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33-469: Harvey Kubernik (born February 26, 1951) is an American author, journalist and music historian. From the mid 1970s, he wrote for music publications such as Melody Maker , Los Angeles Free Press , Crawdaddy! and Phonograph Record . His articles, interviews and reviews have since been published in many other music magazines, including Goldmine , Mojo , Musician , Classic Rock , DISCoveries , Uncut , Mix , Harp and Hits , and in

66-629: A focus on pop music rather than rock and aimed at a younger market include the now-defunct Smash Hits and the BBC 's Top of the Pops , which outlived the television show on which it was based. The longest running music magazine in the UK is BMG , founded in 1903 by Clifford Essex . BMG , which stands for banjo, mandolin, and guitar, is the oldest fretted-instrument-focused publication and actively promotes acoustic instruments of all kinds. Major music magazines in

99-500: A group of journalists, including Simon Reynolds and David Stubbs , who had run a music fanzine called Monitor from the University of Oxford , and Chris Roberts , from Sounds , who established MM as more individualistic and intellectual. This was especially true after the hip-hop wars at NME , a schism between enthusiasts of progressive black music such as Public Enemy and Mantronix and fans of traditional white rock ended in

132-540: A longstanding rival in Melody Maker , an even older publication that had existed since 1926; however, by 2001, falling circulation and the rise of internet music sites caused the Melody Maker to be absorbed into its old rival and cease publishing. Several other British magazines such as Select and Sounds also folded between 1990 and 2000. Current UK music magazines include Kerrang! and Mojo . Magazines with

165-408: A time when they were praised by the rest of the press. In 1993, they gave a French rock band called Darlin' a negative review calling their music "a daft punky thrash". Darlin' eventually became the electronic music duo Daft Punk . Australian journalist Andrew Mueller joined MM in 1990 and became Reviews Editor between 1991 and 1993, eventually declining to become Features Editor and leaving

198-504: A victory for the latter and the departure of writers such as Mark Sinker and Biba Kopf (as Chris Bohn was now calling himself), and the rise of Andrew Collins and Stuart Maconie , who pushed NME in a more populist direction. While MM continued to devote most space to rock and indie music (notably Everett True 's coverage of the emerging grunge scene in Seattle ), it covered house , hip hop , post-rock , rave and trip hop . Two of

231-555: Is Melodic . Melodic has its focus mainly on hard rock , melodic metal and alternative music. Among classical music magazines, Diapason is the most read in France. An example of a nostalgia magazine is Keep Rockin' , a 1950s and 1960s nostalgia magazine. The premier issue came out in January 2009. The magazine features a mixture of current events surrounding that time period (e.g. concerts, car shows) and stories with original photos from

264-619: The Los Angeles Times . During the 1970s and early 1980s, he also worked as an A&R director for MCA Records and as a record producer. As of July 2017, Kubernik was a contributing editor at Record Collector News magazine and had written ten books on popular music. His books include Hollywood Shack Job: Rock Music in Film and on Your Screen (2007), Canyon of Dreams (2009), It Was 50 Years Ago Today: The Beatles Invade America and Hollywood (2014), and 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of

297-466: The Record Mirror had published the first UK Albums Chart . From 1964, the paper led its rival publications in terms of approaching music and musicians as a subject for serious study rather than merely entertainment. Staff reporters such as Chris Welch and Ray Coleman applied a perspective previously reserved for jazz artists to the rise of American-influenced local rock and pop groups, anticipating

330-553: The Library of Congress . His first book was This Is Rebel Music , subtitled The Harvey Kubernik InnerViews and published in 2004 by University of New Mexico Press . He subsequently wrote the 2007 book Hollywood Shack Job: Rock Music in Film and on Your Screen . In 2009, Kubernik's book Canyon of Dreams was published by Sterling and Barnes & Noble . It details the Laurel Canyon music community of Los Angeles and incorporates

363-633: The United States include Rolling Stone (founded in 1967), DownBeat (founded in 1934), and Spin (founded in 1985). Clash magazine was voted Music Magazine of the Year in 2004 and is the second largest UK online presence. Clash was also awarded Magazine of the Year at the PPA Scotland Awards. Alternative Press has more of an " underground " coverage including pop punk , post-hardcore and metalcore . A major digital magazine from Sweden

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396-415: The 1950s and 1960s, as well as some reader-written articles about experiences growing up during that period. Several music magazines include a free album of music (usually a compilation of tracks by various artists), known in the publishing industry as a covermount . The practice began in the 1980s with UK magazine Smash Hits giving away flexi discs , and graduated to mixtapes and compact discs in

429-551: The NME, entered a serious decline. In 1999, MM relaunched as a glossy magazine, but the magazine closed the following year, merging into IPC Media 's other music magazine, NME , which took on some of its journalists and music reviewers. Music magazine Music magazines were very prolific in the United Kingdom , with the NME leading sales since its first issue in 1952. NME had

462-529: The Osmonds , the Jackson 5 , and David Cassidy . The music weekly also gave early and sympathetic coverage to glam rock . Richard Williams wrote the first pieces about Roxy Music , while Roy Hollingworth wrote the first article celebrating New York Dolls in proto-punk terms while serving as the Melody Maker ' s New York correspondent. Andrew Means started writing for Melody Maker in 1970. During his time, he

495-574: The Paley Brothers , and the Ramones . Kubernik went on to produce over 50 albums of spoken word, poetry and music. Kubernik's writing has been included in books such as The Rolling Stone Book of the Beats and Drinking with Bukowski . He has contributed liner note essays for several CD reissue campaigns and in 2006 was a featured speaker on audiotape preservation and archiving at the special hearings called by

528-622: The Summer of Love (2017). Harvey Kubernik was born in Los Angeles. He attended Fairfax High School and West Los Angeles College , and graduated from San Diego State University with a B.A. Special Major Degree (Health, Sociology, Literature). He began his career in music journalism in 1972. He later recalled that his attending a pre-tour press conference in Los Angeles for George Harrison 's 1974 North American tour helped establish him professionally. A junior contributor to Los Angeles Free Press at

561-468: The Summer of Love documents the Summer of Love . Melody Maker Melody Maker was a British weekly music magazine , one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media , the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born composer, publisher Lawrence Wright ; the first editor was Edgar Jackson. In January 2001, it

594-1056: The advent of music criticism . On 6 March 1965, MM called for the Beatles to be honoured by the British state. This duly happened on 12 June that year, when all four members of the group (Harrison, Lennon, McCartney, and Starr ) were appointed as members of the Order of the British Empire . By the late 1960s, MM had recovered, targeting an older market than the teen-oriented NME . MM had larger and more specialised advertising; soon-to-be well-known groups would advertise for musicians. It ran pages devoted to "minority" interests like folk and jazz, as well as detailed reviews of musical instruments. A 1968 Melody Maker poll named John Peel best radio DJ, attention which John Walters said may have helped Peel keep his job despite concerns at BBC Radio 1 about his style and record selection. Starting from

627-411: The cover. Several journalists, such as Chris Bohn and Vivien Goldman, moved to NME , while Jon Savage joined the new magazine The Face . Coleman left in 1981, the paper's design was updated, but sales and prestige were at a low ebb through the early 1980s, with NME dominant. By 1983, the magazine had become more populist and pop-orientated, exemplified by its modish "MM" masthead, regular covers for

660-403: The likes of Duran Duran and its choice of Eurythmics ' Touch as the best album of the year. Things were to change, however. In February 1984, Allan Jones , a staff writer on the paper since 1974, was appointed editor: defying instructions to put Kajagoogoo on the cover, he led the magazine with an article on up-and-coming band The Smiths . In 1986, MM was invigorated by the arrival of

693-484: The magazine in 1993. He then went on to join NME under his former boss Steve Sutherland, who had left MM in 1992. The magazine retained its large classified ads section, and remained the first call for musicians wanting to form a band. Suede formed through ads placed in the paper. MM also continued to publish reviews of musical equipment and readers' demo tapes , though these often had little in common stylistically with

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726-477: The mid-1960s, critics such as Welch, Richard Williams , Michael Watts and Steve Lake were among the first British journalists to write seriously about popular music, shedding an intellectual light on such artists as Steely Dan , Cat Stevens , Led Zeppelin , Pink Floyd and Henry Cow . By the early 1970s, Melody Maker was considered "the musos' journal" and associated with progressive rock. However, Melody Maker also reported on teenybopper pop stars such as

759-418: The new editor and attempted to take Melody Maker in a new direction, influenced by what Paul Morley and Ian Penman were doing at NME . He recruited Jon Savage (formerly of Sounds ), Chris Bohn and Mary Harron to provide intellectual coverage of post-punk bands like Gang of Four , Pere Ubu , and Joy Division and of new wave in general. Vivien Goldman , previously at NME and Sounds , gave

792-510: The paper improved coverage of reggae and soul music , restoring the superior coverage of those genres that the paper had in the early 1970s. Internal tension developed, principally between Williams and Coleman, by this time editor-in-chief, who wanted the paper to stick to the more "conservative rock" music it had continued to support during the punk era. Coleman had been insistent that the paper should "look like The Daily Telegraph " (renowned for its old-fashioned design), but Williams wanted

825-540: The paper to look more contemporary. He commissioned an updated design, but this was rejected by Coleman. In 1980, after a strike which had taken the paper (along with NME ) out of publication for a period, Williams left MM . Coleman promoted Michael Oldfield from the design staff to day-to-day editor, and, for a while, took it back where it had been, with news of a line-up change in Jethro Tull replacing features about Andy Warhol , Gang of Four and Factory Records on

858-518: The paper's writers, Push and Ben Turner, went on to launch IPC Media's monthly dance music magazine Muzik . Even in the mid-1990s, when Britpop brought a new generation of readers to the music press, it remained less populist than its rivals, with younger writers such as Simon Price and Taylor Parkes continuing the 1980s tradition of iconoclasm and opinionated criticism. The paper printed harsh criticism of Ocean Colour Scene and Kula Shaker , and allowed dissenting views on Oasis and Blur at

891-656: The photography of Henry Diltz , it includes very important pictures of Sunset Blvd; like the Whisky a GO-GO contributed by Samuel L. Biedny, taken in the late 1960s. Other books by Kubernik include A Perfect Haze: The Illustrated History of the Monterey International Pop Festival , It Was 50 Years Ago Today: The Beatles Invade America and Hollywood , and Turn Up the Radio! Rock, Pop, and Roll in Los Angeles 1956–1972 . His 2017 book 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of

924-582: The rest of the paper, ensuring sales to jobbing musicians who would otherwise have little interest in the music press. In early 1997, Allan Jones left to edit Uncut . He was replaced by Mark Sutherland, formerly of NME and Smash Hits , who thus "fulfilled [his] boyhood dream" and stayed on to edit the magazine for three years. Many long-standing writers left, often moving to Uncut , with Simon Price departing allegedly because he objected to an edict that coverage of Oasis should be positive. Its sales, which had already been substantially lower than those of

957-545: The singer's dormant career. During the interview Bowie said, "I'm gay, and always have been, even when I was David Jones." "OH YOU PRETTY THING" ran the headline, and swiftly became part of pop mythology. Bowie later attributed his success to this interview, stating that, "Yeah, it was Melody Maker that made me. It was that piece by Mick Watts." During his tenure at the paper, Watts also toured with and interviewed artists including Syd Barrett , Waylon Jennings , Pink Floyd , Bob Dylan , and Bruce Springsteen . Caroline Coon

990-578: The time, Kubernik offered a report of the press conference to Melody Maker editor Ray Coleman , in London, which led to a front-page story and weekly assignments for the British magazine from 1975 to 1980. He also worked as an A&R director for MCA Records and, from 1979, as a record producer. In the period up to 1981, he played percussion on recordings by the Runaways for producer Kim Fowley and on Phil Spector 's productions of albums by Leonard Cohen ,

1023-409: Was headhunted by Melody Maker editor Ray Coleman in the mid-1970s and promptly made it her mission to get women musicians taken seriously. Between 1974 and 1976, she interviewed Maggie Bell , Joan Armatrading , Lynsey de Paul , and Twiggy . She then went on to make it her mission to promote punk rock. In 1978, Richard Williams returned – after a stint working at Island Records – to the paper as

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1056-620: Was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publication) New Musical Express . Originally the Melody Maker ( MM ) concentrated on jazz , and had Max Jones , one of the leading British proselytizers for that music, on its staff for many years. It was slow to cover rock and roll and lost ground to the New Musical Express ( NME ), which had begun in 1952. MM launched its own weekly singles chart (a top 20) on 7 April 1956, and an LPs charts in November 1958, two years after

1089-432: Was prolific and had the responsibility of covering folk music. He was with the paper until 1973. He later wrote for The Arizona Republic . He was also a freelancer and wrote for Sing Out! , Billboard , Jazziz , Rhythm and Songlines etc. In later years he was a fiction writer. In January 1972, Michael "Mick" Watts, a prominent writer for the paper, wrote a profile of David Bowie that almost singlehandedly ignited

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