Uncut (main magazine)
Uncut was launched in May 1997 by IPC as "a monthly magazine aimed at 25- to 45-year-old men that focuses on music and movies", edited by Allan Jones (former editor of Melody Maker ). [8] Jones has stated that "[t]he idea for Uncut came from my own disenchantment about what I was doing with Melody Maker. There was a publishing initiative to make the audience younger; I was getting older and they wanted to take the readers further away from me", specifically referring to the then dominant Britpop genre. [9]
According to IPC Media, 86% of the magazine's readers are male and their average age is 37 years. [10]
Uncut's contents include lengthy features on old albums, interviews with film directors, music and film news, and reviews of all major new album, film and DVD releases. Its music features tend to focus on genres such as Americana, [9] rock and alternative country. Each month, the magazine includes a free CD, which may include both new and older music. Special Issues have covered U2, Radiohead, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, the Byrds, David Bowie, Demon Records, Eric Clapton, John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Queen, Martin Scorsese, Motown Records, Morrissey, George Harrison, Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, the Beach Boys, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, the Beatles, Elvis Costello, the Kinks, Fleetwood Mac and more.
Uncut underwent a radical redesign in May 2006, as a result of which the magazine no longer catered for books and reduced its film content.
Jones writes a regular monthly column, recounting stories from his long career in music journalism.
Uncut's monthly circulation dropped from over 90,000 in 2007 [9] to 47,890 in the second half of 2015. [2]
In 2019, TI Media, successor to IPC, sold NME and Uncut to Singaporean company BandLab Technologies. [11] BandLab Technologies became the Caldecott Music Group in 2021 and split itself into three sub-units called BandLab Technologies, Vista Musical Instruments and NME Networks, with the latter group continuing to publish Uncut. In May 2023, [12] [13] NME Networks sold Uncut's print and digital assets to Kelsey Media, publisher of car magazines like Car Mechanics, [14] Motorsport News [15] and Fast Car, and farming titles like Crop Production Magazine, Practical Pigs and The Smallholder. [16] The first copy of Uncut published under Kelsey Media was the September 2023 issue (Take 317) in August, with the magazine still being sold in shops with its Now Playing compilation CD.
The Ultimate Music Guide
Uncut often produces themed spin-off titles celebrating the career of one artist. This series is now known as The Ultimate Music Guide, but was initially known as Uncut Legends. The series started in 2003 with an inaugural issue devoted to Bob Dylan, edited by Nigel Williamson (though the majority of titles that followed were produced by magazine editor Chris Hunt), followed by magazines entirely devoted to Radiohead, Kurt Cobain, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits and John Lennon (with the Lennon magazine being produced to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the death of the former member of the Beatles). [17]
Since the series was rebranded as The Ultimate Music Guide, artists such as Kraftwerk, Wilco, Creedence Clearwater Revival, the Fall and Talking Heads [18] have been featured, with updated and expanded versions of earlier guides also released as Deluxe Editions (for example Lennon: 80th Birthday Edition [19] or PJ Harvey's guide which came out again as a '30th Anniversary Edition' in June 2021). [20]
In 2021, Uncut launched more spin-offs including The Complete Bob Dylan [21] and The Beatles – Miscellany & Atlas, the latter being a publication typeset in the style of Schott's Miscellany. [22]
The History of Rock
In 2015, The History of Rock (using a title previously used for an Orbis Publishing partwork) was launched as a spin-off from Uncut. The new magazine would cover the key events in rock history by year, starting in 1965 and continuing to the present day (though the series was never completed). [23] [24] The History of Rock reproduced contemporary articles that had originally appeared in the music publications of IPC Magazines, with articles from Melody Maker and the NME (used for the period 1965 to 1990) joined by articles from Vox and Uncut in later issues. [24] [25]
Ultimate Genre Guide
Another spin-off to Bandlab's Ultimate Music Guide is the Ultimate Genre Guide, which takes an in depth look at a particular music style. Magazines in this series include 2021's Ultimate Genre Guide to Shoegaze [26] which features articles about The Jesus and Mary Chain, Lush and My Bloody Valentine, as well as issues devoted to Punk, Glam and Soul [27] In July 2023, the latest Ultimate Genre Guide was published, a title devoted to Goth which featured articles on the Cure, Nick Cave and cover star Siouxsie. [28]
Please Please Me is the debut studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Produced by George Martin, it was released in the UK on EMI's Parlophone label on 22 March 1963. The album is 14 songs in length, and contains a mixture of cover songs and original material written by the partnership of band members John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Help! is the fifth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles and the soundtrack to their film of the same name. It was released on 6 August 1965. Seven of the fourteen songs, including the singles "Help!" and "Ticket to Ride", appeared in the film and take up the first side of the vinyl album. The second side includes "Yesterday", the most-covered song ever written. The album was met with favourable critical reviews and topped the Australian, German, British and American charts.
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band is the debut solo studio album by English musician John Lennon. Backed by the Plastic Ono Band, it was released by Apple Records on 11 December 1970 in tandem with the similarly titled album by his wife, Yoko Ono. At the time of its issue, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band received mixed reviews overall, but later came to be widely regarded as Lennon's best solo album.
New Musical Express (NME) is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a free publication, before becoming an online brand which includes its website and radio stations.
Mind Games is the fourth solo studio album by English musician John Lennon. It was recorded at Record Plant Studios in New York in summer 1973. The album was released in the US on 29 October 1973 and in the UK on 16 November 1973. It was Lennon's first self-produced recording without help from Phil Spector. Like his previous album, the politically topical and somewhat abrasive Some Time in New York City, Mind Games received mixed reviews upon release. It reached number 13 in the UK and number 9 in the US, where it was certified gold.
Melody Maker was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born composer, publisher Lawrence Wright; the first editor was Edgar Jackson. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.
Q is a popular music online 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.
Shaved Fish is a compilation album by English rock musician John Lennon with the Plastic Ono Band, issued in October 1975 on Apple Records. It contains all of the singles that he had issued up to that point in the United States as a solo artist, with the exception of "Stand by Me", which had been released earlier that year. The only compilation of Lennon's non-Beatles recordings released during his lifetime, the album peaked at number 8 in the UK and number 12 in the US. It was also Lennon's final album released on Apple Records before it was shut down in 1975, to be revived in the 1990s.
The NME Originals is a collection of articles and reviews from the NME and Melody Maker magazines about one band or genre. The first issue was about the Beatles, published on 3 April 2002. Many issues in the series were produced by NME editorial director Steve Sutherland, but some of the later titles, such as those on the former Beatles' solo years and Mod, were under the editorship of Chris Hunt.
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.
Record Collector is a British monthly music magazine focussing on rare and collectable records, and the bands who recorded them. It was founded in Sept 1979 and distributes worldwide. It is promoted as "the world’s leading authority on rare and collectable records" and claims to be currently "the UK’s longest-running music magazine".
Roy Carr was an English music journalist, covering pop, rock and jazz. He joined the New Musical Express (NME) in the late 1960s, and edited NME, Vox and Melody Maker magazines.
"Gimme Some Truth" is a protest song written and performed by John Lennon. It was first released on his 1971 album Imagine. "Gimme Some Truth" contains various political references emerging from the time it was written, during the latter years of the Vietnam War. Co-produced by Phil Spector, the recording includes a slide guitar solo played by George Harrison, Lennon's former bandmate in the Beatles.
Andrew Sumner is a British journalist, editor, TV presenter and publisher.
The Beatles were originally a quartet, but only Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr remain.
Vox was a British music magazine, first issued in October 1990. It was published by IPC Media, and was later billed as a monthly sister-magazine to IPC's music weekly, the NME.
George Harrison and Ravi Shankar's 1974 North American tour was a 45-show concert tour of the United States and Canada, undertaken by English musician George Harrison and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar in November and December 1974. It is often referred to as the Dark Horse Tour, since the concerts served as a launch for Harrison's record label Dark Horse Records, to which Shankar was one of the inaugural signings, and Harrison's concurrent single was the song "Dark Horse". The release of his delayed album, also titled Dark Horse, followed towards the end of the tour. The shows featured guest spots by Harrison's band members Billy Preston and Tom Scott.
Kelsey Media is a magazine publisher and trade fair company based in Yalding, England. Founded in 1989, it has bought and sold many publications over the years, including former Bauer Media Group magazines Sea Angler, Car Mechanics and Your Horse in July 2020. In May 2023, it bought the print and digital assets of Uncut magazine from BandLab Technologies' NME Networks division, with the first issue of Uncut published by Kelsey Media being the September 2023 issue Take 317.
BandLab Technologies is a Singaporean company founded in 2015 that operates a social music platform, called BandLab, and also owns a variety of music-related brands, including Harmony and Heritage Guitars; Guitar.com, NME, Uncut and MusicTech.com media platforms; and Swee Lee musical instrument retailer and distributor.
BandLab is a free online Cloud Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) tool with social media functions, and distribution functions for creating music collaboratively, sharing it, and selling it. It can also be used non-collaboratively. It works on many different platforms inside a web browser or with a standalone app, available for iOS and Android. In January 2023, Bandlab had 60 million creators. On The Apple Store, BandLab has 325,000 reviews.
