to reflect this.

If you buy a decent paper such as the Daily Mail then you get given decent CD's.

Regards

Mick

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Reel 'em in Mick !


Regards,

Brian OReilly