Review of 'Q' Magazine

Established in 1986 'Q' magazine is the UK's “biggest” music monthly.

It has found readership with the 90s 'brit-pop' generation, a predominantly male audience, who are young and affluent and have a wide range of interests. The magazine infuses music with lifestyle and has features on film, gaming, sport, comedy and gadgets; this is the magazine for the man with a diverse range of interests. Similarly it is not genre exclusive offering quite a broad range of music ranging from indie and alternative to hip hop and rap, although it's focuses more so on rock, indie and alternative. The artists are similarly varied ranging from The Strokes to Dizzee Rascal.

The magazines circulation is around 90,000 and it's readership is estimated at 550,000, of which 68% are male, the average reader is 29.

Pub quiz fact: It was originally called 'Cue' magazine, which people often mistook for a snooker magazine.

Are blackness and whiteness useful concepts in the study of popular music?

Hatch discusses the idea that “popular music has always depended upon the interaction between white and black traditions”. Popular music is a frequently a fusion of many different cultural and racial backgrounds and no style of music is exclusive to a race of people. Looking to an example such as rap, a genre where the artist is typically considered to be black, but the best selling rap artist of all time is white (Eminem).

Hatch also discusses that the idea of 'black' and 'white' music is curious, as musicologically there is “no satisfactory definition” and ideologically it turns what is often issue of class into a race issue; this can be the case as music often comes from struggle and frequently from the deprived areas of society. The concept of black and white music is quite flawed and it communicates an air of exclusion which isn't truly there.

Does the emergence of the digital download signal the end for the music industry?

Since the invention of the cassette tape, music piracy has often been blamed for the “demise” in record sales by the music industry. Now with the rise of broadband internet and the mp3 peer to peer network music downloads have thrived.

Lessig looks at RIAA estimates for 1999-2001 in which 803 million CDs were sold and 2.1 billion were downloaded for free , he discusses that if one download was equivalent to one lost sale they would be accountable for a 100% drop and not 7%. He also discusses the 4 types of downloads and deemed only one, “to replace purchasing”, to be harmful to the industry, the second “to sample then purchase” can be seen as free marketing and can only benefit them.

With iTunes recently hitting it's 10 billionth track purchased the digital download could be seen as helping push the music industry forward (into cheaper legal downloads) and embracing new technologies faster.

Can popular music achieve genuine political change?

Popular music has long had associations with politics, it is often used as a platform in attempt to instigate social and political change. In theory this can be achieved through raising awareness of an issue into the social conscience. A good example of this is Band Aid, which aimed to raise awareness (and money) for the famine in Ethiopia. The campaign did raise a lot of money and awareness for the cause and has seen change.

In the 1980s a organisation of musicians formed to create Red Wedge, who attempted to sway the vote in the 1987 general election towards the labour party. Their campaign was unsuccessful and disbanded in 1990. It would appear from this that music has less impact in instigating this kind of political change, and trying to persuade voters from their established beliefs may seem to be quite blind sighted.