(wrote this for an Italian publication whose name I am blanking on and likewise the date of writing)
New Musical Express
A profoundly formative force in my life as a young aspiring
writer at the end of ‘the 70s and during the early ‘80s. This U.K. weekly music
paper covered not just rock but all the music that mattered – reggae, funk,
African music, early hip hop, and a lot of other things that you wouldn’t
expect if you only know the NME as a 21st Century narrowcast
publication dedicated to British indie. It dealt with politics both on its own
and as filtered through the prism of postpunk music, and covered exemplary
figures within arts that felt adjacent to rock – certain kinds of film, books,
TV. Above all, it was a home for heroically pretentious writing.
The Village Voice
Every generation regards its era of the Voice to be the
best. So there are probably some who thought the magazine in decline during the
1990s, when I started reading it regularly, spending increasing amounts of time in New
York and then moving there for good at the end of ’94. The whole magazine was
full of brilliant writing about politics, the arts, social trends, etc, but the
music section was especially mind-blowing – the nearest America has ever had to
peak-era NME. Above all, it was a home for heroically pretentious writing.
The Wire
This UK monthly remains a vital institution in left-field
music, but I’ve particularly fond memories of it in the 1990s, when it was
first collapsing its own boundaries (it had started as a jazz and avant-garde
magazine) to embrace anything and everything that innovative, experimental and
strange, whether it came from rave, rap, metal, or even the pop mainstream. Above
all, it was a home for heroically pretentious writing.
