To think this used to be good... (Kerrang!)

Name: pandora peroxide

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Product:	Kerrang!
Date:	22/05/02 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good memories, weekly news if you don't have the internet

Disadvantages: same bands featured over and over, doesn't cut the mustard anymore

Back in the day Kerrang was THE metal magazine to buy. It came out weekly when Rock Power was fortnightly and Raw was monthly. No MTV2 no Kerrang TV and no internet meant that Kerrang was the metal lovers bible.

It had great articles, cool posters, great giveaways - tapes, singles, stickers - cool cartoons in the daft roadies of Brick Outhouse and the busty blonde bitchy bombshell who gave me my nickname Pandora Peroxide.

Somewhere along the way Kerrang, or Kerrap as it is now more commonly known, is no longer the Big K the best mag that you can't wait to get your hands on first thing on a Wednesday morning. It has now become - dare I say it - like the Cosmo of the metal world. A seemingly cool magazine covering up for poor articles often rehashed a few months later, biased reviews and trend-jumping to whatever will sell from the cover of the magazine.

It is sad to see what was a metal institution become a metal joke with the older readers. Unfortunately Kerrang cannot cut it in the days of dedicated fan websites, parody websites like Metal Sludge and official band websites. Kerrang is selling old news, often told badly.

What gets to me most is Kerrang's trend-hopping. In the early years of Kerrang up until the early 1990's Kerrang was very behing British metal like Iron Maiden, Paradise Lost and Blaze and now they have turned their back on this to focus on the scene over the pond with crossover music like Limp Bizkit. Now I am not saying this is wrong but a little loyalty would go far and would prevent the charges of insincerity I hear bandied around the internet.

I am aware that Kerrang are selling magazines which often contain information that has been available on the internet for some time before because of the joys of the printed word. It is because of this that I expect the magazine to be of a higher quality elsewhere. There are few metal magazines about so I don't want a Limp Bizkit art
icle every 3 weeks I want lots of different features.

The state of the media has changed and I think Kerrang has changed but not with it. They seem more concerned with what will sell the issue that week rather than in gaining long-term readers like there used to be.

I have stopped buying Kerrang and now get my music news off the Internet. It saves me money and the information I get is what I want and on who I want - which is often not this weeks flavour.

Summary: