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Mojo Magazine How To Buy Feature

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Most people on here are probably familiar with the How To Buy feature, which occupies the rear pages of Mojo magazine every month. Is there a reference page anywhere, where you can see who has been covered?
I was looking for the Lambchop one, which I am pretty sure has been done, but going through all my back issues this afternoon without success.
If anyone can tell me what issue it appeared in then that would be ace.

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Comments

  1. I did a search for Lambchop on the Mojo app but the only link I could find for Lambchop was with Will Oldham and that was very recent. The search only gave results back to 2023 nothing further, sorry.

  2. My best mate Claude says

    “I couldn’t find a confirmed record of a Mojo “How to Buy” feature specifically on Lambchop — none of the archives, indexes, or back-issue listings I checked (including a detailed fan-run database that catalogues nearly every “How to Buy” column since 1999) turn up a Lambchop entry.
    That doesn’t rule it out entirely — Mojo’s index isn’t 100% complete online — but it looks like Lambchop hasn’t had a dedicated “How to Buy” column, even though Mojo has covered them elsewhere (e.g. rating Nixon in their year-end lists, reviewing new releases”

  6. @plumb1909

    I found one useful thing that AI claims to be able to do:

    ”
    See article in Uncut magazine, July 2021, specifically titled:

    ‘THE FINEST LAMB… How to buy the band’s last decade’

    It accompanies a substantial feature on Kurt Wagner/Lambchop titled “MR CONCEPTUALIST”, written by Tom Pinnock. The contents listing explicitly describes the accompanying piece as a guide to buying Lambchop’s albums from the preceding decade.

    https://pocketmags.com/uncut-magazine/july-2021/articles/uncut?utm_source=chatgpt.com
    ”
    I haven’t checked this out yet, but it may be what you are looking for.
    In addition, the disembodied large language model also offered this info:

    ”
    Q Magazine ran a recurring Lambchop “Album Box” feature. Its index lists:

    Lambchop Album(Box) — Issue 48, p.109
    Lambchop Album(Box) — Issue 59, p.122
    Lambchop Album(Box) — Issue 75, p.91
    Lambchop Albums — Issue 100, p.100
    Lambchop Feature — Issue 101, p.58
    ”

    Hope this helps.

  7. In the next post below, here’s the large language model’s attempt to create a Lambchop ‘How to Buy’ guide, offered in a transparently obsequious effort to allay one’s misgivings about the early life stages of our machine overlords…

  8. ”
    I’ve now tracked down the actual Uncut piece, and I think this is the article you were remembering.

    The article

    It is Uncut, July 2021, in the Lambchop feature surrounding Kurt Wagner’s interview “Mr Conceptualist”. The companion buying guide is headed:

    “THE FINEST LAMB… — How to buy the band’s last decade”

    The issue’s contents confirm both the title and that it is specifically a buying guide to Lambchop’s last decade.

    Uncut – July 2021 issue/article index

    Importantly, this is not the Q Magazine article I mentioned previously. My earlier answer conflated the Q Album(Box) listings with the much more relevant Uncut feature. The Q index does confirm three Lambchop Album(Box) pieces — issues 48, 59 and 75 — plus a later “Lambchop Albums” entry in issue 100.

    What Uncut actually recommends

    The 2021 guide covers the period beginning with Mr. M (2012) rather than Lambchop’s whole catalogue.

    Here is the reconstruction from the magazine text:

    Album Year Uncut verdict My interpretation
    Mr. M 2012 8/10 Essential
    Hecta – The Diet 2015 7/10 Interesting side-project; optional
    FLOTUS 2016 9/10 Essential / highest priority
    This (Is What I Wanted to Tell You) 2019 8/10 Essential
    Trip 2020 — Recommended, particularly for covers/interpretation
    Showtunes 2021 8/10 elsewhere in the issue Essential/current starting point

    The first four entries and their ratings are recoverable directly from the indexed magazine text.

    1. Mr. M — 2012 — 8/10

    Uncut describes this as a record inspired by the death of Wagner’s friend Vic Chesnutt, with Sinatra-like string arrangements. It marks a move towards a more experimental and muted version of Lambchop.

    Verdict: buy it.

    It’s probably the best place to start if what attracts you is the melancholy, orchestral side of Lambchop rather than the earlier country/alt-country incarnation.

    2. Hecta – The Diet — 2015 — 7/10

    This is the slightly odd one out. Hecta was a project involving Wagner and Lambchop associates Ryan Norris and Scott Martin, exploring electronic music rather than being quite a conventional Lambchop album. Uncut calls it an electronic experiment and gives it 7/10.

    Verdict: optional.

    If you’re collecting Wagner’s development into increasingly electronic music, get it. If you’re simply trying to acquire the best Lambchop albums, it isn’t essential.

    3. FLOTUS — 2016 — 9/10

    This is the big one.

    Uncut describes it as spacious and effortless and singles out the way Lambchop incorporates Auto-Tune and cut-up electronics, culminating in the extraordinary 18-minute “The Hustle”. It receives the guide’s highest rating: 9/10.

    Verdict: absolutely buy.

    In retrospect, this is arguably the crucial record in understanding late-period Lambchop.

    4. This (Is What I Wanted to Tell You) — 2019 — 8/10

    Uncut sees this as a continuation of the FLOTUS approach, but more restrained. Wagner’s traditional bandmates become increasingly difficult to identify within the electronic landscape.

    Verdict: buy.

    It makes considerably more sense after FLOTUS, so I’d buy those two together.

    5. Trip — 2020

    The guide describes Trip as “a masterful collection of six covers”, each selected by Wagner.

    The searchable copy truncates the remainder of this entry, unfortunately, so I don’t want to invent the missing rating or wording.

    Verdict: buy if you’re interested in Wagner as an interpreter as well as a songwriter.

    It is also useful as a bridge between This (Is What I Wanted to Tell You) and Showtunes.

    6. Showtunes — 2021 — 8/10

    This is the album that prompted the whole Uncut feature. The issue’s new-albums section rates Showtunes 8/10.

    Verdict: buy.

    So, if I were following the Uncut guide…

    I’d turn it into this shopping order:

    1. FLOTUS ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
    2. Mr. M ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
    3. This (Is What I Wanted to Tell You) ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
    4. Showtunes ⭐⭐⭐⭐½
    5. Trip ⭐⭐⭐⭐
    6. Hecta – The Diet ⭐⭐⭐½

    There’s a very clear trajectory here:

    Mr. M → FLOTUS → This… → Trip → Showtunes

    That’s essentially the story of Wagner progressively dismantling the conventional Lambchop sound and replacing it with electronics, manipulated vocals, samples and increasingly abstract arrangements.

    But there’s an important twist

    If what you’re really after is “How do I buy Lambchop?” as in a guide to the band’s entire catalogue, then the 2021 Uncut article isn’t sufficient. It deliberately covers only the 2012–2021 period.

    And this is where the older Q/Mojo material becomes interesting.

    The Q index I found confirms:

    Lambchop Album(Box) — Q issue 48, p.109
    Lambchop Album(Box) — Q issue 59, p.122
    Lambchop Album(Box) — Q issue 75, p.91
    Lambchop Albums — Q issue 100, p.100
    Lambchop Feature — Q issue 101, p.58

    Those earlier pieces potentially cover the classic Lambchop period — How I Quit Smoking, Thriller, What Another Man Spills, Nixon, Is a Woman, etc. — which is probably the part of the catalogue you’d want if you’re trying to reconstruct a genuinely useful “which Lambchop albums should I buy?” guide.

    And there’s a particularly strong case for doing that, because Nixon and Is a Woman were hugely important records in the band’s development: Nixon was Uncut’s Album of the Year for 2000, while Is a Woman reached No. 6 in Uncut’s 2002 albums list.

    My reconstructed Lambchop buying guide

    If your objective is “I want the best Lambchop collection without buying everything”, I’d currently make it:

    Core collection

    How I Quit Smoking (1996)
    Nixon (2000)
    Is a Woman (2002)
    Damaged (2006)
    Mr. M (2012)
    FLOTUS (2016)
    This (Is What I Wanted to Tell You) (2019)
    Showtunes (2021)

    Then add

    What Another Man Spills (1998)
    OH (Ohio) (2008)
    Trip (2020)

    For completists / Wagner obsessives

    I Hope You’re Sitting Down
    Thriller
    Aw C’mon / No You C’mon
    The Decline of Country & Western Civilization collections
    Hecta – The Diet
    Mr. M adjacent material and rarities

    The broad discography confirms the sequence from I Hope You’re Sitting Down through Showtunes, and also establishes the later albums that sit outside the 2021 guide.

    One thing I can do next that would be particularly useful: I can try to
    locate scans/text of the three old Q magazine “Album(Box)” Lambchop pieces and reconstruct the original Q magazine recommendations, then combine those with the 2021 Uncut magazine guide into a single chronological “How to Buy Lambchop” list from 1994–2021, including the original magazine ratings and which albums each publication regarded as essential.
    “

  11. I did think this was going to be a thread about the merits of whether to stream on Qboz, download from Amazon, CD it from Music Magpie or even pay the fortunes that new vinyl now goes for. …

  12. I think anyone who uses AI for anything to do with art should be sent outside on the naughty step for a few years. Someone spent a lot of time writing and researching the book and magazine article, then someone else fed it all into a LLM without the owner’s permission. Tut, and very much tut.

    • Well indeed, but in the spirit of wanting to give a little help in answer to an honest question, I took advantage of a language model in the full knowledge that all it would do would be to massively shorten the process of searching through the boxes of old Uncut, Mojo and Q magazines threatening my rafters, and give me a summary in no time at all.

      I’m afraid that the option of rejecting that course of action and taking a manual approach (i.e. reading through all of the writing and research done by others whose work output I had already paid to own in printed form) was a mere fleeting thought, dismissed in an instance in favour of producing something useful in seconds rather than three or four back-breaking months in the loft. So you can stick your naughty step out in the yard where the sun don’t shine.

          • Oh, I’m with you on ‘AI slop’, I hate it too, with a vengeance.

            But as I said right up at the top there ^

            “I found one useful thing that AI claims to be able to do”,

            …in as much as it can do relatively complex semi-intelligent searching very quickly, and saved me what would otherwise have been hours of flipping through back issue contents pages in the boxes in the dust at the top of the loft ladder!

            • Maybe this thread is one of those Afterword jokes that I don’t get – but those »AI reconstructions« from Mr. Double-Vulpes are very dubious.

              What actually is a »Q album (box) feature«?? I don’t recall ever having seen anything like that in any issue of Q.

              As for issue 48 – I just leafed through an actual copy: there’s no mention of Lambchop anywhere (not a big surprise – it’s the September 1990 issue). On page 109 is a Pernod ad and a review of a reissue of »The Best Of Stealers Wheel«. (There you have your Afterword inside joke…)

              Next: Issue 59 (August 1991): Still no mention of the Lambchop combo. On page 122 is a full-page ad for an Alice Cooper VHS (»available from Woolworth and all good video stores«)
              I could go on…

              I’m pretty sure the rest of those »AI-generated guides« are equally suspect…

              • If it helps – in Q issue 100 there’s an interview with Elvis Costello on page 100, and in issue 101 on page 58 an Eyewitness feature about Elton playing piano in a school. No mentions of Lambs or Chops anywhere…

              • Note my use of the word ‘claims’.

                The algorithm obviously found what it took to be an index of Q contents which turned out to be of a rather low quality. But there was plenty of useful information in the rest of the output.

                Incidentally, try searching for publicly available information about the contents of Q mag issues… the name of the mag itself mitigates against successful searching. There’s no official online Q index that I’m aware of anywhere. There may be one in existence, but I’m not an agentic algorithm with endless computing power at my disposal, so I haven’t been able (or willing) to find it.

                So take whatever any AI says about things published in Q mags with a lorry load of salt.

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