Latest Issue Of Guitarist Magazine

peteri

I switched about 18 months ago to all digital magazines (Guitar, Guitarist and until their recent brain fade - Vintage Guitar).

I definitely agree you lose the thumbing through feeling, and the smell of ink - but the price and space makes up for that on me.

It also brings Guitarist down to a price where I don't mind flicking through it - because all the above comments are true for me, I'm squarely in the demographic and it largely bores me senseless

Funkfingers

The content of guitar magazines is probably a combination of readership requests and whoever is doing the rounds to plug their latest book, film, album, tour or signature gear.

The fawning attitude of some magazines to interviewees is annoying. (Bonnamassa and Mayer will never need toilet paper again!) On the other hand, putting those guys on magazine covers undeniably boosts sales. 

The thirty years behind the times syndrome might be because guitar-centric popular music is not the market leader that it once was.

There is no “new Johnny Marr”. Nobody has emerged with playing, writing and arranging skills to eclipse him.

Polly Harvey does interesting music but she is not much given to nerdy gear discussion interviews. 

Fripp is almost always worth reading about. He is, simultaneously, fifty years behind the times and, in some respects, fifty years ahead.

Dweezil is worth reading but most interviewers just want to ask about his father.

One of the functions of music magazines today seems to be to provide a link back to the past for the present day readership. What gear did so and so use? What outfits did they wear? What effect did the stage pyrotechnics have on the coil windings of somebody’s pickups. In short, how can the reader be more like the deceased hero figures?

Neil

57Deluxe said:

Here's the Rub: Seeking out the new edition of Guitarist and Guitar on the news stand/supermarket shelves is a buzz: The pics are alluring and fascinating: That first thumb-through when you get home with a cuppa, feet up on the sofa is a joy, and you try to save as much as poss for later...

As Opposed to: Having it electronic as a PDF - much less of a thrill: That first find that the new issue is posted and you waiting for the download is a mild joy. BUT thereafter is a chore as unless you have a massive screen-estate, reading a two-up facing real-life size format is impossible and on smaller devices the Ads are a damned impairment.

Pics and columns become disjointed and after about 10 mins scrolling, resizing and trying to get back to an article that has dived off past two full Ad pages is more than irksome. As such I have about 3 years of downloads mostly unread taking up valuable HDD space...

Totally agree.

Trying to read magazines on a screen is really tiresome, give me a paper copy every time.

Matt_McG

@57Deluxe But I don't think it does, at all. 

I like the production quality of Guitarist. I think on the "gear" side of things, Guitar (and Bass) Magazine does a slightly better job of covering a wider spectrum of stuff, but I think Guitarist tends to be a slightly better job of features and interviews.

I'd just like a wider range of music to be included, or not relegated to a half page somewhere near the front of the magazine before we get to the 10 page feature on  "Chipping" Norton,  or Howlin' "Enoch" Clapham.

There's a lot of cool things happening in various genres, whether that's jazz, or soul/RnB/gospel, or country, or metal, or "indie", or shred. I don't, personally, like much modern metal, or much country, but I'd be stupid if I denied that there are interesting players there, doing interesting things. There's a whole range of social media guitar stars who have hundreds of thousands of followers who might as well not exist.

I do wonder if the fact that it's basically the same people editing and producing the mag now that were producing and editing the mag a decade or even two decades ago is an issue.

peteri

Matt_McG said:

@57Deluxe But I don't think it does, at all. 

I like the production quality of Guitarist. I think on the "gear" side of things, Guitar (and Bass) Magazine does a slightly better job of covering a wider spectrum of stuff, but I think Guitarist tends to be a slightly better job of features and interviews.

I'd just like a wider range of music to be included, or not relegated to a half page somewhere near the front of the magazine before we get to the 10 page feature on  "Chipping" Norton,  or Howlin' "Enoch" Clapham.

There's a lot of cool things happening in various genres, whether that's jazz, or soul/RnB/gospel, or country, or metal, or "indie", or shred. I don't, personally, like much modern metal, or much country, but I'd be stupid if I denied that there are interesting players there, doing interesting things. There's a whole range of social media guitar stars who have hundreds of thousands of followers who might as well not exist.

I do wonder if the fact that it's basically the same people editing and producing the mag now that were producing and editing the mag a decade or even two decades ago is an issue.

Couldn't agree with the above more, one of my favourite artists is a Canadian electronic musician called 'Lights', nice slick production and when you listen really good lyrics.

She tends to produce two copies of each album, one electronic and one just her on acoustic guitar and she also plays Suhr live.

Just an example, wherever you look there are guitars being made relevant as ever.

However, Kevin Shirley isn't one of them - which seems to be the Guitarist focus

HarrySeven

IMHO, Guitar is just as bad...

gringopig

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Funkfingers

The publishers put out what they think we want to buy. Some of us buy the mags. The publishers use our purchase decisions to instruct their editorial content decisions. 

Stalemate.

Stale, mate.

hotpickups

Blaendulais said:

It was a good article I enjoyed it

 I got very bored seeing there was yet another Les Paul supplement.  How often does this have to be recycled.

Not unusually every PRS guitar ever made continues to be loved despite costing 2.3k and coming in a plastic bag.  I know they target their demographic - ie me - bald 50s etc- but it could be made a little more contemporary surely

Even Nev Martins column has become tedious.

And he’s bald

gringopig

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Fifty9

Just signed up to Readily off the back of this thread. Great value!

Philly_Q

gringopig said:

It's like Mojo magazine. If I see another article about Pink Floyd as I walk past the shelves I think I'll spew.
I got a copy of Guitarist with Mark Knopfler on the cover (free I might add) and it was just awful. I'm pretty keen on guitars but after a few pages of that I was feeling quite depressed. I would much rather have a look around the ATB or Guitarpoint websites if I want to see nice guitars and I really do not like Rory Gallagher, Mark Knopfler, Gary Moore and all the other cohort of boring old men.
I'm a man and not young anymore but good God I am not part of their target demographic. I walked out of a Rory Gallagher concert when I was young as he was shite.

To be fair to Rory Gallagher and Gary Moore, they never got the opportunity to be boring old men...

Roland

Matt_McG said:

I do wonder if the fact that it's basically the same people editing and producing the mag now that were producing and editing the mag a decade or even two decades ago is an issue.

Funkfingers said:

The publishers put out what they think we want to buy. Some of us buy the mags. The publishers use our purchase decisions to instruct their editorial content decisions.

Here’s the nub of the problem.

Many years ago Guitarist was independent, the writing was fresh and opinionated. The writers were passionate and knowledgeable about guitars and music. Occasionally their writing was amateur, and their opinions wrong. However it was written by guitarists for guitarists. Once or twice the print run was late.

Then the corporates moved in. Printing was always on schedule. Paper and print quality improved. The magazine got bigger because there was a department selling advertising. So far so good.

A couple of of years ago I discussed this with the then editor, whose name I will conveniently forget. The corporates chased the profitability of each individual issue, rather than the overall profitability of the magazine. This lead to minimising risks by focusing on dependable money earners (hello JB), and other lowest common denominator features. Gradually the staffing changed. Professional writers replaced knowledgeable guitarists. Net result was that head office thought the editor was doing a good job if each issue met sales targets. This blinded them to the fact that their core readership, the subscribers, were cancelling. 

gringopig

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xchrisv

Hello! Obviously this started out as a discussion about the other guys, but broadened out to encompass guitar magazines in general. While we all have a limited amount of pages to play with in print every month, it’s worth pointing out that there’s tonnes more going up on Guitar.com – recent interviews have included Tom Misch, Devin Townsend, Gibson’s CEO & CMO, Sun O))), Rob Chapman, Miette Hope, Slash, Kristian Nairn (aka Hodor from GOT), Larkin Poe, White Denim and a load more besides. Pretty diverse... 

gringopig

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Neil

gringopig said:

chrisv said:

Hello! Obviously this started out as a discussion about the other guys, but broadened out to encompass guitar magazines in general. While we all have a limited amount of pages to play with in print every month, it’s worth pointing out that there’s tonnes more going up on Guitar.com – recent interviews have included Tom Misch, Devin Townsend, Gibson’s CEO & CMO, Sun O))), Rob Chapman, Miette Hope, Slash, Kristian Nairn (aka Hodor from GOT), Larkin Poe, White Denim and a load more besides. Pretty diverse... 

I would buy a magazine that had interviews with Kurt Vile, Stephen Malkmus, Mike Krol and features on vintage Jaguars and Hagstroms in a heartbeat. Not seen anything which represents my interests so I'm not buying.

You might buy such a mag but very few others would.

I guess they want to sell as many mags as possible, hence the usual suspects.

Blaendulais

Is it me or are the articles about old guitars for sale in the mags just adverts for the companies who sell them?

xchrisv

gringopig said:

chrisv said:

Hello! Obviously this started out as a discussion about the other guys, but broadened out to encompass guitar magazines in general. While we all have a limited amount of pages to play with in print every month, it’s worth pointing out that there’s tonnes more going up on Guitar.com – recent interviews have included Tom Misch, Devin Townsend, Gibson’s CEO & CMO, Sun O))), Rob Chapman, Miette Hope, Slash, Kristian Nairn (aka Hodor from GOT), Larkin Poe, White Denim and a load more besides. Pretty diverse... 

I would buy a magazine that had interviews with Kurt Vile, Stephen Malkmus, Mike Krol and features on vintage Jaguars and Hagstroms in a heartbeat. Not seen anything which represents my interests so I'm not buying.

We've actually interviewed Kurt Vile and done quite a lot on vintage offsets recently :-)

xchrisv

Blaendulais said:

Is it me or are the articles about old guitars for sale in the mags just adverts for the companies who sell them?

Our Vintage Bench Test articles are a deep dive into the instrument itself... essentially straddling the line between a historical piece and a review. The dealer or individual that supplied the guitar simply gets a credit in the spec box.