Music magazines

As a reader of Q and Mojo since they started, it is interesting to see the latest circulation figures and the Emap spin on them (the link comes from No Rock and Roll Fun). Whilst Mojo has generally been a consistently good read since it started (ie well written articles on interesting subjects), the quality of Q has dropped like a stone over recent years. The most recent issue is a re-launch. Q seems to be obsessed by lists (ie 1010 songs for an iPod, 100 most powerful people in music, top 50 British albums). This means you get lots of pictures with small write-ups on parts of the list (100 words or so) but very little of substance. Even where there are more substantial articles, the new large font size tries to disguise the fact that they are pretty short. It is therefore not surprising that the circulation figures keep decreasing.

Whilst Mojo does not have quite the same list obsession, it has its own fair share of them. Hopefully Emap will learn the lesson from Q and not send Mojo down the same route. Unless Q manages to improve before the current subscription runs out, I think I will probably give up on them like many other readers.