In the end was The Word

I love music: that may not be a shock to those of you that know me, but it is true, I do love music. I have most of my old vinyl, CDs and tapes; including those old John Peel shows that I keep meaning to digitize.

And I love reading about music about as much as i love listening to music. and always have done.



My first plunge into the world of the music press was the October 13th edition of Record Mirror, it had a picture of Debbie Harry on the cover and a huge Blondie feature. But a whole weekly newspaper dedicated to music; can you imagine it? But it wasn't the only one, there was Sounds and Melody Maker and NME. More of NME later.

So, I got a copy of Record Mirror every week, poured over the charts and new releases. I was in music heaven each Thursday when I picked up the new copy. I did try Sounds, it was laddy but championed Oi through Gary Bushel's weekly column. And then there was wordy Melody Maker. I tried it, but I hadn't heard of half the bands they featured and so I went back to RM.

Until April 1982, when NME celebrated its 30th birthday and published a celebratory edition. I bought it and found so much to read, so until I joined the RAF I didn't buy another music paper.

Then at the end of the 80s, I found the glossys. Q magazine, with colour pictures, I bought a few copies, and in time the magazine joined the 80s and dropped the endless Beatles features and featured newer acts.

During my RAF years between 1980 and 2005 I bought Q and Empire every month, and loved them both. But then Q began to lose good journalists, and I read it less and less despite buying it every month.

By now the music papers were down to just the NME, and it really is a young persons paper, so I tried Select and the others.

And then, one long dark afternoon in Hammerfest I wandered into a shop and they had a copy of The Word, a British magazine I had seen but only bought once. On the boat I read it from cover to cover; it was funny, serious and was clearly written with passion. Q was cancelled and I look forward to the new copy dropping onto my doormat at the beginning of each month.

But this month, the last ever edition has just been published; another victim of the economic squeeze and so I will read every last word (ahem) and place it on the shelf for safe keeping. And won't buy another music magazine unless those who write for The Word move somewhere else.

So, 32 years of reading about music, filling up the corners of my head with useless information comes to an end.

I shall miss The Word very much indeed. And that is all I have to say about that......