Having just seen a photo of the November issue of Mojo mag (Bowie headlining), I noted that not one single female artist is featured on the cover. Looking at the last few issues on their website it seems that this is not a new phenomenon; Kate Bush gets a cover story, but apart from that, looking at the last few months at least, female artists featured in any way on the front of the magazine can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Poor Laurie Anderson appears, but only in terms of “The Lou I knew”.
It’s a total sausage-fest*!
*and not the good kind:
When John McLaughlin formed Mahavishnu Orch MkII in 1974 he made of point of involving women. there were three in the first line-up of MOII (keys/voc; violin/voc; viola) and a fourth (sax/voc) came along in time for the penultimate 1975 line-up.
You could offset your Mojo misery buy purchasing MOII music! 🙂
I’m not sure parting with cash in exchange for MO records could be described as offsetting misery…
Very good! 🙂
Always has been really, given its leaning towards ‘heritage’ acts. About the only female acts who might command a Mojo cover would be, let’s see now, Kate Bush, Debbie Harry (young and hot on the cover photo, naturally), maybe PJ Harvey?
True, but I don’t just mean the cover star, but the other acts mentioned on the front cover. I mean it could be wall to wall women inside*, but you wouldn’t know it. It seems blokes sell, especially dead ones.
*Apparently there are small features on First Aid Kit, Wolf Alice and a few others within the pages.
Huh, women holding electric guitars, doesn’t do anything for me.
Wwwwwaiiiiidaminute!
I thought you were mad keen on Fanny, Moose.
I like a bit of German rock, yes.
*blinks*
Madonna graced the cover, I think, just a couple of years ago. She even had clothes on.
But you are right and it’s sad. Has PJ ever been on Mojo’s cover? She deserves to be. Gillian Welch too!
Peej has been on the cover of Uncut. I always like to think of Uncut as the discerning gentile gentleman’s magazine of choice.
You are right about their leanings, and I am sure they are putting artists on the cover that will get copies sold. But it’s a bit saddo that they can’t be a bit more imaginative. They might get themselves a few new readers with….
Icona Pop, Ella Fitzgerald, Dolly Parton, Mari Boine, Suzanne Sundför, Alice Coltrane, Tove Lo, Värttinnä, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris, Laura Nyro, Dame Vera Lynn, Julie Driscoll….
The list of bangers to replace the sausages is endless.
Perhaps I’m mistaken – maybe Moose can help me out? – but most of the magazines aimed at an exclusively male “readership” feature ladies on the cover.
Or, at least, most of the ones I’ve seen for sale at my local petrol station do.
For jazz enthusiasts, eh?
I don’t own a car, so I fail to see why I’m being brought into this.
I guess it’s not MOJO’s fault that most of the music they feature in their magazine (and which apparently sells their newsstand copies) was made by men. I always found it a bit odd that a magazine cover gets so much attention from regular readers – there are always comments on the letters pages such as “Why didn’t you put Van Morrison/Sky Saxon/Woody Woodmansey on the cover? They sure deserve it…” or “Why are there never black musicians on the cover of your magazine?”.
And re. sausage fest – if you’d look at any copy of MOJO from the last few years you’d find plenty of decent articles about female musicians – from Etta James and Stevie Nicks to Peaches and Emel Mathlouni. Sometimes it seems that any guitar playing girl in a summer dress, looking forward to their first album, gets a two-page interview, while artists like Steven Wilson are only (if at all) mentioned in passing with an album review.
One thing’s for sure, the feature on your favourite artist is always too short.
I’m waiting for that career-encompassing Boo Hewerdine retrospective – enough material there to fill the whole of the mag. Close-up of myopic beardy bloke on the cover.
Expected sales: 1 copy.
Still waiting for the Terence Trent D’arby retrospective.
*drums fingers*
Remembering that old Q cover, eh? He probably got wrong off his mam for going around like that.
Björk has a new album coming out – she’s big news and usually gives you a striking cover.
(Although I don’t know whether “having a new record out” is the best route to getting on the front of Mojo…)
I remember Word magazine getting castigated for putting Dido on the cover. Personally I thought she looked hot and I had no problem with it.
Pretty sure Bjork has previously graced the cover of Mojo.
She did look hot. Perhaps it was the lights.
I think the issue might have been with Dido’s godawful, soul-sappingly beige muzak (essential in-car CD listening for people who organise Team-Building “away days”) rather than how attractive she was.
The best route for getting on the cover of Mojo is to have an old record out again.
Unfortunately, the Rock Fan demographic that Mojo is aimed at is mostly white, straight and male and they have chosen to ignore the female, non-white and non-rock minorities in their editorial policy. Female, non-white and non-rock performers get the odd article and a very occasional front-page mention, but almost never a cover pic. These days they’d probably have to die to get pictured on the cover. Uncut is no better with their cover policy, though there are possibly more articles on minority artists inside.
Hello Mike.
Your posts are always carefully considered, beautifully balanced and deep with knowledge. Hats off to you, sir & long may you post.
Prince died and still couldn’t get a cover on the next month’s Mojo. Mind you, it was pleasing that they went with some hip and happening young troubadour just making his first tentative steps into the limelight…Bob something I believe he was called. Dylan, maybe?
They went with the talent then… (ducks)
Should put Dido on the cover to boost their circulation. Just sayin’…
The new Uncut gets 3 female artists on the cover – Margo Price, PP Arnold and Courtney Barnett – albeit not in huge letters.
But shock horror look who is the featured cover artists, just for a change, the bloody Beatles! Surely that barrel must be totally scraped away by now!
1 year of MOJO:
July 2015: Cover: Fleetwood Mac (with 1 member in miniskirt & topless), plus a picture of Amy Winehouse
August 2016: Cover: The Who, mentions Rickie Lee Jones, St. Vincent, Peggy Seeger
September 2015: Cover: Keith Richards, mentions New Order (does this count?)
October 2015: Cover: Patti Smith (in underwear), mentions Shirley Collins, and “Keith Moon in a dress”)
November 2015: Cover: The Beatles, mentions Joanna Newsom, The Bodysnatchers, Chrissie Hynde
December 2015: Cover: Elvis Costello, mentions no women or girls
January 2016: Cover: David Bowie, mentions Fleetwood Mac
February 2016: Cover: Sex Pistols, mentions Courtney Barnett
March 2016: Cover: Bowie again, no-one else mentioned
April 2016: Cover: Iggy Pop, Josh Homme (& Joni Mitchell), mentions Carly Simon, Tracy Thorn
May 2016: Cover: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards (& PJ Harvey), mentions Mavis Staples
June 2016: Cover: The Pink Floyd, no women mentioned
Going by the page I linked to above, i.e. back to June last year, in terms of female artist features listed on the cover it’s:
Oct 2017: Zero chicks
Sept 2017: Zero chicks
Aug 2017: Zero chicks
July 2017: Zero chicks
June 2017: Beatles only
May 2017: Zero chicks
April 2017: Still no laydeez
March 2017: Does Anohni count? Otherwise, still no chicks
Feb 2017: Hurrah, it’s Aretha Franklin!
Jan 2017: Kate Bush cover star, no other female artists
Dec 2016: Total sausage-fest
Nov 2016: Laurie Anderson – on Lou Reed. The Human League
Oct 2016: Boys, boys, boys
Sept 2016: Kathleen Hanna on Riot Grrl. B52s
Aug 2016: Another fanny-free zone
July 2016: More ladz on tour
June 2016: *sighs*
I am not kidding: http://www.mojo4music.com/magazine/
Seems even worse than your list!
And please tell me that the member of Fleetwood Mac topless in a miniskirt was Mick…
It was! 😂
Oh. For a second there I thought they were providing a solution to that old “Fleetwood Mac/Rather Jack” dilemma by making it possible to have both…
Fanny free zone? D’oh! I was trying to find the free fanny zone!
The new Country Music Magazine looks a little more gender-balanced, plus they just did a Dolly special edition! http://www.countrymusicmag.com/magazine/issue-1/
Despite its reactionary reputation, the world of cerntree is superficially more equal-ops than rock.
Jes’ sayin’ is all….
Better dentistry too.
That’s not dentistry, it’s Corbusian architecture.
All too many of the recent male Country acts appear to be of the “Twats In Hats” variety.
It’s the women who are moving Country forward these days and theirs are the fans who have decent reading skills.
Don’t they just rotate Bowie, Beatles, Stones, Dylan, Young as cover stars?
Don’t they sometimes throw in Joe Dolce or BA Robertson to be down with the kids?
They sometimes throw in Kate Bush, Björk and Dido to keep the feminists at bay.
Huge Kate Bush fan, but her interviews are always a nice nap.
This intrigued me, so here are the last 10 artists to have 2 covers (which I assume is a sign that they’re good sellers):
BOWIE – Nov-17 & March-16 (+ others)
PISTOLS – Sept-17 & Feb-16
NICK CAVE – Jul-17 & Feb-14
BEATLES – June-17 & Oct-16 (+ others)
FLOYD – May-17 & June-16 (+ others)
U2 – Apr-17 & Jan-15
SABBATH – Feb-17 & June-13
KATE BUSH – Jan-17 & Oct-14
STONES – May-16 & Sept-15 (+ others)
ZEP – Apr-15 & Jul-14
My biggest surprises were the Pistols & Sabbath, maybe U2 too… Dylan’s star may be on the descendant in the Mojo-verse, the last Bob cover was July-16 (and the last one before that Apr-13). Neil Young’s last cover was Sept-14 (and even that as part of CSNY), though his Mojo rating may be overestimated because he was the issue 1 cover star…
I still rate Mojo as a magazine – some months are better than others of course, but I think they’re more varied and forward-looking than they’re given credit for, and they certainly have a fair share of longform pieces no-one else would touch…
I agree with you. And obviously The Beatles and the other members of the same old gang usually found on the cover will sell more copies than any of the new unknown discoveries regularly found inside the magazine.
All about the money in the end.
Sabbath are now more hip than at any point in their career. They even get dedicated chapters in David Hepworth’s books. I don’t think they made the cover of Mojo once in the first 20 years or so of the magazine.
I imagine that thew Mojo editors have a Venn diagram with two circles, namely “hip” and “good sellers”. At the moment, Sabbath are in that lucky overlap of the two circles. Queen are in the “good sellers” circle, and in the unlikely circumstance that they get more fashionable, then you’ll be getting them on the cover once a year as well as the Beatles, Bowie and Stones.
Next year will be the fortieth anniversary of Sandy Denny’s death.
Maybe a front cover?
She worked with sacred cow Richard Thompson, so a cover should be within reach. Though I’m not sure HE has been on the cover.
It was Marc Bolan’s 40th too and even he didn’t make the cover
We had some credit or whatever to be used up, cant remember, a voucher the Mrs had and needed to be used by midnight on that day. She suggested subscribing to Mojo for 6 months, which she did, lovely lady. Probably felt guilty as for the past year she managed to get me a free copy via her job but that stopped so had to revert to paying the £5 per month from the local supermarket. I still like it a lot, it always gets criticism but it is what it is, some months great, some less so but overall the best of whats left of the music monthlies, i guess this means my copy should arrive before end of week. Hopefully.
If you’re not absolutely wedded to paper (and own an iPad), for £7.99/month on Readly you could get Mojo, Uncut, Q, Prog, Classic Rock, The History of Rock, Guitarist, Acoustic Guitar (both useful for reviews even if you’re not a plank-spanker) and, er, Metal Hammer. With Early Music Today and BBC Music Mag thrown in. And no what shall I do with these piles of old mags dilemmas.
It’s even less if you’re lucky enough for your local library to offer Zinio. I get to download Q, Mojo & Uncut completely free each month! I even downloaded BBC Music Mag one month. One of the libraries I’m a member of also gives quite a few Uncut/NME specials as well.
Readly is shyte! Fact.
Why do you reckon that, Baron? I’ve no idea about their business model, but from an end user point of view it’s brilliant.
They don’t have a version that’s suitable for laptops or desk monitors of the big screen type. I found getting about in a magazine with Readly was awkward using my iPad or maybe it was me. If you have info that’s different Kid then I’m all eyes.
Getting about: mostly I start at the beginning and go to the end, skipping anything I’m not interested in. If I want to go from the Contents to a particular page, or if it’s one of those annoying Rolling Stone cont. on p.97 things, you tap the screen and a browser appears at the bottom – you just swipe along till you get where you want to go. I honestly don’t think it could be any easier.
I’m using an iPad Mini by the way – it’s the perfect compromise between size and wieldiness, if that’s a word.
The main problem was enlarging the page size, with my eyes this was essential. The best tool for me was my laptop but Readly is made for phones & pads.
Terrible eyes here too. I just do that 2 fingered zoom in thing on my android tablet and can make the text as big as I want.
My Rock’n’Reel arrived today with yet another female on the cover, this time it being Sharon Shannon. Last edition was, lord help us, Lulu.
Are you sure that wasn’t your Freemans catalogue?
Just noticed in the Most Commented (Last 7 Days), this thread seems to be be bringing up the rear with 0 views and 46 comments. A miracle or a tech bug?
That’ll be me bringing up the rear. Did you need to ask?
I recall a considered article on this very subject in Word. The explanation for the rare occurrence of women on the cover was down to simple economics – it didn’t sell in the same quantities as magazines with a hairy arsed male on the cover. Mojo probably has the same problem.
That’s fair enough, but I mean those mentioned on the front in any way, not just the cover star. There’s almost a complete absence in the examples above.
How about a hairy arsed woman? Would she sell?
Yes. Madonna sells.
That’s old fashioned Rock and Roll for you. I get the impression the balance has shifted toward loads more female and non-white artists in contemporary/mainstream pop/R&b/hip-hop and Indie music – but the younger demographic don’t read magazines or music papers do they – so that cultural shift won’t be reflected on the shelves of WHSmith and certainly not in the pages of MoJo – they will need to play it increasingly safe with cover stars to shore up their dwindling circulation and so expect more Beatles, Stones, Dylan and if they’re feeling daring…Mozzer or Oasis.
I love Kate B, Joni M, PJ H, Debbie H, Patti S, PP A, Rennie Sparks, very early Bangles, Laura Marling, Tamla-Motown acts and many others but what % of my LP/CD collection famale acts take up is maybe 5% if that. This is not a concious thing, I buy/listen to music I like no mater the gender.
Looking at my list (insurance purposes, once you`ve been burgled and had your collection stolen you`ll understand) the first act I come across alphabetically are `Amason` (female vocalist – Amanda Bergman), that`s after 25 acts. So maybe Mojo misrepresents the impact of female acts or does it?
I see the anti-Mojo brigade are out in force again, not over the female issue, they just don`t like Mojo* and have to have a dig at every opportunity, get a feckin` life.
*I don`t subscribe to Mojo, I do subscribe to Shindig, Prog(`kin hell if you think Mojo dosen`t have many females on the cover you`ll have a field day with Prog. It`s a great magazine though with lot`s of female acts covered(!) inside) oh and Uncut(another!).
I
Well at least it’s become acceptable to actually type out the word whole (used to be M**o or some such).
I’m a subscriber and do regard them as music lovers. I’m not there for the heavyweight mainstream (this month Foo Fighters) but for the less-illuminated corners and, well, just reminders to play stuff again. Recent nudges have included Dolly Collins, Allman Bros, Jim Webb, Nick Cave, Popol Vuh, Watersons, the Damned, all of which have a ripple effect. The CD supplied is frequently excellent too (recently the murder ballad one).
Mojo for Men. The new aftershave for ageing rock fans. When it’s working you feel great, but when you lose it nothing seems to go right. A heady scent evoking dimly recalled, sweaty venues filled with sickly fumes of marjuana and background notes of petulia oil.
Patchouli.
New issue on the doormat when I got home; business as usual.
Bowie is on the cover (the Berlin years) and out of 19 acts mentioned on the cover there are only two women in the small type – PJ Harvey and Evie Sands.
Ooh, two! That’s more than I could see in the photo. They must be under the CD. (I spotted St Vincent and Wolf Alice, but only in the Reviews star thing.)
Wonder if imgur will play ball this time…
No.
I’ve been having problems with Imgur. When I upload, I close the browser window, then open a new window (or tab) and go to Imgur for the link. Otherwise – for me – I can’t get the link to display the image. I also have issues where the browser window goes black on Imgur, with any text in very, very dark grey.
(I’m using either Safari or Firefox from various Macs, either running Sierra or Mavericks).
Why man ah divvent erpen a tab unless am smerkin’ sum derp!
Thank God we have the diversity and forward-thinking modern music and more Q magazine!
Nice to see Swifto getting a mention, although I’d rather see her face on the cover than dear ole Dave’s.
(I bet you’re delighted though, BC!)
Oh! Is that Depeche Mode on the cover? I hadn’t noticed.
I guess you would have to look in something like Froots to find diversity and anything much in the way of new acts or even much in the way of young people. How times change.
FRoots certainly has diversity, as does Songlines. But I suspect that the average age of the readers is high.
If you are looking for new acts and young people I suspect the place to go is various blogs, Spotify and YouTube. Thatäs where the youth spend their time. Many is the time that the YT and Spotty has gone from something I have chosen to something equally good that I did not know.
For example, it would be interest to choose the excellent Tuts (as recommended by Mike recently) and then see what happens. Probably not a good idea though to search for tuts if you have a problem with spelling!