No, not a shortlived end o' 90s publication devoted to all things Skinty and Wall of Soundy... at home with Monkey Mafia profiles... Portrait of the Propellerheads as Consumers.... an advice column from Lindy of Hardknox
No, we are talking much, much earlier than that...
Based out of San Francisco
"Big Beat" being a phrase, a concept, a vibe, that harked back to the 1960s
As was the term "beat group", meaning an imposing drum beat rather than "beat" as in poet or beatnik.
The magazine dropped the "big beat" bit from its frontal boasts, perhaps reflecting the shift from beat-y energy to a more "heads" oriented sound, especially in San Francisco, which I would never have thought of as a hotspot for big beats in the Dave Clark Five sense.
It ran for 29 issues and at the end was simply billing itself as This Earth's Leading Music Newspaper.
Before that it claimed, absurdly, to be the World's First Music Newspaper
It was only 40 years behind Melody Maker, which I doubt was the first weekly periodical about music anyway.
"The Voice of Music" my English arse
Yes, there was a certain grandiosity to the World Countdown operation, as with the incorporation of the surname Royal in the title on the front cover - Royal's World Countdown.
If your surname is Royal, does that mean you end up with a "King of All I Survey" complex?
Also - what is with this repeated sales pitch of it being a "souvenir" issue?
Or "collectors edition"
"You will cherish our magazine forever!"
Now I have been obsessively following music for decades, with a particular interest in the history of music magazines, the underground press, and especially the early days of rock criticism - and I'd never heard of this publication until a few days ago.
It's been pulled together as a compendium.
Back to the other Big Beat... I am surprised in that late '90s Boom for Dance, when publications were springing up all over the shop, there wasn't a Big Beat dedicated magazine. Perhaps there didn't need to be since it was well covered in the big three dance monthlies, Mixmag, Muzik and DJ.
I seem to remember that at the absolute peak glut of dance and dance mags, someone tried to launch a dance-dedicated weekly music paper. But then the bubble burst...
2 comments:
"there wasn't a Big Beat dedicated magazine"
BB never really took itself too seriously (the comedic videos to "Praise You" and "Weapon of Choice", the zany/campy samples of Bentley Rhythm Ace) which probably militates against journalistic analysis. Further, BB never really developed all the different sub-genres that drive so much discourse.
Lastly, BB was unabashedly populist and popular - probably a turn-off to hipster/student magazine audiences.
There were some pretty light hearted dance mags during that boom - Jockey Slut, Herb Garden.
And Mixmag was hardly hipster or studenty. Especially later on when every month they'd have some new permutation on the article 'what are drugs doing to your brain / mind / body?'. Photo spreads with clubbing pics, people off their face or throwing raver shapes for the camera.
I think it's probably just that Big Beat wasn't that big a scene and all the coverage it needed was provided by Mixmag and Muzik. Big Beat artists fit kinda right there with the regular staples of that sort of mag like your Ashley Beedle or Sasha or Tony de Vit. Big Beat wasn't too scientific-futuristic like your drum & bass artists, who were actually a bit too earnest with their we-are-da-phuture kind of patter to fit that comfortably in the monthly dance mags
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