Toadcast #78 – The Uncast
Uncut Magazine and I had a pretty amazing relationship between the turn of the millennium and about 2004 or 2005. Basically, I would buy it every month and turn straight to the reviews section and the cover mount CD of what they considered to be the best of new music released that month, and devour both simultaneously, taking notes about what I wanted to spend that month’s meagre wages on.
Those cover mount CDs were amazing, at the time, and almost invariably related to that month’s new releases, but in the last few years they have become way, way more concepty, and I have started to enjoy them less and less. For some reason, Uncut’s relationship with contemporary music seems to have come adrift even faster than my own, even as I approach my mid-thirties.
Even if I am exaggerating that particular claim – maybe blogging is keeping my tastes young(ish), you never know – it seems a shame that I have drifted away from what was one of my major sources of new music for years, so this podcast is something of a retrospective and also a salute to all the stuff I picked up from Uncut and in particular their amazing cover mount CDs over the years.
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01. The Magnetic Fields – I Don’t Want to Get Over You (03.36)
02. Ismael Lo & Marianne Faithful – Without Blame (10.01)
03. Gemma Hayes – Over & Over (14.19)
04. Elliot Smith – Memory Lane (19.01)
05. The Woodentops – Well Well Well (26.59)
06. Lift to Experience – To Guard and to Guide You (31.07)
07. Heather Nova – I’m On Fire (39.55)
08. Roddy Frame – I Can’t Start Now (46.36)
09. The Flatlanders – Going Away (50.10)
10. The Acorn – Crooked Legs (59.37)
I’ve been with Uncut for probably their entire run (starting out basically because a friend’s band was on one of the early cover CDs).
I used to treat it as a bible & bought pretty much all my music on the basis of their journalism & reviews.
Over the past 3 years, however, I think it’s become lazy, behind the times, too self-congratulatory, & simply no longer vital.
Uncut took too long to get into internet journalism, took far too long to recognize blogging, & I still think doesn’t recognise musical trends/great new bands until it’s far, far to late in the game. They might have given Fleet Foxes album of the year last year, but my recollection is they didn’t actually know who the fuck they were until August.
It’s this sloppiness (or simply utter lack of interest in anything that doesn’t fall into the bracket of what they dig from the ’70s *yawn*) that stops me subscribing. I buy it every month, but refuse to subscribe because it means I can drop it any time I wish.
Personally I think a change of editor is needed. His ‘Stop Me…’ essays are more & more desperate each month. He doesn’t half press, repeatedly, my ‘pointless fucker’ button.
Things that also pissed me off about them were the change in size/format, the reduction in pages, the ‘tabloidisation’ of some of the new features, the ’special’ CDs where they moved away from soundtracking the best of the new releases & moved to the artist chosen or ‘inspired’ version. I don’t think I have listened to, let alone removed the cellophane wrapping on, a cover CD of theirs for almost a year.
That said, they certainly were on the ball a long, long time ago & an essential read. I have all my back issues neatly shelved & all the CDs stored in chrono-anal-ogical order in their own massive flight case.
I can’t listen to the podcast here I am,I will when I get back, but I recognise every one of those tracks.
It really is not longer ‘vital’, neither in terms of being important nor in terms of being lively. Maybe that’s the problem – it’s just a bit lifeless and lacking in zip at the moment. Certainly they rarely ever cover bands I would consider to be exciting at all – sometimes ones I consider very good (although mostly old ones as you say) but rarely ones I feel any real excitement about.
I think it’s probably Clash for me at the moment, in terms of being on the ball and interesting and likely to both introduce me to something new and also cover stuff I am into.
Man, I gave up reading that shit years ago!
I too was a keen reader until I realised picking up a few decent books about Dylan/Elvis/The Beatles/The Stones/Jimi Hendrix etc was much better than reading the tired rehashes of said books inside the mag every month.
I did discover the Harry Nillson song ‘I Guess The Lord Must Be in New York City’ through those CDs though so that’s something I guess.
Yeh, I can relate to that. I picked up so many good bands through them over the years, but this ‘classic’ artist repetition is just bullshit & totally lazy journalism. Milo is absolutely correct; buy the books instead.