Short video of the beach in Cancun from December 2004

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.

Book Review

I have just finished reading a book by Louis Barfe on the music industry. It starts from the invention of the record player and goes through to CDs and then Napster. It is very much about the business side rather than the music but interesting even so. I found the first half less interesting than when it moved on to the 1960s and onwards (probably since I already know something about this period). The last section on downloading and the future of the industry was interesting and it would have been good if it had been longer as he has some interesting points to make.

Progress

Whilst initially the prospect of making changes to the html in the template seemed daunting, I have managed to add one link and will add some more favourites over the next few days hopefully. I also changed the settings so anyone can leave comments, not just registered users. Finally, I also added a free counter so I can get some idea of whether anyone is reading this blog other than me.

First posting

Other than posting some random thoughts and learning a bit about blogging, there is no particular aim behind this blog. We will see how it develops (if at all).