like DrownedinSound, The Lipster and Quietus are all pushing music journalism in fascinating directions.

I have a problem with the way a lot of current music journalists write - and this is something that goes right across the spectrum, from the NME, through Pitchfork and DiS to Plan B. Put simply, I find it's often very pretentious. The language is too dense and I find myself having to read each sentence about three or four times before I can really extract any meaning from it. Too often, once I do make sense of it, I find it's a cover up for non opinions and trite sentiments. Journalism doesn't have to read like literature and I'd be happy to have the stylings turned down in favour of some genuine insights and big ideas.

I know my lack of interested in reviews is partly down to that, and partly down to often having heard the band already, like you mentioned. I'm more interested in opinion articles like this one - I can always get excited about those - and really well done interviews.

As for print dying out, my opinion is going to be biased because I have a long term, very unfashionable obsession with buying magazines. I buy a new one almost every day and hoard them. So I can see print becoming more of a niche market for people like me to rave on about Stool Pigeon and make our own amazing fanzines.

Regarding the 'do reviews matter' question:
I think that when you're younger and new to the whole music thing you take reviews and features on artists a lot more on face value. ie. when I was 12/13, if Kerrang said something was good then I'd buy it.

After a few years of buying hit and miss records you start to realise to take things with a pinch of salt.

Until you reach my age and just assume that all music is shit and everyone is lying.

In all seriousness, as much as I respect DiS' view on music, I'm also well aware that a review is based on one person's opinion that can easily differ from mine from record to record.

With the internet, it's far easier to scroll and skim read and get the gist, which you can't do as quickly with a printed magazine. People (me included, to some extent) just can't be bothered anymore. Internet = immediacy. You can click on links and be taken straight to the music, whereas with a mag, takes more effort.

Also, when you think about how many scores and scores of blogs, zines, sites, etc are out there; everyone has become a music critic. The music journalist is a dead concept now, because anyone can do it; the form of it all has been debased and all the magic has gone.

Moreover, with Myspace, downloads, etc, it's all purely about the music speaking for itself now. You just need to catch a name, type it in and decide for yourself. You don't have to read about haircuts and new movements and bullsh*t; you can just hit play and run away with it.

:(

Anyway, NME is losing readers because it's crap. Simple as.
They try to appeal far too much these days to the teenage, 'Skins' audience. If a band has been around longer than 5 minutes, then they don't want to know.
Look at their recent review of Guillemots' new album. They gave it 4 out of 10, because, as far as I could tell from the review, it didn't sound enough like The Arctic Libertines.
They wouldn't know a good album if it leapt from its Jewel case and kicked them in the face.
The same is probably true of Kerrang to an extent.
I'd say Q, Uncut, etc. are doing well because, for the most part, they don't follow the trends quite so much. Perhaps being monthlies, they have less chance to do that.
Whereas a weekly can change its opinion on a band at the drop of a hat to fit in with fashion, a monthly has less scope to do that, lest fashions switch again, and leave a hopelessly outdated opinion.

Maybe I'm reading too much into the parts that fashions and trends have in this. I'd certainly like to think so. But people can be a fickle bunch.

And the NME slagged off Moz. I haven't even leafed through a copy in the shop since then.

there's an ingrained cynicism along the lines of "what the hell do they know? Self righteous, pretentious pricks. And they're probably just sticking to the company line". This is partly based in the realm of truth, but is also because some reviewer once wrote a pithy put down of some album they love.

But the main reason is that people just don't think they need journalism any more. They can download whatever they want for free, or get recommended something by friends and internet hive-minds. But i agree with the person above saying that journalism has been debased by every Joe Q Bloggs having a poorly written, uninsightful blog which can be boiled down to press release + hyperbolic praise + "check this out" + free mp3s. The idea of intelligent writing about music has been degraded by the endless reams of shit which populates the internet.

I love music journalism. At it's very best it can make music even better by adding whole new perspectives and thought patterns to it's appreciation. But in the eyes of the general public it has very little relevance

to choose the fucking Enemy to adorn the front page over a rare Scott Walker interview, as they have done this week, is an utter abomination.

Why would you buy a magazine to read some other bloke’s review of a record when you can listen to the music on Myspace or download it for free?

Look at the magazines that are thriving – Uncut, Classic Rock, Q – they have older, less web-savvy audiences.

because you can get information on the internet that day, and for free, rather than a week or two later and for a couple of pounds (or how much is the nme?)
Since one element of reading a magazine is publically showing off, some cunning change to make what we have more appealing and fashionable. They need to offer something you can't get on the internet- prints of great photos, a truly detailed and comprehensive listing...something you want to keep and re-read, so very funny and interesting reviews or articles that speak to the readers. Although I guess the truth is magazines cannot be fashionable so there will not be a rise in their use....

I think the 'way' of writing in the last few years, both in print and online, has changed towards the pretentious. I mean, there's a huge difference between going off on a tangent, as the writers in NME's 80s heyday were wont to do, and attempting to use obscure words and phrases for the sake of it. A large part is that for the last few years we simply have a lot more choice over where we read about music since the internet enabled anyone with an opinion to express it and publish it for the world to view. We all have a large, trusted bookmark folder full of trusted and like-minded music sites and blogs now, don't we?

Has free music killed journalism? I don't know. You still have to HEAR about it from somewhere, and when someone finds someone, or somewhere, they feel is close to their tastes, they're incredibly loyal to that source.

...soley seem to say "new band X sounds a lot like old band Y", which is a short-cut I find rather lazy.

will never die. ones you can go back to for articles as well as reviews. i've only recently started buying the wire every week, which is an amazing magazine which far from becoming more specialist it has brached out from its jazz roots to cover every area of interesting modern music

is richly fucking deserved.. It's become the most flimsy, lightweight advertising pamphlet in the last few years.. "BIG EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW"s are normally a double page of photos, with about 150 word at the bottom in which the writer tells a brief anecdote about getting pissed with the interviewee, then the date of interviewee's next tour/album, then over. And it's relentlessly uncritical on industry shite like the NME. I used to think it was just pandering to 15yr old Skins kids, but I think most 15yr olds would still prefer a more passion, insight and depth to their music writing.. Like DiS! <<horrible sucking-up sound>>... Or maybe not

the enemy" haha. whoops

Which is also a 100% independent publication run by a small but dedicated team like The Stool Pigeon and Plan B also managed to hang in there with less than a 1% decline in their ABC figures...
Seems the biggest decline is within the major publishing houses like Bauer and Future. But then Q is out through Bauer (formerly Emap)...

i think the main problem with music magazines is that there not neutral any more a journalist would go out and write about a band they liked rather than who was put forward. now if your a band looking for your big break in a music magazine to have to work with the right pr and media companies be with the right labels gone are the days of sending a demo into NME and getting them at your gig. you have to jump through a lot of hoops.
however the underground diy magazines are doing great they don`t have a corporate agenda and will say if an up and coming band is rubbish instead of making them Gods. the websites like dis are in the same spirit of the underground websites and are easier to get your name known they tend to be able to see a new trend in music before anyone else because there on the grass roots level.

for music obsessives (like me/us) to not have some method of filtering the wheat from the chaff.

Up until now, advertisers have been leary of the effectiveness, the vastness of the internet and therefore ad rates are (I think) extremely low compared with traditional media. So even a popular site like DiS is probably not exactly getting rich. But PF has broken thru, so to speak. And it's just a matter of time before the internet becomes the all-inclusive tv, print, telecom vehicle of the future.

Chances are probably good the top internets sites like DiS will be mega. PF already is, eh. There is just so many different blogs and such the loss in NME readership doesn't exactly translate over to any given site. People are still interested in their favorite music and rock stars. The decline of print ...the decline of the music industry is simply a shift in the business model.

nme.com editor's sentiments:

http://tinyurl.com/6y6uj2

The magazines that are well written and RELEVANT to their demographic are still prospering.

What are Metal Hammer and Terrorizer doing? Selling almost as many as NME you say? How very niche.