Just received a letter to say that they are stopping publishing and that 1988 is when rock stopped making history, it appears to have hit similar problems to Word magazine and they say it was no longer viable..
A shame really, I’ve enjoyed the mag, especially the mid 70’s onwards which is when I became more musically aware.
Me too. I collected all editions from 1965 to 1981, only because I regard those years as the golden era of rock in terms of innovation and musical excellence and because all my favourite artists and bands recorded their best work in that period (Dylan, The Stones, The Who, Zep, Bowie, Iggy, Floyd, The Pistols, AC/DC etc).
I was less interested in the magazines covering the early/mid eighties mainly because at the time I was less than enthusiastic about the musical genres of that period. The New Romantics, synthesizer popsters, R’n’B divas and MTV poodle hair rockers represented a low point in the history of popular music. Only REM, The Smiths, U2 and a handful of other bands saved that awful decade from total oblivion.
But then the juices flowed again at the end of the 80s with the Stone Roses, the Madchester scene, Grunge in America and then Britpop later on, so it’s a shame they’ve decided to stop producing the magazine altogether.
That’s annoying, I was collecting those. Although I only picked up the trail from 1978 the shops had started restocking the earlier ones (stickered “Back By Popular demand” ironically) so I was able to get many of the years I’d originally missed. Now I only need 1975-1977 to get up to date, wonder if they’ll bother reissuing those?
Pity they’ve stopped now as 1989 onwards would have been interesting for me.
Available to order here @eddie https://nme.backstreetmerch.com/artist/uncut-history-of-rock/magazines
Thanks – hopefully not eye watering postage costs!!
When I’ve bought their Ultimate Guides I think postage was a couple of quid.
I mentioned it before when this magazine was discussed, if you want to read and ‘keep’ all previous editions electronically, they’re all available on Readly, together with just about every other magazine currently published, and back issues, for about £8 a month.
I recognise this doesn’t work for those with coffee tables and magazine racks to fill.
Or bathroom bookshelves…
2178 mags on Readly, it says here. All the guitar, music, movie, wheels, camera and Mac mags anybody could possibly want, plus things like Spectator, Oldie, Dandy and, er, Dame Vera Lynn Souvenir Special. I’ve become a devoted reader of Country Life (for the property and Posh Totty of the Month, natch) and Concealed Carry Handguns (“All the concealed carry mistakes you don’t want to make”).
Can’t be doing with that Readly thing, too much fannying around. You can’t beat having a magazine in your hands. I do love my kindle though.
I can put my hand on my heart and say that absolutely no fannying around happens when I, er, engage with Readly. I love it for the same reason you love your Kindle. Only downside is you don’t get CDs with Mojo, Uncut etc, but they’re easy enough to reassemble on Spotify if you’re that interested.
I get the electronic vs paper argument, but ‘too much fannying around’ ? That’s the one thing it can’t be accused of. Two touches on a screen and it’s there, one further touch and every edition of the History of Rock plus 2178 other magazines are waiting to be read .
Where does that put David Hepworth’s theory that “Rock Stars” ended in 1994?!
Comprised beyond reprieve by not covering ROCK ‘n’ roll (the clue’s in the first word) or the early records by the Beatles and Dylan.
Not sure having SOOO many different years on the shelf at once was a good idea either.
The bottom line, though, is that a monthly visit to W.H. Smith offers so many alternatives in the popular music section, that your best bet is either a title specifically geared to a major act (recently The Kinks, Joni Mitchell or Leonard Cohen) or be an established title.
That said, anyone else notice that you can get “Q” and “Mojo” as a twofer this month?
What is it with the reverential regard for David feckin’ Hepworth? I know more about rock music than him, as I reckon 99% of AWers do.
Make that 100%.
Ah, but he’s “David Hepworth”, and the rest of us aren’t. You might as well say you’re a better cook than Gordon feckin’ Ramsay.
Maybe, people born after 1988 would not want to buy that magazine as a souvenir?
Kinda gone the same way as the NME itself.
Looking at the covers, the longer the series went on the more unlikely the act.
60s … Beatles, Stones, Bob, Jimi and The Who. It’s really only The Who you might (marginally) question, the other four pick themselves.
Dire 1980s … Adam Ant, The Police, Culture Club, Dire Straits, George Michael, Michael Jackson, Duran Duran? Nope.
Tom Waits, Nick Cave, The Smiths, REM. Yep. They couldn’t help themselves.
Exactly how many people would you have to survey before someone would volunteer Nick Cave as the face of 1982? I bet they’d all fit into Old Trafford.
Just like the NME, telling people what they should have been listening to rather than what they actually were listening to.
Just like the NME, didn’t work.
You may be surprised to hear – but the cover is not some kind of award or reminder of “what you should have been listening to”, it’s a tool to sell the magazine (they even had alternative covers in other regions: in Germany we got Pink Floyd instead of Joy Division, and Keith Richards instead of The Jam). The Nick Cave cover made perfect sense as the issue came out when everyone at Q and Uncut was warming up for the new album.
And the selection of interviews and articles in these issues actually does give a decent overview of what people were actually listening to, and even contradicts the NME’s own rewriting of their history by reprinting some funny reviews (Dire Straits are ace, Kate Bush is apparently a load of crap, Bowie’s “Low” is his worst album, and as for the Sex Pistols their verdict is “hope we never hear from them again”…)