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Posted by John Quinn I go back even further than Patrick with Gramophone for I began reading a friend's copy in the late 1960s and bought my own first copy in October 1970, when I went to university. I have since bought every issue and have been a subscriber for it must have been 25 years. But the November 2006 issue was my last. I have not renewed my subscription and from now on I'll rely on International Record Review (IRR), which I've also bought regularly since its launch and, of course, on Music Web. Patrick is absolutely right to say that Gramophone still has some very good reviewers on its staff and one of the reasons I continued to take the magazine for the last few years was a reluctance to give up reading the contributions of the likes of Alan Blyth, Rob Cowan, Richard Osborne and, especially, John Steane. But Patrick has put his finger on a key failing of Gramophone in recent years: the reviewers have been emasculated. I strongly suspect that in many cases the reviews have been edited down. Only a few issues ago I read a review by a reviewer who knows what he's talking about. The review, at least as published, discussed the music that was featured on the disc but contrived not to say anything at all about the performance itself or about the quality of the recorded sound. What kind of guidance to the prospective purchaser is that? I haven't, of course, seen the December issue which so stirred Patrick's wrath but his description of some of the contents sounds wearyingly familiar. The reviews have been squeezed down in length - and, frankly, have been dumbed down in content - to accommodate more and more "Features", many of which are depressingly superficial. And, though not mentioned by Patrick, all too many of the articles are artist-led. I'm not against general articles by any means. In fact I think IRR goes too far the other way, offering little but reviews, though these are generally of a very high standard. However, I think the trouble with Gramophone in recent years has been the lack of a clear editorial policy. Both the present editor and his predecessor, under whom the rot really set in, seem to have been unable to make up their minds whether the prime purpose of Gramophone is to be a magazine about music or about recorded music. As it is Gramophone currently falls between these two stools and fulfils neither function properly. So, as I say, I didn't renew my subscription when it expired and I expect the November 2006 issue will be the last I shall acquire. After 36 years of buying Gramophone, during which I never missed an issue, I'm genuinely sorry to have given it up. I guess the trouble goes back to the acquisition of the magazine by the Haymarket Group. Under their ownership Gramophone has probably been positioned as "bright" and "accessible" but in so doing I think core readers - the serious collectors - may have been alienated. I think the parallels that Patrick draws between BBC Radio Three and Classic FM are all too evident. Gramophone has surrendered its pre-eminent niche market position and with it, I fear, its authority. What a shame!
on December 5, 2006, 8:13 am
62.252.0.11
I did not know that Patrick Waller intended to comment on Gramophone in his latest Reviwer's Log but he has summed up all too accurately the current state of what was once a market-leading magazine.
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