Select (magazine)

Last updated

Select
Cover of Select magazine for July 2000.jpg
July 2000 issue
Editor Alexis Petridis [1]
CategoriesMusic tabloid
FrequencyMonthly
First issueJuly 1990;34 years ago (1990-07)
Final issueJanuary 2001;23 years ago (2001-01)
Company EMAP Metro
CountryUnited Kingdom
Based inLondon
LanguageEnglish
ISSN 0959-8367

Select was a United Kingdom music magazine of the 1990s. It was known for covering the indie rock and Britpop genres, [2] but featured a wide array of music. [3] In 2003, The Guardian called Select "the magazine that not only coined the word Britpop, but soon came to define it." [4]

Contents

History

The magazine was launched under United Consumer Magazines in July 1990, [5] intending to be a rival to Q magazine. [6] Its first cover star was Prince. [6] [7] Its first issue sold 100,000 copies. [6] Between July and December 1990, its circulation hovered around 75,000. [8] In April 1991, Spotlight sold Select to EMAP Metro. [6] [9] Under the editorship of Mark Ellen, the magazine began focusing on the baggy and Madchester scenes. [6] The magazine soon became known for its coverage of Britpop, a term already in use in the music press by writer like John Robb but with an added new context in the magazine front cover by Stuart Maconie in its April 1993 "Yanks Go Home" edition, [10] featuring The Auteurs, Denim, Saint Etienne, Pulp and Suede's Brett Anderson on the cover in front of a Union Flag. Several publications have called the April 1993 cover an important impetus in defining the movement's tone and opposition to American genres such as grunge. [11] [12]

Later, John Harris stepped down as editor, and was replaced by former Mixmag editor Alexis Petridis. [13] Under Petridis, the magazine's image moved back towards its coverage of an eclectic array of music, aiming to reach what Petridis described as "a wide range of music fans". [3] The magazine folded in late 2000, amid competition on the internet. [14] Periditis later stated of its closure: "No matter how many features we did on Destiny's Child, people still thought we were a magazine about Oasis. We were forever associated with a music [genre] in decline." [6]

Tagline

Contributors

Related Research Articles

Britpop was a mid-1990s British-based music culture movement that emphasised Britishness. Musically, Britpop produced bright, catchy alternative rock, in reaction to the darker lyrical themes and soundscapes of the US-led grunge music and the UK's own shoegaze music scene. The movement brought British alternative rock into the mainstream and formed the larger British popular cultural movement, Cool Britannia, which evoked the Swinging Sixties and the British guitar pop of that decade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blur (band)</span> English rock band

Blur are an English rock band formed in London in 1988. The band consists of singer Damon Albarn, guitarist Graham Coxon, bass guitarist Alex James and drummer Dave Rowntree. Their debut album, Leisure (1991), incorporated the sounds of Madchester and shoegaze. Following a stylistic change influenced by English guitar pop groups such as the Kinks, the Beatles and XTC, Blur released the albums Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993), Parklife (1994) and The Great Escape (1995). As a result, the band helped to popularise the Britpop genre and achieved mass popularity in the UK, aided by a widely publicised chart battle with rival band Oasis in 1995 dubbed "The Battle of Britpop".

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<i>Parklife</i> 1994 studio album by Blur

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<i>Modern Life Is Rubbish</i> 1993 studio album by Blur

Modern Life Is Rubbish is the second studio album by the English alternative rock band Blur, released in May 1993. Although their debut album Leisure (1991) had been commercially successful, Blur faced a severe media backlash soon after its release, and fell out of public favour. After the group returned from an unsuccessful tour of the United States, poorly received live performances and the rising popularity of rival band Suede further diminished Blur's status in the UK.

<i>Kerrang!</i> British rock, punk and heavy metal music magazine

Kerrang! is a British music webzine and quarterly magazine that primarily covers rock, punk and heavy metal music. Since 2017, the magazine has been published by Wasted Talent Ltd. The magazine was named onomatopoeically after the sound of a "guitar being struck with force".

<i>Q</i> (magazine) British music magazine

Q was a popular music magazine. Originally published in print in the UK from 1986 to 2020, it was inactive from 2020 until 2023. In 2023, Q was revived as an online publication. It was founded in 1986 by broadcast journalists Mark Ellen and David Hepworth, who were presenters of the BBC television music series The Old Grey Whistle Test. Q's final printed issue was published in July 2020, but began posting new articles to their website in 2023 before being fully relaunched in 2024.

<i>Different Class</i> 1995 studio album by Pulp

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<i>Mixmag</i> British music magazine

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<i>Sounds</i> (magazine) UK weekly music magazine (1970–1991)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stuart Maconie</span> English radio DJ and television presenter

Stuart John Maconie is an English radio DJ and television presenter, writer, journalist, and critic working in the field of pop music and popular culture. He is a presenter on BBC Radio 6 Music where, alongside Mark Radcliffe, he hosts its weekend breakfast show which broadcasts from the BBC's MediaCityUK in Salford. The pair previously presented an evening show on BBC Radio 2 and the weekday afternoon show for BBC Radio 6 Music.

<i>Mojo</i> (magazine) British monthly music magazine

Mojo is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom, initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title that would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music. The magazine was designed to appeal to the 30 to 45-plus age group, or the baby boomer generation. Mojo was first published on 15 October 1993. In keeping with its classic rock aesthetic, the first issue had Bob Dylan and John Lennon as its first cover stars. Noted for its in-depth coverage of both popular and cult acts, it acted as the inspiration for Blender and Uncut. Many noted music critics have written for it, including Charles Shaar Murray, Greil Marcus, Nick Kent, David Fricke, Jon Savage and Mick Wall. The launch editor of Mojo was Paul Du Noyer and his successors have included Mat Snow, Paul Trynka, Pat Gilbert and Phil Alexander. The current editor is John Mulvey.

<i>Coal Chamber</i> (album) 1997 studio album by Coal Chamber

Coal Chamber is the debut studio album by American nu metal band Coal Chamber. It was released on February 11, 1997, by Roadrunner Records and contains the single "Loco". The special edition of the album contains the bonus tracks "Headstones and the Walking Dead", "Big Truck ", "Pig (Demo)", "Sway (Demo)", "Unspoiled (Demo)", and "Loco (Demo)". The DVD features two of the band's concerts, a live video of "Loco", and the music video of "Loco".

Raw Magazine was a British music magazine, which was published from 1988 until 1996. Established to rival Kerrang!, Raw focused on rock music for most of its history.

<i>I Am an Elastic Firecracker</i> 1995 studio album by Tripping Daisy

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<i>Sonic Jihad</i> (Snake River Conspiracy album) 2000 studio album by Snake River Conspiracy

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John Rhys Harris is a British journalist, writer and critic. He is the author of The Last Party: Britpop, Blair and the Demise of English Rock (2003); So Now Who Do We Vote For?, which examined the 2005 UK general election; a 2006 behind-the-scenes look at the production of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon; and Hail! Hail! Rock'n'Roll (2009). His articles have appeared in Select, Q, Mojo, Shindig!, Rolling Stone, Classic Rock, The Independent, the New Statesman, The Times and The Guardian.

Andrew Harrison is an English music journalist who has worked as a staff writer for NME, Select, Mixmag, The Word, and Q, and freelance for Rolling Stone, The Face, The Guardian, The Observer and Mojo. In 2008 he coined the term landfill indie, which VICE described as referring to the "procession of homogenous [guitar] bands" that dominated the UK charts in the early-2000s.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Select (credits list)". Select. EMAP Metro. July 2000. p. 6.
  2. Hodgson, Jessica (14 December 2000). "Melody Maker axed". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  3. 1 2 "Music magazine Select names editor for relaunch". Campaign Live. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  4. Jones, Dylan (6 October 2003). "Why Dennis is a Menace to Q". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  5. Fielder, Hugh (30 June 1990). "Select Magazine is Launched, Right on Q" (PDF). Billboard . Vol. 102, no. 26. p. 75. Retrieved 3 May 2024 via worldradiohistory.com.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Gorman, Paul (2022). Totally Wired: The Rise and Fall of the Music Press (2023 paperback ed.). UK: Thames & Hudson. pp. 306–311, 355. ISBN   978-0-500-29746-9.
  7. "A Brief History of 90s Britpop..." Dangerous Minds. 24 March 2016. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  8. Anon. (16 February 1991). "New glossies on target" (PDF). Music Week . p. 3. ISSN   0265-1548 . Retrieved 3 May 2024 via worldradiohistory.com.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  9. Anon. (13 April 1991). "Emap scoops up Select in music titles sell-of" (PDF). Music Week . p. 3. ISSN   0265-1548. Archived (PDF) from the original on 14 May 2023. Retrieved 14 May 2023 via worldradiohistory.com.
  10. Shaw, Magnus. So It Goes. Lulu, 2014. ISBN   978-1-3260-7550-7
  11. "Britpop: 25 years ago today Britain taught the world to play guitar". The Independent. 21 April 2018. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  12. Ewing, Tom (1 October 2010). "The Wardrobe". Pitchfork. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  13. Bailey, Jemimah (3 December 1999). "Select plucks chief from mixmag". PR Weekly. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  14. Perry, Keith (15 December 2000). "Melody Maker pensioned off". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  15. Cardew, Ben. "Q editor Andrew Harrison steps down". The Guardian , 11 April 2013. Retrieved 16 January 2021