During the few months I’ve spent here in Cardiff, I’ve had ample opportunity to sample the plethora of British music and movie press. Naturally I haven’t had the chance to read every title, and most of the time I’ve only picked up one or two issues. However as a pop aficionado and a would-be journalist I feel qualified to divulge my opinion on the state of the pop press.

Everybody knows NME or at least pretends to. I’m part of the latter group, as I’ve really dug into NME only recently, after its face lift. It’s been the model for Rumba and its style has obviously inspired a few others as well. Basically in the 1980s it was the thing in music journalism but the flame has since flickered. NME can be a bit self-sufficient at times: they don’t hesitate using phrases like ”the NME can reveal” when writing about truly trivial things and they sometimes handle incoming mail as it was addressed to God. Did I have something to say about the magazine? Well not really, except that I don’t really get it. Leafing through the NME Originals I’ve learned that once upon a time the pages of the magazine were full of vitriol and Correct Opinions. Apparently nowadays they just hype whatever White Stripes/Vines/Strokes/etc clones happen to be releasing something. Shame.

X-Ray is a new contender. The magazine comes in a curiously small size, something like an A5. The selling point here is quite obviously the CD, which nearly doubles the size of the package X-Ray occupies on the magazine rack. Some of the features are quite well written, though there’s nothing you wouldn’t have seen before. Most interesting is the focus, which is on new, up-and-coming bands and trends. At times they even write about different stuff than the NME.

Word is – surprise surprise – a new magazine and it’s the most promising of them all. The bits and pieces of blowing their own trumpet aside (well they’ve got to raise their visibility somehow, don’t they?) it’s a very pleasant acquaintance. The articles aren’t short and they aren’t based on press junkets, so there’s actually some content. The subject matters range from music to movies to books to gadgets, which pretty much fits my idea of a perfect pop magazine. As Word doesn’t have to pretend to be covering everything they spend most of the time praising the things they like instead of dissing what they don’t. For some reason I can’t quite point my finger on it’s quite refreshing. Naturally everything cannot be perfect with Word, but it’s clearly the strongest contender out there right now. The only problem I’m going to have with it is the international subscription price which is way too much. TANSTAAFL.

Here be the long awaited second part of my British pop magazine overview. Three profound analyses for your benefit, free to read here at Olli’s Amazing Blog! (I’ve been watching too many commercials lately, I’m afraid.)

First up is Uncut. It looks and feels like a carbon copy of Mojo in many senses, so this is sort of a combined review. The best thing about the magazine is the sheer size of articles. For example, the May 2003 issue of Uncut had a story about Fleetwood Mac that ran from page 38 to page 66. I’ve never seen such extensive essays in any pop magazine, and I must say I’m impressed. Not only because of the size, but because of quality. It’s obvious that you can’t just whip up a story this big without doing serious research, multiple interviews and so on, and I’m happy to say that it shows. Mojo has learned accounts as well, and they’re very well written, if not quite as extensive. My biggest – and only – gripe is that the two magazines have their sights set permanently in the past. Unfortunately that kind of rules them out, me being the kind of pop neophyte that I am.

Bang has a promising roster of writers, especially my new all-time favourite Simon Price. It is therefore a real shame that Bang seems to place more value on images than on text, especially as Price’s pieces about The Flaming Lips and Har-Mar Superstar were a real joy to read. The majority of the magazine was sadly filled with short bits of gossip that are already ubiquitous on the net. The accompanying CD was okay. It’ll be interesting to see if Bang will succeed in carving a niche for itself; to my eye it wouldn’t seem likely. Recommended with caution.

Rock Sound is pretty boring. I only bought it for the CD and it wasn’t that good anyhow. I advice you to skip this one.