Uncut

Music & Film

130pp + Cover

Review Issue:  Take 160 - September 2010

Published By:  IPC Media Ltd, Blue Fin Building, 100 Southwark St, London

Background:

First Issue:  May 2007

• Fastest magazine launch in IPC's history - seven weeks
• IPC publish 85 title including NME
• Focus mainly on cored audiences: men, mass women & upmarket women
• IPC founded in 1963 following the merge of three major magazine publishers, who can trace origins back to early 19th Century

Founder & Editor:  Allan Jones

• Started at Melody Maker in 1974
• Famously wrote the line 'Melody Maker needs a bullet up it's arse. I'm the gun - pull the trigger' in his application letter
• Wrote about people, not just the music, so went on tour with a number of bands, including The Clash
• Became editor of Melody Maker in 1984
• When the publisher of Melody Maker instructed him to put Kajagoogoo on the cover, he chose to put The Smiths on instead
• Was a major supporter of early careers of influential bands
• Unhappy with the narrow & ungrowing view of Melody Maker, especially when he discovered Americana (starting with Lambchop)
• Melody Maker stayed focused on Britpop, Jones felt the magazine should evolve
• Melody Maker merged with NME in 2000
• Left in 1997 to create Uncut

Audience:

• Aimed at 25 to 45 men (reality is 86% men, average age 37)
• Had a radical redesign in 2006 where film features were cut back
• Originally 90K circulation, latest figures 74K

Inside:

Nick Cave: 30 Greatest Songs

Musicians, directors & members of Cave's bands reflect on their favourite songs

Interview with Grinderman

Straight To You: Uncut Complilation

Gothic & Country tracks of original artists who've inspired Nick Cave

[Featured Track: Gene Vincent - Cat Man, covered by The Birthday Party on Hee Haw EP]

Escape To The Country - 'Life After The Beatles'

Paul & Linda McCartney retreat to the West Highlands of Scotland to toil the land & Paul's post Beatles career

Price:  24.00 NZD from Mag Nation [Airfreight]

Website:  www.uncut.co.uk

Rating:  3  / 5

• Uncut & Mojo (competitor) go round in circles by featuring the same artists, but from different angles
• Do bring new artists in (once they're sure of them), to discuss older artists
• Uncut fits it's audience, younger readers would probably go online to find the information
• Still relevant for history & 'golden age' of music
• Standard layout, simple, a lot of advertising, but relevant