Guitar magazines are tricky things.
When I was in college I read Wizard magazine every month. That's a comic book magazine, by the way. I bought it for the price guide in the back to see if any of my collection had gained in value or not and thought it was not practical to get this magazine and not read the articles in it.
Well, not really surprisingly, the maazine is filled with propaghanda to get you to buy new comics, try to find older comics of this title or that title, to go see this or rent this, and it was basically just a huge ad.
Modern guitar magazines are no different, but not because they want you to experience this or that, but because YOU want to experience this or that. They run on trends and their writing points reflect what's hip at the time. In the early 2000's they were interviewing Korn, probably because of the huge clamor for such an interview and their huge record sales to date and spent most of the article asking Korn how it felt to revolutionize the music industry and guitar in general. Now, they look back and shudder at the thought of something Korn-like ever being popular, often making references to just how bad (and simple) their music was.
Perhaps they hired new staff.
But if you open them up you'll see tons of artist interviews that have little to do with guitar making the magazine little more than a Tiger Beat with a tad more dignity or at least the knowledge that without this facade, they'd never be taken seriously.
Perhas Tiger Beat should get a lot of credit for having the balls to say they are what they are.
But what can you do, really? Guitar magazines have to sell issues and maintain a readership which means they have to write about things the reader cares about and if most of the readership who is reading your magazine is 13-18 years old who read the magazines in class, well, that’s who you cater to. So you put all sorts of trendy stuff in there, fill the interviews with juicy non-guitar related gossip about sex and drugs and rock and roll in general and in the end, ask what kind of guitar the artist uses and call yourself legitimate.
I don’t really see anything wrong with this though. It’s tough to, knowing that they’re just catering to their audience and a lot of players who are getting older and working and raising families have less and less free time and would probably like to spend that time actually playing guitar instead of reading about it.
My thing is that there doesn’t seem to be much curiosity anymore. Everyone seems to think that the only things they want to know about are the things that directly affect them. I could see why, I mean, it is directly influencing you. But don’t you wonder about stuff? Anything in particular? I’m not talking about just guitars here, but other things too. How do radio ratings work? Do they collect data from everyone’s cars? If I’m playing a CD or tape but the radio setting is on that station do they still get credit (because if so, I’m changing the station in my wife’s car)? What exactly is stopping the government from utilizing on-line voting or voting from another source, say, the phone?
I’m a curious guy (not curious like that) so I like to watch shows about things I don’t know about. Modern Marvels, How it’s Made, etc. I watched a show about how concrete came to be and how it’s changing for the modern times into something that is even more valuable.
And when I open a guitar magazine it seems like it’s the same old thing. The latest greatest band is doing this, while yesteryear’s greatest band is doing this, you should buy this, shouldn’t buy this (ever notice how the good reviews outweigh the bad ones exponentially?), look at ALL THESE ADS!
Jeez, the ads. Look, I understand you have to have ads in a magazine. They keep the cost down to the consumer, but let me let you in on a secret. They (the magazines) should be cheaper with the more ads they sell and looking from one to another, I can’t see why they should cost 8.00. I have a tough time buying them too because they’re fluff.
There. I said it.
They’re fluff. Fluff guitar magazines.
But there’s one out there, a shining example of what a guitar magazine COULD be.
The magazine is called Fretboard Journal. It’s pricey, don’t get me wrong, but the quality is ridiculous. First off, when you pick it up you’ll notice the heft. It’s a heavy magazine and the cover is thicker and more sturdy then most paperback books. You just pick it up and you know that this is a magazine that you could save, archive, for future readings. Not like Guitar World, where you read it and before long you have creases in the cover and the page corners are all flipped up or down.
Then you open it up and see that it has stitched binding. STITCHED BINDING. Not glue, not staples, but stitching. That’s awesome. Everything is elegantly laid out, the pictures are absolutely amazing, well worth the price of the magazine alone if you like pictures of guitars, and the writing is very nicely done. You can tell that professionals wrote the articles and that they cared both about their finished product and about guitar playing. They aren’t just typing out enough words to fill the small columns next to the ads.
Speaking of ads… There are a few, but FAR fewer than in other magazines and they don’t interfere with the articles in the same way that the ads affect the articles in other guitar magazines.
Going back to the articles, they are longer than other magazines too. I wouldn’t say they’re TOO long, but they’re long, pleasantly long. The kind of long where at the end of the article you aren’t starving for more, flipping back through the pages to see if you missed oh I don’t know, four or five PAGES.
It’s worth it. They don’t just talk about guitar players either, or even just guitars, but anything related to it. In the issue I bought I read about guitarviola construction, ukuleles, guitars (of course) some seriously in depth articles about construction preferences and history and wood choices and adventures to find really choice wood. It’s awesome and I urge everyone to buy a copy and check it out. It might give you faith in the guitar magazine again.
I was thinking that it must be a shame for them when, if you find a normal shop, a Target or CVS, that stocks a guitar magazine it’s always Guitar World or Guitar One and this marvelous magazine is looked over. But then I think that there’s really no competition between them. The quality difference is STAGGERING. So staggering that there’s really no competition at all.
I wish Fretboard Journal all the best. I hope they maintain their quality and succeed in the future.
I don’t really see anything wrong with this though. It’s tough to, knowing that they’re just catering to their audience and a lot of players who are getting older and working and raising families have less and less free time and would probably like to spend that time actually playing guitar instead of reading about it.
My thing is that there doesn’t seem to be much curiosity anymore. Everyone seems to think that the only things they want to know about are the things that directly affect them. I could see why, I mean, it is directly influencing you. But don’t you wonder about stuff? Anything in particular? I’m not talking about just guitars here, but other things too. How do radio ratings work? Do they collect data from everyone’s cars? If I’m playing a CD or tape but the radio setting is on that station do they still get credit (because if so, I’m changing the station in my wife’s car)? What exactly is stopping the government from utilizing on-line voting or voting from another source, say, the phone?
I’m a curious guy (not curious like that) so I like to watch shows about things I don’t know about. Modern Marvels, How it’s Made, etc. I watched a show about how concrete came to be and how it’s changing for the modern times into something that is even more valuable.
And when I open a guitar magazine it seems like it’s the same old thing. The latest greatest band is doing this, while yesteryear’s greatest band is doing this, you should buy this, shouldn’t buy this (ever notice how the good reviews outweigh the bad ones exponentially?), look at ALL THESE ADS!
Jeez, the ads. Look, I understand you have to have ads in a magazine. They keep the cost down to the consumer, but let me let you in on a secret. They (the magazines) should be cheaper with the more ads they sell and looking from one to another, I can’t see why they should cost 8.00. I have a tough time buying them too because they’re fluff.
There. I said it.
They’re fluff. Fluff guitar magazines.
But there’s one out there, a shining example of what a guitar magazine COULD be.
The magazine is called Fretboard Journal. It’s pricey, don’t get me wrong, but the quality is ridiculous. First off, when you pick it up you’ll notice the heft. It’s a heavy magazine and the cover is thicker and more sturdy then most paperback books. You just pick it up and you know that this is a magazine that you could save, archive, for future readings. Not like Guitar World, where you read it and before long you have creases in the cover and the page corners are all flipped up or down.
Then you open it up and see that it has stitched binding. STITCHED BINDING. Not glue, not staples, but stitching. That’s awesome. Everything is elegantly laid out, the pictures are absolutely amazing, well worth the price of the magazine alone if you like pictures of guitars, and the writing is very nicely done. You can tell that professionals wrote the articles and that they cared both about their finished product and about guitar playing. They aren’t just typing out enough words to fill the small columns next to the ads.
Speaking of ads… There are a few, but FAR fewer than in other magazines and they don’t interfere with the articles in the same way that the ads affect the articles in other guitar magazines.
Going back to the articles, they are longer than other magazines too. I wouldn’t say they’re TOO long, but they’re long, pleasantly long. The kind of long where at the end of the article you aren’t starving for more, flipping back through the pages to see if you missed oh I don’t know, four or five PAGES.
It’s worth it. They don’t just talk about guitar players either, or even just guitars, but anything related to it. In the issue I bought I read about guitarviola construction, ukuleles, guitars (of course) some seriously in depth articles about construction preferences and history and wood choices and adventures to find really choice wood. It’s awesome and I urge everyone to buy a copy and check it out. It might give you faith in the guitar magazine again.
I was thinking that it must be a shame for them when, if you find a normal shop, a Target or CVS, that stocks a guitar magazine it’s always Guitar World or Guitar One and this marvelous magazine is looked over. But then I think that there’s really no competition between them. The quality difference is STAGGERING. So staggering that there’s really no competition at all.
I wish Fretboard Journal all the best. I hope they maintain their quality and succeed in the future.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment