| Product: |
Muzik |
| Date: |
29/08/01 (77 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Carl Cox, Bedroom bedlam
Disadvantages: Poorly written, Useless reviews, Boring features
Muzik magazine is a monthly clubbing magazine covering most aspects of dance music. I have never actually purchased the mag myself, but often flick through it in the newsagent to check that I'm not missing out. My housemate used to buy it, as has my brother on occasion, but this has generally been for the free CD on the cover and not the content. The magazine costs £3.65, about average for a monthly music magazine and it has been running for some time as it's currently up to issue 76.
The layout is typical of most clubbing magazines, mixmag, ministry etc.. (Why do they all start with M? Conspiracy or what) It has the letters page, the news section, the features section, then the club and record reviews.
The letters page is where you can write in and get your views heard by the clubbing public, though my experience of it is of a page where people just seem to be writing in to grief a particular style of music. Some examples of titles for the most recent letters are: 'hard house; it's shite!' and 'no selector'. The first written by someone not liking hard house, obviously, and the second slagging off garage. Now, fair enough not everyone likes all styles of music, but is it worth devoting a page each month to these petty arguments where there is no real answer anyway? Well, Muzik certainly think so.
The news section is named 'up to speed' and contains all the gossip from the club scene. I have found that most of the 'inside info' I have already known about by the time I have read the mag, but it does contain some interesting articles. Also contained in this section is Carl Cox's column, where he lets us know what he has been up to in the past month, gives us his top 10 tunes, and also gives his views on what's 'mack' and what's 'wack' (good and bad, for those of you not down with the kids). This is one of the few interesting bits in Muzik, and I think that's it's better t
han Pete Tong's column in Mixmag. But then again that's probably because I think that Tongy's a fool and Cox rules. Look at that, it rhymes! The news section also contains very short interviews with the up and comings on the dance scene, but these are generally too short to contain anything worthwhile.
The next short section to come up is the bedroom bedlam page. This is where budding dj's get to send in their tapes, and if they're good enough they get featured in the magazine. This is quite a stepping-stone if managed, as Yousef, now resident at Cream, was a previous winner of the competition. I think this is a good section to help people break into the industry, though I get the impression that they get a lot of tapes sent in and you'd have to be rather good to win. That counts me out then. And Dave Pearce.
Hot on the heels of bedroom bedlam comes the features section. This contains longer reviews with the movers and shakers on the dance scene at the moment. For example the latest issue contains interviews with Faithless, So Solid Crew and New Order. These interviews are generally no more than publicity stunts, and are usually not as well written as their counterparts in other mags, though they generally have the same subject matter. For example: new order are also featured in this months Mixmag, and faithless were featured last month. This isn't really the magazines fault, as most people only give interviews when promoting something, but I'm sure they could look a bit deeper for subject matter.
The music review section features guest reviewers each month, this issue being Armand Van Helden and Junior Sanchez. Also they have a panel of regular reviewers. They seem to cover a wide range of records, but they appear to give all of them very high marks, leading us to believe that, like frosties, they're grrrrrrrreat, and we should buy them all. I have found that this is generally not the case, and quite a few of the top
tunes are clearly a pile of Tesco value dog food. Never mind.
The club listings are brief to say the least, and they seem to think that the only place in the south east in Brighton, featuring only 2 clubs that do not reside in the home of Fatboy Slim. They do not really contain much info about each club and have not helped me plan any nights out.
At the back of the magazine is news on the technical side of dance music production, samplers, mixing desks etc.. Though not much info is provided and I'd recommend either iDJ or DJ mag if you want up to date info on this type of malarkey.
On the front of each issue is a FREE CD! WOW! That is unless some criminal mastermind has hatched a plan so devious even a fox would be jealous and nicked it right from under your nose. Though if it was me I wouldn't have bothered because the CD usually contains quite underground tracks, most of which you will probably never have heard of, this is probably to do with the cost of licensing said tracks, but if most of them are rubbish then there's not really much point in having the CD.
So, overall I would say that Muzik is as poor as one of Judge Jules's mixes and you shouldn't go near it. I would stick to Mixmag for club news and iDJ for technical updates. Both these magazines contain a lot higher quality of writing and a much more detailed level of information. I think that the only things worth reading in Muzik are Carl Cox's column, and maybe bedroom bedlam, if you're good enough to get in (not me).
Well, that's my opinion, but what do I know? Like my bank account, my head's empty.
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