Melody Maker hits a sour note

By Andy Hughes

AFTER a distinguished career lasting some 74 years, the venerable music weekly Melody Maker is to cease publication. It has been merged with its younger, and some would say 'hipper' rival, the NME.

Reasons first, reactions afterwards. The reasons are the dual devils - market forces and public taste. The market for music titles is shrinking at an alarming rate as the growth of Internet-based information continues to expand. Owned by one publisher, IPC, the merging, or maybe that should be submerging, of one paper inside the other was a simple matter of accounting logistics. NME sells, Melody Maker doesn't.

As the original 'music paper' starting life in 1926, Melody Maker featured song sheets and pertinent advice for musicians such as 'how the facial angle affects clarinet playing'. The paper embraced jazz for several decades, and sales peaked in the 1970s as readers digersted long carefully argued treatises on the merits of various virtuoso rock bands.

Leaner times came in the 1980s when the music press exploded with a bewildering array of new publications. The Maker adapted sluggishly to changing trends and lean mean newcomers like the heavyweight Q and metal bible Kerrang! inflicted fatal wounds on the dinosaur's previously unassailable circulation figures. Not even embracing the Britpop penomenon ahead of its rivals was enough to fend off the increasing decline. By the end of the 90's, Melody Maker was lost in a sea of clever, sharp far-sighted competition.

In the end, simple market forces drove the paper to the wall. An attempted re-launch in a magazine format merely hastened the end for The Maker.

So the millennium moves on, and the old cricketer of music commentary leaves the crease. How do you feel about it Are you one of the 300,000 weekly readers from the 1970s - maybe you no longer care about the fate of the style bible of your youth Or are you one of the new breed who find your information and comment from other sources

What is the future for music print journalism, if indeed it has a future Click here to share your thoughts, memories, predictions and epitaphs.