| Product: |
iDJ International DJ Magazine |
| Date: |
01/08/01 (55 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: good record reviews, in depth interviews, good equipment reviews
Disadvantages: you have to know your stuff
iDJ, or the magazine formerly known as xfade, is a relatively new music magazine, having only been established for 20 months, well maybe it's not that new. It's aimed at clubbers who take a serious interest in the music that is played in the clubs that they frequent, mainly 'bedroom' dj's. It's a monthly magazine and costs a very reasonable £2.99.
iDJ is split into two separate magazines. The first part is the main section, this contains all the regular features and makes up the bulk of the magazine. The second, smaller pullout magazine is dedicated to record reviews.
Having this separate section for record reviews allows them to review a very wide selection of records, in quite a lot of detail. The reviews are split into the style of record, these sections include: house, hard house, tech house, progressive house, techno/electro, trance, US garage, UK garage, breaks & beats, R & B/soul, drum & bass, hip hop, leftfield and down tempo. Each section has it's own full page, and there is around 15 records of each genre featured. They also give top tune awards, and a record label preview for each genre as well. Also, at the front of the review section they feature interviews with up and coming producers, to promote their new singles.
In the main magazine the regular features include:
Scene, short news stories on what's happening on the dance scene, for example, recommended clubs, club news and artist profiles.
Rave, letters page to air any grievances you may have, if your letter's the best then you'll win some carts! (Things to go on decks)
Reader's mix tapes, a chance for the budding DJ to get their tape featured in a national magazine, there is also a mixer up for grabs for the best tape.
Legends, an in depth look at some of the 'godfather's' of the dance scene.
They also feature many articles on DJ'ing skills such as scratching tutorials, mixing techniqu
es and cd mixing. I have found these to be quite useful, if a little basic, though I can see them being very useful to people just starting of in the DJ game. Also, making up the main bulk of the magazine are the features, these generally consist of multi page interviews with some of the 'big names' on the scene, such as Frankie Knuckles, Tall Paul and Dave Lee. These features are generally very in depth and contain lots of fun about the interviewee. At the back of the magazine there is a massive section devoted to DJ'ing and production equipment, they review all sorts of gear, from decks to samplers, and compare them to give you a good idea what you should be spending your money on. The reviews are generally quite good and have helped influence my mate hen he recently purchased his new 'wheels of steel'.
All in all I think that iDJ is a very good magazine. The reports are well written, much better than those in say, Mixmag, and there is a lot of information contained in each issue. Saying this though, I would only recommend the magazine to DJ's, as a lot of the articles are a bit 'trainspotter'ish, and may be quite boring for those 'not in the know'. The record reviews are a lot better then in similar magazines, such as DJ, and seem to focus on records that you can actually get, rather than some magazines tactics of reviewing tunes that are unavailable to us commoners for months, or maybe even years. Jokers.
I would say that if you are looking for a magazine more focussed on the lifestyle aspect of clubbing, then I would suggest Mixmag, but if the music is what you live for, then iDJ is for you, I would rate it above some of it's more well established competitors, such as DJ and Muzik, and hope that it survives with it's quite small target audience.
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