Wire

Whilst a lot of the UK music magazines have become increasingly tabloid, The Wire stands out like a beacon in the literary wasteland. The standard of writing in The Wire is superior to that in every other music magazine. However this does not make The Wire a great magazine. Why? I hear you ask as I have previously called for high standards of journalism in music magazines. Fine I want better journalism, but not the kind that the wire offers. The Wire suffers from the greatest sins of all Elitism and Snobbery and it is this that makes The Wire a most unpleasureable reading experience. The Wire is some ways is a great magazine as it covers a vast range of ...

If your taste in music doesn't fall neatly into the standard genre categories (rock/rap/dance/blah), then finding an intelligent and readable music mag is no easy task. Wire is currently one of the best mags for those styles of music that aren't overly commericial or easy to slot into a defined market segment. There's a lot of electronica, improvised, modern jazz and just plain weird music that finds its way into this magazine. There are extensive reviews, live listings and some good articles. The occasional cover CDs are diverse, even though there's not often more than one or two tracks that I like. It's not the ideal music magazine by a long shot, ...