 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2019) |
| Editor | Eric T. Miller |
|---|---|
| Categories | Music magazine |
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Publisher | Alex Mulcahy |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Country | United States |
| Based in | Philadelphia |
| Language | English |
| Website | www |
| ISSN | 1088-7806 |
Magnet is a music magazine that generally focuses on alternative, independent, or out-of-the-mainstream bands. [1]
The magazine is published four times a year, and is independently owned and edited by Eric T. Miller. Music magazines with a similar focus in the 1990s era included Option , Ray Gun , and Alternative Press . The first issue of Magnet came out in mid-1993. Examples of cover stars over the years include Yo La Tengo (1993, 2000), The Afghan Whigs (1994), Spacemen 3 (1997), Shudder To Think (1997), Tortoise/ Swervedriver (1998), Sonic Youth (1998), Sunny Day Real Estate (1998), Ween (2000), Ride (2002), Interpol (2003), Hüsker Dü (2005), and Cat Power (2007).
The magazine's content tends to focus on up-and-coming indie bands and expositions of various music scenes. Examples include long pieces on the Denton, TX psychedelic rock scene (1997), the New York City "Illbient" scene (1997), the history of power pop (2002), the Cleveland avant-punk scene of the 1970s, the Minneapolis college-rock scene of the 1980s (2005), the California "Paisley Underground" bands of the 1980s (2001), and the resurgence of the Shoegaze movement (2002). Also common is the "artists within a construct" theme—e.g., the "Eccentrics And Dreamers" issue (2003) featuring various "outsider" artists[ citation needed ].
Beginning in early 1997, subscribers to each issue receive a sampler CD. Record labels pay the magazine to have songs put on the CDs, meaning that inclusion signified no endorsement from the staff of Magnet, although bands would claim otherwise, leading to moderate controversy over the years[ citation needed ]. The songs on the CDs sometimes have little to do with the type of music covered by the magazine.
Though the magazine's focus for the first five years or so of its existence was experimental/underground music, its focus at the turn of the century broadened to include an emphasis on covering alt-country and indie acts such as Wilco, Steve Earle, The New Pornographers, The Shins, and even more established acts such as Tom Petty. Despite this, it still maintains a section devoted to free jazz and obscure electronic-based music in each issue. It has also done long articles on jazz icons Albert Ayler, Ken Vandermark, and Ornette Coleman. The photographic style of subjects has also evolved from inventive avant-garde settings to stark, no-frills closeups of band members. Magnet has paid much less attention over the years to the metal and rap genres.
The first issue of each year features a faux-retrospective look on that year, predicting various absurdist musical occurrences; this is always penned by Phil Sheridan. More recently, Andrew Earles has written a parodic feature entitled "Where's The Street Team?" which tends to address overhyped bands and their fans.
The magazine stopped being offered in print form after the 80th edition in 2008, but continued to use the Magnet brand name on their website. In October 2011 it returned as a monthly print magazine featuring Wilco on the cover of the first of the relaunch issues. There appears to be no free CD. [2] [3]
No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene which emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City. The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music. Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and roll clichés, no wave musicians instead experimented with noise, dissonance, and atonality, as well as non-rock genres like free jazz, funk, and disco. The scene often reflected an abrasive, confrontational, and nihilistic world view.
Post-rock is a form of experimental rock characterized by a focus on exploring textures and timbres, as well as non-rock styles, with less emphasis on conventional song structures or riffs. Post-rock artists typically combine rock instrumentation with electronics. The genre emerged within the indie and underground music scene of the 1980s and early 1990s. However, due to its abandonment of rock conventions, it began to increasingly show little resemblance musically to conventional indie rock at the time, borrowing instead from diverse sources including ambient, electronica, jazz, krautrock, dub, and minimalist classical, with these influences also being pivotal for the style of ambient pop.
Wilco is an American alternative rock band based in Chicago. The band was formed in 1994 by the remaining members of alternative country group Uncle Tupelo after singer Jay Farrar's departure. Wilco's lineup changed frequently during its first decade, with only singer Jeff Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt remaining from the original incarnation. Since early 2004 the lineup has been unchanged, consisting of Tweedy, Stirratt, guitarist Nels Cline, multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone, keyboard player Mikael Jorgensen, and drummer Glenn Kotche. Wilco has released thirteen studio albums, a live double album, and four collaborations: three with Billy Bragg and one with the Minus 5.
Alternative rock is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s with the likes of the grunge, shoegaze, and Britpop subgenres in the United States and United Kingdom, respectively. During this period, many record labels were looking for "alternatives", as many corporate rock, hard rock, and glam metal acts from the 1980s were beginning to grow stale throughout the music industry. The emergence of Generation X as a cultural force in the 1990s also contributed greatly to the rise of alternative rock.
Tortoise is an American post-rock band formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1990. The band incorporates krautrock, dub, minimal music, electronica and jazz into their music, a combination sometimes termed "post-rock". Tortoise have been consistently credited for the rise of the post-rock movement in the 1990s.
The U.S. state of Washington has been home to many popular musicians and several major hotbeds of musical innovation throughout its history. The largest city in the state, Seattle, is known for being the birthplace of grunge as well as a major contributor to the evolution of punk rock, indie music, folk, and hip hop. Nearby Tacoma and Olympia have also been centers of influence on popular music.
College rock is alternative rock music that played on student-run university and college campus radio stations located in the United States and Canada in the 1980s and 1990s. The stations' playlists were often created by students who avoided the mainstream rock played on commercial radio stations.
Wisconsin was settled largely by European immigrants in the late 19th century. This immigration led to the popularization of galops, schottisches, waltzes, and, especially, polkas. Classical composers and conductors from Wisconsin include Hans Balatka, Hugo Kaun, Eugene Luening, and Theodore Steinmetz. Among Wisconsin's contributions to rock music were Les Paul, an electric guitar pioneer known as the "Wizard of Waukesha". The Steve Miller Band, with Milwaukee's Steve Miller, had three #1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 from 1973 to 1982. The Chordettes from Sheboygan, Bon Iver from Eau Claire, and Garbage from Madison all had albums on the Billboard 200.
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.
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991 is a book by Michael Azerrad. It chronicles the careers of several underground rock bands who, while finding little or no mainstream success, were hugely influential in establishing American alternative and indie rock, mostly through nearly constant touring and records released on small, regional independent record labels. Azerrad conducted many interviews with band members, and also conducted extensive research of old fanzines, as well as more mainstream newspapers and books.
The Wire is a British music magazine publishing out of London, which has been issued monthly in print since 1982. Its website launched in 1997, and an online archive of its entire back catalog became available to subscribers in 2013. Since 1985, the magazine's annual year-in-review issue, Rewind, has named an album or release of the year based on critics' ballots.
Uncut is a monthly magazine based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections. A DVD magazine under the Uncut brand was published quarterly from 2005 to 2006. The magazine was acquired in 2019 by Singaporean music company BandLab Technologies, and was published by NME Networks from December 2021. to August 2023, when the brand was sold to Kelsey Media.
The Redwalls are an American rock band from Deerfield, Illinois, in suburban Chicago.
Flagpole Magazine, often abbreviated to simply Flagpole, is an American alternative newsweekly that focuses on the cultural, liberal scene of Athens, Georgia, and its surrounding communities. Athens is known in Georgia and nationally as the home of the University of Georgia. It was founded by Jared Bailey and Dennis Greenia in 1987 and is currently edited and published by Pete McCommons, who joined the publication in 1993. Publishing under the banner "Colorbearer of Athens, Georgia," Flagpole covers local events like the Wild Rumpus Halloween Parade, AthFest Music Fest, and the Athens Twilight Criterium. The publication covers politics, art, theater, movies, books, food, local comics, and advice columns in Athens and surrounding areas.
Trouser Press was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who, Dave Schulps, and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press". Publication of the magazine ceased in 1984. The unexpired portion of mail subscriptions was completed by Rolling Stone sister publication Record, which itself folded in 1985. Trouser Press has continued to exist in various formats.
Option was a music magazine based in Los Angeles, California, US. It covered independent, underground and alternative music and multiple musical genres for an international subscription base. Its print run began in 1985 and ended in 1998.
The Bristol underground scene is a cultural movement in Bristol beginning in the early 1980s. The scene was born out of a lack of mainstream clubs catering for the emergence of hip hop music, with street and underground parties a mainstay. Crews formed playing hip hop in disused venues with sound systems borrowed from the reggae scene: City Rockers, 2 Bad, 2 Tuff, KC Rock, UD4, FBI, Dirty Den, Juice Crew, Rene & Bacus, Soul Twins, KC Rock, Fresh 4, and The Wild Bunch were among them. These names were the precursors to the more well known names that came from this scene. It is characterized by musicians and graffiti artists. The scene was influenced by the city's multiculturalism, political activism, and the arts movements of punk, reggae, hip hop, hippies and new age.
Shook was an underground independently produced British music magazine, based in London, which covered various forms of black music and electronic music.
Le Guess Who? is a Dutch music festival featuring different music genres: from avant-garde, jazz, hip hop, electronic, experimental, noise rock, indie rock, world music and others. This festival was founded by Bob van Heur and Johan Gijsen. It has been hosted in the city of Utrecht since 2007.
Oblivion Hymns is the sixth studio album by American ambient/post-rock band Hammock. It was released on November 26, 2013 by the band's own label, Hammock Music.
