Well yeah, being a rock god or guitar virtuoso is dead too. Today's guitar player is really no more famous than the people who work for the guitar magazine. In fact many of the latter now have bigger gigs than modern bands and players will ever see (e.g Dave Kilminster worked with Guitarist and Guitar techniques but has toured stadiums with Roger Waters - well who are the guitar magazine going to put on the cover who is doing that? Tom Quayle? "Tom is currently reviewing a compressor pedal on youtube and making his 50th '10 things you need to know about legato" video ? It's not exactly Steve Vai's career is it? And it's definitely not Angus Young's or Brian May's) For most modern guitarists being on the cover of a magazine would be the only notable thing they've done. When Madonna sang "Greta Garbo and Monroe Dietrich and DiMaggio, Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean, On the cover of a magazine" - the idea was these were famous people right? Well the only famous guitar players today are geriatrics. The rest are youtubers - and they are their own guitar magazine with adverts and "reviews" aren't they - so why would they want to be in the magazine even if someone asked them?
Yeah, it tells us that rock music is dead. But then again, so is pop music that isn't written by assembly line producers and performed by "artists" that have been auto-tuned until they sound like C3PO.
@@methanedirigibleYes. I often wonder how much better I would be if I’d had RUclips in the 90s when I started out. I wasn’t good at reading tab and my transcribing was average. I learn best when shown. RUclips would’ve been a game changer.
@@Dreyno You don't really need to learn tabs. I hate tabs. I just listen to the song and copy it from there. I can read notation, but I'm slow. Listening is faster.
@@Dreyno It's not too late. I just watched all those RUclips lessons (Ben Eller is fantastic) and it paid off. I spent 19 years trying to shred but never could. I learnt to do it in 6 months. I can play early 80s Malmsteen now which I tried for so long and failed, never improving past the plateau I reacher after 5-6 years. Let me know if you want mw to pick out a particular video but they're all good. I remember an interview with Tony Iommi from the early 80s and he was asked about how the kids should learn guitar these days and he says, today you've got all these video tapes it's incredible how easily you can learn. I think I would just do that. I had some of those, but from Tony. I learnt playing guitar by learning Sabbath riffs of a Tony Iommi DVD. Reminds of Master and Commander, when the captain says, "what an incredible modern times we live in" after seeing the hull shape of the French heavy frigate he was chasing. Who knows how people will learn in 100 years. They'll peobably think RUclips lessons are as antiquated as running your casettes slowed down and learning by ear. Which is great training. Everyone should do that. Not all the time but it's really helpful to learn a song by esr from time to time.
Same I started subbing to Total Guitar in 2003 and, aside from them getting on the shred resurgence bandwagon mid 00's, they almost always had fucking Jimmy Page, Noel Gallagher, Slash or Clapton/Gilmour/Beck etc. I only subscribed mainly for Paul Gilbert's School Of Shred lessons.
They really have! Especially with the lame Digital Edition versions. In 25 yrs of my Guitar Playing (2000 is when I started) Guitar World, Guitar Player were highly instrumental (no pun) in my learning process the first (2) yrs. Plus, I learnt a ton about gear as well.
I have three shelves full with Guitar Techniques, Total Guitar and Guitarist going back to 2004. You have to remember Guitar Techniques and Total Guitar used to include 2 to 3 fully transcribed songs with an audio CD containing a full track and back up track. On top of that there was also lessons from all kinds of famous players included in the mags with audio examples on the CD, plenty of guitar exercises/techniques with audio examples were also included on the CD. There was loads of material to work through as a guitarist, the problem is they slowly started cutting back on the material till there was practially nothing left when I quit buying it.
I have to look through my old CDs in those magazines. One CD had an little out-take recording of guys from Iron Maiden goofing around and it was hilarious
Strangely, the adverts were the favourite bit - before the t'internet, you could spend hours pouring over Flying Pig, Peter Cooks, Holiday Sounds, Music Underground and others - especially a left hander, seeking out the odd model you might actually then contact a shop about if it was reasonably local. And the slow moving days of a few pages of adverts in the back, with more possible sought after lefties to enquire after. And back then, there were no other outlets for informative interviews, magazines deff had their place. But when Guitarist started putting CDs on the cover of limited value, and charging, when I didnt even own (or want) a CD player, that was the death knell.
Yes I loved the ads as well. There was nothing better than learning about things that I didn't know that I needed. Pre-internet, I spent a fortune on those damn magazines.
I bought a guitar from Flying Pig mail order and one from Peter Cook’s. An Epiphone Casino from the former and a Gibson Les Paul from the latter. In 1997 I didn’t know a Casino had P90 pickups. It was a surprise when I opened the case because I wanted humbuckers. Such was shopping pre internet when information was much harder to come by. Living on the west coast of Ireland, returning it for a ES-335 Dot wasn’t really an option. I grew to love it 😂 And I still remember Peter Cook’s was on Station Road, Hanwell.
I got fed up with the magazines seemingly just having the same guitarists featured in rotation: Joe Bonamassa Bernie Marsden Matt Bellamy Clapton Jimmy Page "Blues edition" " th anniversary of Telecaster or Les Paul or Statocaster" and then seemingly back to the top of the list for the next month.....
@@daveyedwards9116 Although at least Gary Moore was actually really good. If they're gonna mention Bonamassa constantly and not Gary Moore they would loose what little credibilty they might still have.
I work for the publisher of some of these magazines (doing something totally unrelated to magazines) and they have them lying around for free in the office and tbh I dont even bother getting them when they are free so I have no idea why anyone would pay for them. I just find most magazines are mostly filler content mixed in with adverts and maybe a few pages of something actually interesting.
My local shop was giving away a ton of Guitar Player magazines from a customer who was moving. Now I have a Guitar Player collection from the 90's I never knew I had.
As a New Zealander, I was thinking "15? that doesn't seem like a lot" And then I realized that, after conversion... and upon looking into who's selling the "Guitar World" Magazine domestically, it's the equivalent of around $39 NZD ( *not including shipping* ), or around $22USD after conversion And it's just wild, man, that's so expensive. I spent that much on a discounted annual Ultimate Guitar subscription.
GT was a bummer. I simultaneously found out my first cover name-check was also the final issue. But you make great points about the state and costs of print media.
I used to buy all the guitar magazines back when I was a teen but then most of the articles would be on their web site before the print version was available. It just didn't make sense anymore.
haha .. very true. But at least you can look elsewhere online for reviews and such. Back in the magazine area there really was not anywhere else to go.
I can remember coming up on the mid-80s, and Guitar Player was the most professional of any of what was out there. Before the internet, it was a great way to learn about new music and players from a variety of genres. It used to have a column by Jeff Berlin and their 20th Anniversary Issue had a "best 20 albums" from different genres )and bass@) by different authors. I bought many of those albums. I remember when "Bass Player" came out, as it was initially a special issue. The death of reading at the expense of ease. RUclips can give you a million options, but sifting the wheat from the chaff is tougher. Magazines used to be gatekeepers since the staff hadnto know what they were doing. I'd checked out GP and BP some years back and was amazed at how far downhill they'd gone.
GP was also a reliable source for reviews pre-internet. Their positive reviews of consumer-custom Carvin guitars (neck-through-body construction, koa wood option, headstock options, tons of colors) helped that company explode in the 80s/90s. And the reviews were very fair.
Guitar Player was a wonderful magazine decades ago, but I bought a copy a year or two ago and there was so little of interest in it, and far too many ads.
I started buying Guitarist in the mid nineties and then subscribed to total guitar from early 2000's. I used to love getting the latest copy, reading the articles about my favourite guitarist and also others that I didn't know about. They had great lessons with several fully transcribed songs and gear reviews a plenty. But I like many people got bored when they started repeating themselves.they included songs that they had already done, and cover artists seemed to cycle between zakk wylde, dimebag, Jimmy page and Hendrix. At that point I gave up on it. Still sad to see them go though.
As a 'veteran' player, with some leanings towards jazz, I've found that most of the magazines tended towards the 'pointy headstock/7-string/dropped C' merchants' and a leaning towards Fender style instruments, i.e. increasingly less interest to me/my generation of players.
I used to buy guitar world quite regularly back in the day. It's priced at 18,50€ currently and no way in hell I'm spending that kind of money on a magazine I can browse through in under 10 minutes at the magazine stand.
18,50 euros ??? Damn... I used to buy a few of these a couple of years ago and the prices were reasonable... With the constant competition of internet and these prices it's no wonder these magazines went out of business...
I remember when I was a kid and "Guitar For The Practicing Musician" came out. First magazine focusing on tablature. Five or Six songs every month (transcribed by Wolf Marshall). Definitely improved my playing. Then "Guitar Player" started occasionally including flexi discs (floppy records) with their tabs. That's how I learned Eruption, The Attitude Song and Blue Powder.
Man....I remember that one...I never got how they'd stick the last bits of articles and interviews on a couple of pages near the back...I still have some copies from the 80s...
I had ALL the GFTPM magazines, along with all the Guitar World magazines that had transcriptions (late 80s) and Guitar School, Bass Guitar World and thier Acoustic magazines. All stored in magazime boxes in publication order. I sold them all for $200 to a guy that eBays them when the cover artist dies when we retired and moved. I LOVED every issue (I had to get Total Guitar thorugh other means (digital)) read em cover to cover, learned songs and lessons, relaized i didnt need a ton of the gear they reviewed. Such a HUGE past of my life is now going. Ill never forget seeim the firsf GFTPM at a small town mall book store. It had METAL HEALTH by Quiet Riot tabbed out (their tab was crap for the first year). I felt like a light had shown from the heavens and I immediately subscribed and bought the back issues. I have. Ton of them digitally, but there was nothing like getting one in the mail box and devourimg it
I have copies of Guitar Player going back to 1982.Back then it was just about the only place you could get info on all the great American players and jazz players in general.Had no idea who Steve Morse was but he was on the front cover so the next time I was in London,straight down to Virgin Megastore and buy the records.For the folks out there my age,The Friday Rock Show on BBC radio with Tommy Vance used Take it off the Top by Steve's band (the Dixie Dregs) as it's intro music.That magazine used to mean something,all the first interviews with Van Halen,Malmsteen,Vai etc.The first outing if The Attitude Song was as a free plastic single with that magazine and just about every 80's neo classical player you have heard first turned up on Mike Varney's New Talent page and then he signed them,very clever business model.There was a review of Joe Satriani's debut album before he was known and the reviewer said straight out that he thought the claim that every sound on the album was a guitar was a lie.shame that it's going but I haven't bought it in years. As for Guitarist,just rubbish,year after year of "let's see how this month's Les Paul stacks up to last month's Les Paul and then let's put them in a shoot out with the Les Paul from the month before that" and did they think that no electric players needed an amp? I actually emailed them once having totted up the price of all the guitars reviewed in one issue,it was just short of £40,000.The price of the amp reviews,nothing,just about £400 worth of pedals.I do think that one other issue is the "death of the band" as well.Almost everyones' favourite players used to play in bands but young bands can't survive anymore and it's not the same just listening to someone playing to a backing track in their home,no matter how good (and some are amazing).
Oddly, I haven’t ALWAYS found the ads completely annoying. Always better than articles on people I haven’t heard of or tabs of music I don’t care about but, as always if KDH was running any of them they couldn’t have helped but get way better! Good work again! Thx a lot!
I worked for BandLab/Swee Lee Singapore when they bought Rolling Stone Mag. That was fun to be a part of. It IS is a little sad to see music/guitar magazines going out of fashion like this but at least we had good stuff in our day!
I used to have a subscription to Guitar World, and they talked about the same handful of guitarists repeatedly, over and over again. I would imagine by now they’ve run out of things to say
@@EbonyPopeYou're asking, "What would they write about," when I've seen this comment from you in (at least) 3 threads... you didn't even bother changing a single word.
@@castleanthrax1833 So what? Doesn't refute anything of what I said. There is nothing truly new. Therefore there is just less and less interest in rock music. And those new Instagram virtuosos mainly play solos not real songs.
All printed magazines will go the same way. The prices went silly, the content is limited and by the time they are printed, it's out of date. I remember when Total Guitar was £3.95, it was 150 pages and you often got a CD on the front.
Total Guitar was my favourite thing ever! I used to buy every issue. There was something really cool about seeing larger than life personalities on these covers with crazy photo shoots. Those magazines and yt were literally how I thought myself to play guitar and the reason I progressed so quickly! TG issue 205 was the first guitar magazine I ever bought and got it at the start of my guitar journey. Synyster Gates and Zachy Vengeance were on the cover promoting Nightmare and they had their limited edition models (the white syn custom with gold pin-stripes and the smashed mirror one). I thought myself how to play the solo to Nightmare from that issue and told myself that one day in the future I would save up and own that white/gold pin stripe custom. Fast forward maybe 4 years from that point and I was finally able to get my hands on one. Still my favourite 6-string guitar and play it every day! Guitar techniques had some great features and was probably the most technical but useful for advanced playing. Total Guitar was more entry level imo. All were incredibly expensive though like you said
About 10 years ago, (it was either Guitar or Guitar World), published one of those Best Guitarist list issues. Each entry had a small thumbnail pic and about 4 sentences of text. For Johnny Ramone they decided that what you really needed to know about the Godfather of Punk Guitar, was that he was "unfortunately a Republican". I'll never forget that. Possibly the most juvenile thing I had ever seen in a mainstream musical instrument publication. I never bought another one, and no, I'm not a Republican, just an adult :(
When Johnny Ramone was active as a punk guitarist, the Republicans ended the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war and was pushing the Equal Rights Amendment which the Democrats didn't want to pass.
Guitar magazines might be dying but there’s a wealth of information and guitar history in those old guitar magazines. Guitar Player mag was the first in 1967 and even though it suffered in its later years it was the one that started it all. You can check out the history of all the Guitar Player Magazine covers from 1967 to the last December 2024 issue on my RUclips channel :)✌️❤️🎵
I used to buy Guitar Magazines to look at guitars and gear, the internet made them obsolete! There's far more info online and lessons on RUclips that there ever was in the Mags! The last time I bought one they were under £5!
It's surprising that there are magazines being printed and it hasn't completely went away. I remember in the later 2000's when editors and other people in the industry were talking about how print was going to get completely phased out by going digital or just be a thing of the past due to blogs, pre-youtube video platforms, etc. Eventually popular publications started to close up or have restructured and then shut down, with some being changed to where it was pretty much an empty shell or cover of what it once was. I used to buy magazines growing up and into my adulthood, especially before or when the Internet was relatively new for most of us, the magazines had good value with content, how the writers wrote their stuff, and as a reader, the experience be it on the crapper or wherever else. I kind of miss those times.
I used to be an avid reader and buyer of guitar magazines back in the day and I just realized I haven't even thought about them for years, until this video showed up in my feed. RUclips has more quality guitar and music content than I could ever hope to process.
Premier Guitar made the quickest and best transition to online content … that’s why they not only survived, but flourished. Everyone has watched one, if not one thousand, of their Rig Rundown videos. Plus, they had Rebecca Dirks 🥰 … lol. 😉
I worked in publications for about a decade give or take, and the target ad-to-content ratio for some magazines is intense. Some mass-market publications are 60/40 ad to content. At that point, you're essentially fighting to actually read the damned articles.
Finally. I only ever bought a Guitar World or Acoustic Guitar World back in the day if I wanted to learn to play one of the songs they had transcribed in the back, or - very rarely - if an article or interview interested me. Last one I bought was over twenty years ago before they jacked the price up to $10 per issue (which is more than a magazine is worth now, let alone two decades ago). Then, Ultimate-Guitar came around and I got the Pro version of that for a one-time payment of $10, and RUclips, Wikipedia, and other free sites/communities replaced whatever else magazines did for me. I have all but completely forgotten about guitar magazines until I saw the thumbnail for this video.
I haven't bought a magazine since I was a kid. I had no idea they were so expensive now. At around $5 I would grab one when an artist I was interested in had a writeup but that was pre smartphone and pre RUclips boom. Why would anyone spend 15 to 20 dollars on a magazine for a three page interview with say James Hetfeild when you can pull out your phone and watch a 3 hour interview for free.
As an almost 42yr old, when I was young I relied on guitar magazines to keep with up players, latest gear, tabs, etc. In all honesty I’m surprised some magazines are still even around in 2024
I was a regular subscription holder in the 80s and 90s. It was well before the internets. So they were often a big deal. It was how we found out about new releases and equipment trends. They were important.
Growing up in the 90’s, Guitar World and Guitar for the Practicing Musician were our bible. Couldn’t wait for every monthly issue to see if they had tab from my favourite bands.
I bought Guitarist magazine every month from 1987 to 2000, guitar magazines don't do reviews anymore they just publish long-format ads, and their online versions are so ad-heavy half the time they don't even load.
Premier Guitar Emails us at least 4 times every 6 months. They are always trying to have them advertise us….. their cheapest tier is 1500 bucks for a small ad?!?
At some moment I noted that there was never a negative review in Guitarist. I asked them about it and they replied: "we don't want to spend time / print space on bad gear". Which could be a fair point. However, I think it's vital to have both types of reviews for credibility.
They're far too heavily reliant on a few very influential advertisers to give a fair appraisal of anything. No fearless journalism between those pages.
I lived for total guitar and guitar techniques back in the 90’s. Learned so much from them and they used to have great content and great educators. I get that they eventually became obsolete and well a bit crap. But happy memories and a bit sad to see them go all the same.
I usually buy one in the airport to take on holiday…. But yeah not surprised they’re all going under, just how information is consumed nowadays, there’s no wonder
Same as Video Game, Fashion, Music Review, Film Review, and a bunch of other magazines where you figure out you can save money on them and actually spend it on the hobby instead. A magazine costs more than a pack of strings, two will buy you a guitar book, or you can buy a brand new BOSS DS-1 for about the price of 5 months of magazines.
Not for me. Guitar World Tabs are a great resource as a music teacher. Been collecting since 1991, and am only missing a few dozen issues. Learn to read rhythms, and with accurate tablature (that you can put on a music stand), you'll never be at a loss as to what to play or learn.
My dad was a Guitar Player and Bass Player subscriber for years. I have a stack of his old issues in my garage. A few years ago, before BP stopped printing, they ran a 2 year sub for $24 promo that I felt I HAD to jump on. Once the first issue arrived I literally thought there was a printing mistake the mag was so thin. BP was always a little more sparce than GP but comparitively to the any issue from the stack in my garage it was a leaflet. No classifieds, only 2 lesson pieces (nothing inspired either) and about 40% of the pages were ads. Vindicating to hear you read them for filth.
I used to buy and read a bunch of different guitar magazines for years, but stopped when I finished high school, partially due to cost, but mainly because they were going over the same stuff, the same retrospectives, covering the same decades and decades old bands and guitarists all the time. It's a shame because they have some great tabs, gear reviews, and I learned a bunch of great techniques out of them. The DVDs/CDs that came with Total Guitar were pretty good for thag sort of stuff especially for someone like me who didn't have the internet at home at the time. I just realised how old I sound.
So much info on YT, and many players that have YT channels cover a lot of different focused subject matter on the guitar or other instruments. Much like news papers they’re obsolete, not the info…but compared to artists and teachers and demos vids on RUclips, we don’t need the mags anymore. I have spent so much money on those, and they get stolen a lot. Cool vid KDH! ❤
I remember when guitar player came out in the early 70s. Tabs, lessons and interviews. A few ads. Now just full page after full page of ads. Awful now.
On the other hand - magazines are a resource. I have a few lying around the house and I'll often pick one up and work for a while on one of the tabs or technique articles. Plus, I don't mind ads. I've spent many a happy wishful thinking and lusting after gear.
@RegisteredCornball the point is Black is a total absence of light. Hence Black light is meaningless ... Misusing it to mean uv is no less stupid. Sorry
As a kid my mother would buy me a year subscription of a guitar magazine. I learned a LOT and it helped me become the player I am today. I'm very grateful for guitar magazines as a lesson supplement, but yeah the ads, content depletion and PRICES are insanity now.. they used to be like $5-6. I'm also not too sad they're going away since, well..people have spoken - with the power of the internet. I still have and cherish my Dimebag issue as it came out very shortly after the incident.. and the Nirvana issue held a lot of meaning, that band kickstarted everything. Welp, things change I guess.
Growing up I bought Guitarist almost religiously. Then about 20 years ago I realised I had basically read the same interviews, reviews and features at least twice. Also there was an interview with Wes Montgomery (iirc) by the then new editor in their first edition after Mick Taylor had left. It was so bad it was uncomfortable to read. I mean even a high school student doing a journalism project would be embarrassed.
In the USA, daily newspaper publishers get a subsidy from the government for newspapers that they print but do not sell. This ensures there is plenty of newspapers for public consumption and ensures billionaires get more public assistance welfare to support their lifestyle (ivory backscratchers don’t buy themselves!). I don’t think magazines share the same subsidy since they are usually published once per month and do not cover current events.
Man I got mailed Guitar World for years. That's a big part of how learned new and random riffs growing up. I of course love the accessibility of the internet but I do miss getting those magazines and trying out whatever random tabs they had in the magazine.
whenever i see a guitar magazine i always dont even notice them (probably), but in a way i guess its sad to see them go because, although gone unnoticed, when i walk into my local guitar store, there is a place where there is just only guitar magazines, shelves full of them, im used to seeing them everywhere, seeing them go would be kinda strange
Printed mags have been dying for quite some time now - but - my local Sainsburys (supermarket chain in the UK for friends abroad reading) does still stock Guitarist and it sells out of its copies within a couple of days every time a new issue lands oddly enough. So go figure. As a teenager in the 80's I owe a HUGE debt to Guitar For The Practicing Musician though as it taught me well back then. But we got told a lot of marketing lies too sadly.
I used to buy several guitar magazines each month for decades I stopped about ten years ago. The constantly decreasing quality, depth of analysis, features and increasing costs killed them for me. I miss looking forward to buying a hard copy of a magazine each month but at least I still have a stock of old editions to re-read on occasions when feeling nostalgic.
Same thing happened to the electronic music / synth magazines. The prices got insane and also i found out the reviews were much better online. The magazine reviews could not be trusted at all, and after a while it all started to seem a bit recycled in content. "biggest bass" "how to create the blah blah sound" and so on.. so i got the feeling that most costumers hung around for about a year or so since they basicly redid the same kind of content over and over and over. But one thing they did have that guitar magazines could not was samples and plugins, on a CD that came with the magazine, so there was that.
Personally I prefer magazines or books .. no power needed... My wife & I read a lot. Cigar AF, WhiskyAD, wine & Food, Wine Ent Wine Spectator, Guitar World.. We do the Net of course.. Cheers
My wife got me a guitar player sub...its like a rerun of the mags I had as a teen.....I want heavier stuff than crosby,stills and Nash. Or guitarists from the 50s
I have the first copy of Guitarist somewhere (featured BB King and Steve Rothery among others). The 50 pence cover price from 1982 / 83 adjusted for inflation equates to around £1.73 today (according to the BoE).
Still got a lot of Kiss & Pantera featured mags for nostalgia... but I stopped buying magazines in the early 00's. Still got the price tags on, between $11.00 - $13.50 AUD.
I have always enjoyed seeing the new gear available the Ads often are the best showcase i get as a exposer to companies and i like gear reviews. Content has to be there though.
I started playing in 2002 and Total Guitar and Guitar Techniques were crucial to me. I learned a lot from them, and I absolutely loved when they'd put out a lesson on a song that included a playalong track minus the guitar. Really helped my development and I fondly recall learning Master of Puppets back in the day knowing it was accurate. However, in the age of the internet, these things just are not relevant any more, and the ads were fairly ridiculous. Anyways thanks for the memories total guitar and guitar techniques, not really too sad to see you go these days either!
2 месяца назад
I was buying Guitar Techniques since 2001 and at some point gave up and started following RUclipsrs for lessons. When I bought GT recently, saw that there is no CD as well as funny captions under the photos disappeared. That was the last one for me.
I went to the UK to visit family this year and one of the things I usually do is buy one or two guitar magazines. I was able to find them in the newsagent in August but I baulked at the price of the magazine, so I decided not to bother this time around. It's a shame that the magazines are going out of business but I find that I can find everything I want on RUclips.
Every aspect of what was in guitar magazines is now done better on RUclips. Technique? RUclips. Song lessons? RUclips. Industry News? RUclips. Gear reviews? RUclips. Music production? RUclips. Random music themed nonsense? RUclips. And they were always hit and miss with regards to value for money. Sometimes you would buy one for one song lesson or one interview. The rest could’ve been about genres you didn’t even listen to. I used to buy them back in the day but it’s probably nearly 20 years since I bought one.
I remember the loss of the British 'Acoustic guitar' magazine. I've kept a lot of back issues, but I still miss it. The American version doesn't compare, although I think it's still available from the Newstand site.
Guitar World July 1999 - 206 pages and 5 transcriptions (Guns and Roses - Welcome to the Jungle, RHCP - Under the Bridge, Def Leppar - Photograph, Everclear and Sugar Ray. $4.95. Guitar World December 2024 - 110 pages, 3 transcriptions and price is $9.99 - so, double the price and half the content. "Reviews" are advertisements, because they don't review things they don't like apparently.
Damn. I was just the right age when i saw my first tabbed song in a GFTPM and subscribed to any magazine that had tabs. Learned so much and read them cover to cover (as a retired school librarian I had to preach to teachers that reading periodicals (magazines and newspapers) WAS reading and boys, on the whole, prefer non fiction and instructional material) and snuck digital copies of the ones we couldnt get in the US when the internet got going. Such a huge loss, but RUclips has rendered waiting by the mail Box hoping a Ratt song would be tabbed in the new issue. Man, what I would habe given for RUclips in 1978. You are the person to tell me all but 1 are gone. I hate you now. /s.
While I understand the good intentions behind this video, I think it is mainly making much ado about nothing because all influencers are is the new generation of print media--all put out by a single publisher, Google/Alphabet via RUclips. *Guitar magazines haven't died. They've been replaced by RUclips influencers who perform much of the functions of the old magazines in a video format, including all the ads and conflicts of interest about reviews. The magazines themselves are becoming paywall sites. Likewise, RUclips influencers are essentially offering freemium information to encourage you to enter into some kind of paywall agreement, be it Patreon, affiliate links, or just watching ads. Therefore, even the free content is not "free," and usually it is of superficial depth and low quality precisely because it is free. The good stuff is behind the paywall.* Where do we see a review of RUclips content creators' paywall goods and services? *That information seems suspiciously absent.* *If content creator influencers had drastically different business models than legacy print media, I think the outrage against guitar magazines would be justified. But influencers aren't different from the magazines. So they have no grounds to criticize.* Some background. I was a long-time subscriber to "Guitar World" through the mid and late 1990s. The magazines are far cheaper if you buy them as an annual subscription. I still have hundreds in my closet. These magazines were great in that *they combined news, promotion for bands' new albums/tours, gear marketing, and lessons all in one place. In that sense, guitar magazines went above and beyond music news magazines catering to non-musicians like "RIP," "Hit Parader," "Circus," "Kerrang!," "Metal Edge," etc., which offered little but promotional content for bands and ads. The guitar magazines did everything those general interest magazines did and more. The general interest magazines have mostly been replaced with blogs like "Metal Injection," "Metal Sucks," "Loudwire," "Revolver," etc.* The downside with the guitar magazines' lesson section, their main draw, is *it is very hard to get much out of a guitar lesson coming from a static page.* Further, *not all readers would object to ads if the ads made readers aware of new gear.* More background: When I was a student at GIT in 1999-2000, the library there had guitar, bass, drum, keyboard, vocals, and recording magazines going back to the 1970s that could be checked out. Most players consulted these magazines whenever they booked studio or rehearsal room time at the school. We consulted them as a lessons library that went above (although rarely beyond) the school's already excellent curriculum. *The lessons were useful if you wanted to specialize on a specific player's style as opposed to general concepts.* *One guitar magazine that exceeded the others in quality was Japan's "Young Guitar," which featured interactive DVD lessons in English with Japanese subtitles going all the way back to the 90s. American magazines were slow to adopt this model and instead relied on REH Video, Starlicks, and other VHS lesson producers to fill in the video lesson gap. We had these videos in the library as well.* *Now, many of these vintage magazines can be found in pdf archives online if one knows where to look and their lessons can be transcribed into Guitar Pro. Lessons from decades ago are still useful because guitar does not change. Old magazines make you aware of vintage gear. Meanwhile, a web site may not be archived, you must have Internet access, and you must continually pay to have access to it. Once the magazine is purchased, the transaction is complete.* Equivalency between guitar magazines and today's influencers: Why do I not have a problem with guitar magazines? Because *RUclips's like/share/subscribe/comment/buy my Patreon product/click my affiliate link is the same thing as the guitar magazines, just a slightly different business model.* *RUclips is an influencer infomercial. As such its content creator influencers have no right to bash legacy media's business models when influencers use many of the same methods as the old print media to earn income, including not being forthcoming about conflicts of interest regarding gear reviews and how they are compensated.* *Just like print magazines, when new gear drops, every major guitartube content creator influencer is going to talk about that gear at approximately the same time. Examples: Boss Katana, Axe FX III, Kemper Profiler, and so on.* This is just like the magazines covering the same newly released gear or albums or artists at about the same time. *So, nothing has changed, nor has the business model--only the method of consumption (video vs. print).* I like the guitar magazines. I like physical media. Why? *Because I own them without needing the Internet and no one can take them away from me, unlike online cloud access.*
I'll quite often grab a copy of Guitarist to take with me on holiday. Sometimes it's nice to have something you can just pick up and peruse. They'll quite often do 3 issues for £3 and I'll take advantage of that and save them until I go away. Apart from that, i gave up on them years ago. Whats especially annoying is not long after they've come out in print, the reviews are up online and RUclips so you haven't really gained anything but physically buying it.
It’s crazy how many library images of Hendrix, GnR, or Elvis even etc have featured on magazine front covers! Guitar mag slow death, always full of adverts and big double page shots, regurgitated articles, “Bursts” Two Rock, and ‘62 Strat. 😊
I used to buy quite a few guitar magazines, (Guitar Techniques, Guitarist ect) but my favourite was Total guitar which used to be really good back in the day, you used to get a cd with new forthcoming album tracks by famous bands and artists, some cool reader demos, new gear and review sound demos with some really cool little pieces of music to showcase some new effects processor, other new equipment or new guitars. They had full tracks and backing tracks of famous songs and interesting articles or stories but eventually after my subscription ran out I stopped buying it even though there was still quite a few additions after that that was still good as the early ones in the 90s but eventually come the millennium it just didn't seem as good as it used to be
You mean people are tired of seeing another Jimmy Page retrospective on the cover?
Right? It’s just constant praise over people who’ve been praised for decades
can't wait for the Hendrix issue
Or worse... Joe Bonermassive.
Also what would they write about? The newest self indulgent solo of the newest Instagram guitarist? Please. It would bore me to death.
@@EbonyPope one extreme to another there.
There’s a thousand guitarists in the middle that people should hear about.
Kinda telling that 3 out of 4 magazine covers feature the same 70s guitar players they've been talking about since the 70s
Well yeah, being a rock god or guitar virtuoso is dead too. Today's guitar player is really no more famous than the people who work for the guitar magazine. In fact many of the latter now have bigger gigs than modern bands and players will ever see (e.g Dave Kilminster worked with Guitarist and Guitar techniques but has toured stadiums with Roger Waters - well who are the guitar magazine going to put on the cover who is doing that? Tom Quayle? "Tom is currently reviewing a compressor pedal on youtube and making his 50th '10 things you need to know about legato" video ? It's not exactly Steve Vai's career is it? And it's definitely not Angus Young's or Brian May's) For most modern guitarists being on the cover of a magazine would be the only notable thing they've done. When Madonna sang "Greta Garbo and Monroe Dietrich and DiMaggio, Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean, On the cover of a magazine" - the idea was these were famous people right? Well the only famous guitar players today are geriatrics. The rest are youtubers - and they are their own guitar magazine with adverts and "reviews" aren't they - so why would they want to be in the magazine even if someone asked them?
Yeah, it tells us that rock music is dead. But then again, so is pop music that isn't written by assembly line producers and performed by "artists" that have been auto-tuned until they sound like C3PO.
@@MikeBsMovies I complain about this topic so much hahaha it’s been 50 years, please! Aren’t there more guitarists/artists who write songs?!?
Guitar magazine feature a guitarist who came to prominence in this century challenge level: IMPOSSIBLE
@@michael1 they need to showcase modern rock bands, like Julie, Return to dust, Hot Mulligan, etc.
As someone who grew up playing in the 80’s:early 90’s, let me state clearly: RUclips is far better than the guitar magazines I remember.
Agreed. Some of these kids learning today have access to much better resources than I had and you can see it in how amazingly some of them play.
@@methanedirigibleYes. I often wonder how much better I would be if I’d had RUclips in the 90s when I started out. I wasn’t good at reading tab and my transcribing was average. I learn best when shown. RUclips would’ve been a game changer.
@@Dreyno You don't really need to learn tabs. I hate tabs. I just listen to the song and copy it from there. I can read notation, but I'm slow. Listening is faster.
@@Dreyno It's not too late. I just watched all those RUclips lessons (Ben Eller is fantastic) and it paid off. I spent 19 years trying to shred but never could. I learnt to do it in 6 months. I can play early 80s Malmsteen now which I tried for so long and failed, never improving past the plateau I reacher after 5-6 years. Let me know if you want mw to pick out a particular video but they're all good.
I remember an interview with Tony Iommi from the early 80s and he was asked about how the kids should learn guitar these days and he says, today you've got all these video tapes it's incredible how easily you can learn. I think I would just do that.
I had some of those, but from Tony. I learnt playing guitar by learning Sabbath riffs of a Tony Iommi DVD.
Reminds of Master and Commander, when the captain says, "what an incredible modern times we live in" after seeing the hull shape of the French heavy frigate he was chasing. Who knows how people will learn in 100 years. They'll peobably think RUclips lessons are as antiquated as running your casettes slowed down and learning by ear. Which is great training. Everyone should do that. Not all the time but it's really helpful to learn a song by esr from time to time.
Because you are a child, born too late.
The fact that pretty much all these magazines have the same cover stars now as when I was buying them in the early 2000s shows a lot.
I was thinking the same except early 90's when i quit buying them.
Same I started subbing to Total Guitar in 2003 and, aside from them getting on the shred resurgence bandwagon mid 00's, they almost always had fucking Jimmy Page, Noel Gallagher, Slash or Clapton/Gilmour/Beck etc. I only subscribed mainly for Paul Gilbert's School Of Shred lessons.
The internet has killed off print magazines.
They really have! Especially with the lame Digital Edition versions.
In 25 yrs of my Guitar Playing (2000 is when I started) Guitar World, Guitar Player were highly instrumental (no pun) in my learning process the first (2) yrs. Plus, I learnt a ton about gear as well.
Really?
I don't understand why would anyone pay to read another classic rock piece and an article about John Mayer / Joe Bonermaster
I used to subscribe to Guitar magazine, until I got sick of the articles on Joe Massiveboner and all his les pauls he's hoarding.
Also what would they write about? The newest self indulgent solo of the newest Instagram guitarist? Please. It would bore me to death.
boomers will buy anything that will remind them of their childhood
@@Aliens2Existwvery generation is guilty of that. Boomers just have more money for their toys.
lets smack the New les paul on the front cover too! You know the same new les paul weve seen for like 800 years now.
I have three shelves full with Guitar Techniques, Total Guitar and Guitarist going back to 2004.
You have to remember Guitar Techniques and Total Guitar used to include 2 to 3 fully transcribed songs with an audio CD containing a full track and back up track. On top of that there was also lessons from all kinds of famous players included in the mags with audio examples on the CD, plenty of guitar exercises/techniques with audio examples were also included on the CD. There was loads of material to work through as a guitarist, the problem is they slowly started cutting back on the material till there was practially nothing left when I quit buying it.
in germany not even 10 pages in a hundred page magazin. but like 60 pages adverd
I learnt guitar out of guitar techniques back when it was an affordable price
I have to look through my old CDs in those magazines. One CD had an little out-take recording of guys from Iron Maiden goofing around and it was hilarious
We have to remember 2004? 🤣They were already dead. The 80s and 90s were when these guitar magazines were the thing to get if you were learning to play
I remember when Guthrie Govan had lessons in Guitar Techniques. Good times!
Strangely, the adverts were the favourite bit - before the t'internet, you could spend hours pouring over Flying Pig, Peter Cooks, Holiday Sounds, Music Underground and others - especially a left hander, seeking out the odd model you might actually then contact a shop about if it was reasonably local. And the slow moving days of a few pages of adverts in the back, with more possible sought after lefties to enquire after.
And back then, there were no other outlets for informative interviews, magazines deff had their place.
But when Guitarist started putting CDs on the cover of limited value, and charging, when I didnt even own (or want) a CD player, that was the death knell.
Yes I loved the ads as well. There was nothing better than learning about things that I didn't know that I needed. Pre-internet, I spent a fortune on those damn magazines.
Hmm, I've spent a few quid in Peter Cook's back in the day :-)
I bought a guitar from Flying Pig mail order and one from Peter Cook’s. An Epiphone Casino from the former and a Gibson Les Paul from the latter. In 1997 I didn’t know a Casino had P90 pickups. It was a surprise when I opened the case because I wanted humbuckers. Such was shopping pre internet when information was much harder to come by. Living on the west coast of Ireland, returning it for a ES-335 Dot wasn’t really an option. I grew to love it 😂
And I still remember Peter Cook’s was on Station Road, Hanwell.
@@Dreyno p90s rule! My favourite guitar is a left hand, double cut les Paul special!
I got fed up with the magazines seemingly just having the same guitarists featured in rotation:
Joe Bonamassa
Bernie Marsden
Matt Bellamy
Clapton
Jimmy Page
"Blues edition"
" th anniversary of Telecaster or Les Paul or Statocaster"
and then seemingly back to the top of the list for the next month.....
You definetly forgot about Slash haha
You forgot the Gary Moore issue, the Gary Moore guitrars issue, the Gary Moore amps issue, the Gary Moore Rock issue, the Gary Moore Blues issue
@@daveyedwards9116 Although at least Gary Moore was actually really good. If they're gonna mention Bonamassa constantly and not Gary Moore they would loose what little credibilty they might still have.
Magazines are dead.
you are
@@DavidRFITa zombie mustve commented this
Ak 47 maga are hot
I haven’t bought a guitar magazine since 1547 when I used to buy the monthly publication Total Lute.
I work for the publisher of some of these magazines (doing something totally unrelated to magazines) and they have them lying around for free in the office and tbh I dont even bother getting them when they are free so I have no idea why anyone would pay for them. I just find most magazines are mostly filler content mixed in with adverts and maybe a few pages of something actually interesting.
Be well, stay safe.
Thank you so much!
@@KDH no worries, i hope it helps to defray your costs :)
I don't know what this is...
My local shop was giving away a ton of Guitar Player magazines from a customer who was moving. Now I have a Guitar Player collection from the 90's I never knew I had.
As a New Zealander, I was thinking "15? that doesn't seem like a lot"
And then I realized that, after conversion... and upon looking into who's selling the "Guitar World" Magazine domestically, it's the equivalent of around $39 NZD ( *not including shipping* ), or around $22USD after conversion
And it's just wild, man, that's so expensive. I spent that much on a discounted annual Ultimate Guitar subscription.
GT was a bummer. I simultaneously found out my first cover name-check was also the final issue. But you make great points about the state and costs of print media.
I used to buy all the guitar magazines back when I was a teen but then most of the articles would be on their web site before the print version was available. It just didn't make sense anymore.
'Questionable review' 'Litered with advertisement'. Listen up RUclips.
haha .. very true. But at least you can look elsewhere online for reviews and such. Back in the magazine area there really was not anywhere else to go.
I mean EVERYTHING magazines are dead
I mean revolver and like metal hammer seem to still be ok in the magazine department
Razzles still going strong
Exactly. It’s not just guitar magazines. Sure there are outliers that still sell but for the most part nobody is buying magazines anymore
Get a GED.
I can remember coming up on the mid-80s, and Guitar Player was the most professional of any of what was out there. Before the internet, it was a great way to learn about new music and players from a variety of genres. It used to have a column by Jeff Berlin and their 20th Anniversary Issue had a "best 20 albums" from different genres )and bass@) by different authors. I bought many of those albums. I remember when "Bass Player" came out, as it was initially a special issue.
The death of reading at the expense of ease. RUclips can give you a million options, but sifting the wheat from the chaff is tougher. Magazines used to be gatekeepers since the staff hadnto know what they were doing. I'd checked out GP and BP some years back and was amazed at how far downhill they'd gone.
Remember Guitar For The Practicing Musician and all of the tabs?
GP was also a reliable source for reviews pre-internet. Their positive reviews of consumer-custom Carvin guitars (neck-through-body construction, koa wood option, headstock options, tons of colors) helped that company explode in the 80s/90s. And the reviews were very fair.
@@qwe1231 Remember when all Koa construction was a $10 upcharge?
Guitar Player was a wonderful magazine decades ago, but I bought a copy a year or two ago and there was so little of interest in it, and far too many ads.
I started buying Guitarist in the mid nineties and then subscribed to total guitar from early 2000's. I used to love getting the latest copy, reading the articles about my favourite guitarist and also others that I didn't know about. They had great lessons with several fully transcribed songs and gear reviews a plenty.
But I like many people got bored when they started repeating themselves.they included songs that they had already done, and cover artists seemed to cycle between zakk wylde, dimebag, Jimmy page and Hendrix. At that point I gave up on it.
Still sad to see them go though.
As a 'veteran' player, with some leanings towards jazz, I've found that most of the magazines tended towards the 'pointy headstock/7-string/dropped C' merchants' and a leaning towards Fender style instruments, i.e. increasingly less interest to me/my generation of players.
I used to buy guitar world quite regularly back in the day. It's priced at 18,50€ currently and no way in hell I'm spending that kind of money on a magazine I can browse through in under 10 minutes at the magazine stand.
18,50 euros ??? Damn...
I used to buy a few of these a couple of years ago and the prices were reasonable...
With the constant competition of internet and these prices it's no wonder these magazines went out of business...
I remember when I was a kid and "Guitar For The Practicing Musician" came out. First magazine focusing on tablature. Five or Six songs every month (transcribed by Wolf Marshall). Definitely improved my playing. Then "Guitar Player" started occasionally including flexi discs (floppy records) with their tabs. That's how I learned Eruption, The Attitude Song and Blue Powder.
I still have my very first guitar for the practicing musician, with Steve vai on the cover
Man....I remember that one...I never got how they'd stick the last bits of articles and interviews on a couple of pages near the back...I still have some copies from the 80s...
I had ALL the GFTPM magazines, along with all the Guitar World magazines that had transcriptions (late 80s) and Guitar School, Bass Guitar World and thier Acoustic magazines. All stored in magazime boxes in publication order. I sold them all for $200 to a guy that eBays them when the cover artist dies when we retired and moved.
I LOVED every issue (I had to get Total Guitar thorugh other means (digital)) read em cover to cover, learned songs and lessons, relaized i didnt need a ton of the gear they reviewed. Such a HUGE past of my life is now going.
Ill never forget seeim the firsf GFTPM at a small town mall book store. It had METAL HEALTH by Quiet Riot tabbed out (their tab was crap for the first year). I felt like a light had shown from the heavens and I immediately subscribed and bought the back issues.
I have. Ton of them digitally, but there was nothing like getting one in the mail box and devourimg it
I have copies of Guitar Player going back to 1982.Back then it was just about the only place you could get info on all the great American players and jazz players in general.Had no idea who Steve Morse was but he was on the front cover so the next time I was in London,straight down to Virgin Megastore and buy the records.For the folks out there my age,The Friday Rock Show on BBC radio with Tommy Vance used Take it off the Top by Steve's band (the Dixie Dregs) as it's intro music.That magazine used to mean something,all the first interviews with Van Halen,Malmsteen,Vai etc.The first outing if The Attitude Song was as a free plastic single with that magazine and just about every 80's neo classical player you have heard first turned up on Mike Varney's New Talent page and then he signed them,very clever business model.There was a review of Joe Satriani's debut album before he was known and the reviewer said straight out that he thought the claim that every sound on the album was a guitar was a lie.shame that it's going but I haven't bought it in years.
As for Guitarist,just rubbish,year after year of "let's see how this month's Les Paul stacks up to last month's Les Paul and then let's put them in a shoot out with the Les Paul from the month before that" and did they think that no electric players needed an amp? I actually emailed them once having totted up the price of all the guitars reviewed in one issue,it was just short of £40,000.The price of the amp reviews,nothing,just about £400 worth of pedals.I do think that one other issue is the "death of the band" as well.Almost everyones' favourite players used to play in bands but young bands can't survive anymore and it's not the same just listening to someone playing to a backing track in their home,no matter how good (and some are amazing).
Oddly, I haven’t ALWAYS found the ads completely annoying. Always better than articles on people I haven’t heard of or tabs of music I don’t care about but, as always if KDH was running any of them they couldn’t have helped but get way better! Good work again! Thx a lot!
I love the thought you put into your content. You are one of the few people that has actually changed my views.
I worked for BandLab/Swee Lee Singapore when they bought Rolling Stone Mag. That was fun to be a part of.
It IS is a little sad to see music/guitar magazines going out of fashion like this but at least we had good stuff in our day!
Love seeing the ads in old 80s 90s guitar magazines. Alot of gear was easy to get back then, and is now hard to find.
I used to have a subscription to Guitar World, and they talked about the same handful of guitarists repeatedly, over and over again.
I would imagine by now they’ve run out of things to say
Spinal tap had the same opinion lol. look up satriani and spinal tap
@
lol “you can’t really be jealous of something you can’t fathom”
Also what would they write about? The newest self indulgent solo of the newest Instagram guitarist? Please. It would bore me to death.
@@EbonyPopeYou're asking, "What would they write about," when I've seen this comment from you in (at least) 3 threads... you didn't even bother changing a single word.
@@castleanthrax1833 So what? Doesn't refute anything of what I said. There is nothing truly new. Therefore there is just less and less interest in rock music. And those new Instagram virtuosos mainly play solos not real songs.
All printed magazines will go the same way. The prices went silly, the content is limited and by the time they are printed, it's out of date.
I remember when Total Guitar was £3.95, it was 150 pages and you often got a CD on the front.
Credit where it's due. Concise,well researched and well presented,like everything else on this channel. Kudos to you young man and keep it up.
Total Guitar was my favourite thing ever! I used to buy every issue. There was something really cool about seeing larger than life personalities on these covers with crazy photo shoots. Those magazines and yt were literally how I thought myself to play guitar and the reason I progressed so quickly! TG issue 205 was the first guitar magazine I ever bought and got it at the start of my guitar journey. Synyster Gates and Zachy Vengeance were on the cover promoting Nightmare and they had their limited edition models (the white syn custom with gold pin-stripes and the smashed mirror one). I thought myself how to play the solo to Nightmare from that issue and told myself that one day in the future I would save up and own that white/gold pin stripe custom. Fast forward maybe 4 years from that point and I was finally able to get my hands on one. Still my favourite 6-string guitar and play it every day! Guitar techniques had some great features and was probably the most technical but useful for advanced playing. Total Guitar was more entry level imo. All were incredibly expensive though like you said
About 10 years ago, (it was either Guitar or Guitar World), published one of those Best Guitarist list issues. Each entry had a small thumbnail pic and about 4 sentences of text. For Johnny Ramone they decided that what you really needed to know about the Godfather of Punk Guitar, was that he was "unfortunately a Republican". I'll never forget that. Possibly the most juvenile thing I had ever seen in a mainstream musical instrument publication. I never bought another one, and no, I'm not a Republican, just an adult :(
Amen
When Johnny Ramone was active as a punk guitarist, the Republicans ended the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war and was pushing the Equal Rights Amendment which the Democrats didn't want to pass.
Guitar magazines might be dying but there’s a wealth of information and guitar history in those old guitar magazines. Guitar Player mag was the first in 1967 and even though it suffered in its later years it was the one that started it all. You can check out the history of all the Guitar Player Magazine covers from 1967 to the last December 2024 issue on my RUclips channel :)✌️❤️🎵
I used to buy Guitar Magazines to look at guitars and gear, the internet made them obsolete! There's far more info online and lessons on RUclips that there ever was in the Mags! The last time I bought one they were under £5!
It's surprising that there are magazines being printed and it hasn't completely went away. I remember in the later 2000's when editors and other people in the industry were talking about how print was going to get completely phased out by going digital or just be a thing of the past due to blogs, pre-youtube video platforms, etc. Eventually popular publications started to close up or have restructured and then shut down, with some being changed to where it was pretty much an empty shell or cover of what it once was. I used to buy magazines growing up and into my adulthood, especially before or when the Internet was relatively new for most of us, the magazines had good value with content, how the writers wrote their stuff, and as a reader, the experience be it on the crapper or wherever else. I kind of miss those times.
I used to be an avid reader and buyer of guitar magazines back in the day and I just realized I haven't even thought about them for years, until this video showed up in my feed. RUclips has more quality guitar and music content than I could ever hope to process.
Guitar World has become an expensive pamphlet.
The digital subscription is still affordable.
An affordable digital ad? Ooh boy where do I sign up?
Premier Guitar made the quickest and best transition to online content … that’s why they not only survived, but flourished. Everyone has watched one, if not one thousand, of their Rig Rundown videos. Plus, they had Rebecca Dirks 🥰 … lol. 😉
Bring back Rebecca Dirks, tbh 😂
Sad to see Guitar Techniques going down the shitter.
I worked in publications for about a decade give or take, and the target ad-to-content ratio for some magazines is intense. Some mass-market publications are 60/40 ad to content. At that point, you're essentially fighting to actually read the damned articles.
This was a really well put-together video, and very important.
But I am *obsessed* with how you say the word "Thicker"
Finally. I only ever bought a Guitar World or Acoustic Guitar World back in the day if I wanted to learn to play one of the songs they had transcribed in the back, or - very rarely - if an article or interview interested me. Last one I bought was over twenty years ago before they jacked the price up to $10 per issue (which is more than a magazine is worth now, let alone two decades ago). Then, Ultimate-Guitar came around and I got the Pro version of that for a one-time payment of $10, and RUclips, Wikipedia, and other free sites/communities replaced whatever else magazines did for me.
I have all but completely forgotten about guitar magazines until I saw the thumbnail for this video.
I haven't bought a magazine since I was a kid. I had no idea they were so expensive now. At around $5 I would grab one when an artist I was interested in had a writeup but that was pre smartphone and pre RUclips boom. Why would anyone spend 15 to 20 dollars on a magazine for a three page interview with say James Hetfeild when you can pull out your phone and watch a 3 hour interview for free.
As an almost 42yr old, when I was young I relied on guitar magazines to keep with up players, latest gear, tabs, etc. In all honesty I’m surprised some magazines are still even around in 2024
I bought the last guitar techniques mag for £6.50 in the airport ! Didn’t realise it was the last one!
I was a regular subscription holder in the 80s and 90s. It was well before the internets. So they were often a big deal. It was how we found out about new releases and equipment trends. They were important.
Growing up in the 90’s, Guitar World and Guitar for the Practicing Musician were our bible. Couldn’t wait for every monthly issue to see if they had tab from my favourite bands.
I used to love the Fender catalogs which were released every year back in the early 00s. I was sad when they stopped
I bought Guitarist magazine every month from 1987 to 2000, guitar magazines don't do reviews anymore they just publish long-format ads, and their online versions are so ad-heavy half the time they don't even load.
Premier Guitar Emails us at least 4 times every 6 months. They are always trying to have them advertise us….. their cheapest tier is 1500 bucks for a small ad?!?
That's not that much, newspaper ads cost 10 times that and TV ads cost millions, many millions if its during some big sports event or whatever.
At some moment I noted that there was never a negative review in Guitarist. I asked them about it and they replied: "we don't want to spend time / print space on bad gear". Which could be a fair point. However, I think it's vital to have both types of reviews for credibility.
They're far too heavily reliant on a few very influential advertisers to give a fair appraisal of anything. No fearless journalism between those pages.
Noticed the same. Nothing seems to get less than a score of 8. The scoring is essentially an 8, 9 or 10. Seems bit pointless.
I lived for total guitar and guitar techniques back in the 90’s. Learned so much from them and they used to have great content and great educators. I get that they eventually became obsolete and well a bit crap.
But happy memories and a bit sad to see them go all the same.
I usually buy one in the airport to take on holiday…. But yeah not surprised they’re all going under, just how information is consumed nowadays, there’s no wonder
Same as Video Game, Fashion, Music Review, Film Review, and a bunch of other magazines where you figure out you can save money on them and actually spend it on the hobby instead. A magazine costs more than a pack of strings, two will buy you a guitar book, or you can buy a brand new BOSS DS-1 for about the price of 5 months of magazines.
Not for me. Guitar World Tabs are a great resource as a music teacher. Been collecting since 1991, and am only missing a few dozen issues. Learn to read rhythms, and with accurate tablature (that you can put on a music stand), you'll never be at a loss as to what to play or learn.
My dad was a Guitar Player and Bass Player subscriber for years. I have a stack of his old issues in my garage.
A few years ago, before BP stopped printing, they ran a 2 year sub for $24 promo that I felt I HAD to jump on. Once the first issue arrived I literally thought there was a printing mistake the mag was so thin. BP was always a little more sparce than GP but comparitively to the any issue from the stack in my garage it was a leaflet. No classifieds, only 2 lesson pieces (nothing inspired either) and about 40% of the pages were ads.
Vindicating to hear you read them for filth.
I used to buy guitar magazines for the tabs on the back pages and info on new gear, both of these are found online now.
I used to buy and read a bunch of different guitar magazines for years, but stopped when I finished high school, partially due to cost, but mainly because they were going over the same stuff, the same retrospectives, covering the same decades and decades old bands and guitarists all the time.
It's a shame because they have some great tabs, gear reviews, and I learned a bunch of great techniques out of them. The DVDs/CDs that came with Total Guitar were pretty good for thag sort of stuff especially for someone like me who didn't have the internet at home at the time.
I just realised how old I sound.
So much info on YT, and many players that have YT channels cover a lot of different focused subject matter on the guitar or other instruments.
Much like news papers they’re obsolete, not the info…but compared to artists and teachers and demos vids on RUclips, we don’t need the mags anymore. I have spent so much money on those, and they get stolen a lot.
Cool vid KDH! ❤
How many times do you want to read an article about how great Steve Vai, Eric Clapton, Joe Satriani, and Ritchie Blackmore are?
I’ve played guitar for 15 years now and i never picked a guitar magazine up.
I remember when guitar player came out in the early 70s. Tabs, lessons and interviews. A few ads. Now just full page after full page of ads. Awful now.
On the other hand - magazines are a resource. I have a few lying around the house and I'll often pick one up and work for a while on one of the tabs or technique articles. Plus, I don't mind ads. I've spent many a happy wishful thinking and lusting after gear.
How feckin' green that guitar is!!!!😅
He may have a black light going in the room. Which would make that paint just scream.
@@erickaufmancustomguitars1351 White is all colors at 100%. Black is the opposite. So called "Black light" is an oxymoron.
@@donsimon63"Black light" as in an ultraviolet light
@RegisteredCornball the point is Black is a total absence of light. Hence Black light is meaningless ... Misusing it to mean uv is no less stupid. Sorry
@@donsimon63 or just a moron
As a kid my mother would buy me a year subscription of a guitar magazine. I learned a LOT and it helped me become the player I am today. I'm very grateful for guitar magazines as a lesson supplement, but yeah the ads, content depletion and PRICES are insanity now.. they used to be like $5-6. I'm also not too sad they're going away since, well..people have spoken - with the power of the internet. I still have and cherish my Dimebag issue as it came out very shortly after the incident.. and the Nirvana issue held a lot of meaning, that band kickstarted everything. Welp, things change I guess.
I agree! I popped into a shop yesterday to buy the 'acoustic guitar' magazine but wasn't prepared to pay £9.00 !
The mag was thin and far too pricey!
11:41 but could the magazine pick the products and then let the product owners know so they can advertise?
Growing up I bought Guitarist almost religiously. Then about 20 years ago I realised I had basically read the same interviews, reviews and features at least twice. Also there was an interview with Wes Montgomery (iirc) by the then new editor in their first edition after Mick Taylor had left. It was so bad it was uncomfortable to read. I mean even a high school student doing a journalism project would be embarrassed.
In the USA, daily newspaper publishers get a subsidy from the government for newspapers that they print but do not sell. This ensures there is plenty of newspapers for public consumption and ensures billionaires get more public assistance welfare to support their lifestyle (ivory backscratchers don’t buy themselves!). I don’t think magazines share the same subsidy since they are usually published once per month and do not cover current events.
KDH give us better coverage of guitar hooplah than any of the magazines did
Man I got mailed Guitar World for years. That's a big part of how learned new and random riffs growing up. I of course love the accessibility of the internet but I do miss getting those magazines and trying out whatever random tabs they had in the magazine.
100k subs!! Nice one. Where's your silver thingy?! Well done!
whenever i see a guitar magazine i always dont even notice them (probably), but in a way i guess its sad to see them go because, although gone unnoticed, when i walk into my local guitar store, there is a place where there is just only guitar magazines, shelves full of them, im used to seeing them everywhere, seeing them go would be kinda strange
Printed mags have been dying for quite some time now - but - my local Sainsburys (supermarket chain in the UK for friends abroad reading) does still stock Guitarist and it sells out of its copies within a couple of days every time a new issue lands oddly enough. So go figure. As a teenager in the 80's I owe a HUGE debt to Guitar For The Practicing Musician though as it taught me well back then. But we got told a lot of marketing lies too sadly.
I used to buy several guitar magazines each month for decades I stopped about ten years ago. The constantly decreasing quality, depth of analysis, features and increasing costs killed them for me. I miss looking forward to buying a hard copy of a magazine each month but at least I still have a stock of old editions to re-read on occasions when feeling nostalgic.
Same thing happened to the electronic music / synth magazines. The prices got insane and also i found out the reviews were much better online. The magazine reviews could not be trusted at all, and after a while it all started to seem a bit recycled in content. "biggest bass" "how to create the blah blah sound" and so on.. so i got the feeling that most costumers hung around for about a year or so since they basicly redid the same kind of content over and over and over. But one thing they did have that guitar magazines could not was samples and plugins, on a CD that came with the magazine, so there was that.
Personally I prefer magazines or books .. no power needed... My wife & I read a lot. Cigar AF, WhiskyAD, wine & Food, Wine Ent Wine Spectator, Guitar World.. We do the Net of course.. Cheers
Computer Music is shutting down as well. Also owned by Future Publishing. Hardly much "future" in it now.
My wife got me a guitar player sub...its like a rerun of the mags I had as a teen.....I want heavier stuff than crosby,stills and Nash. Or guitarists from the 50s
Would have loved your thoughts on Guitar Interactive Magazine, which started solely as an online magazine. It is free to access and download.
I have the first copy of Guitarist somewhere (featured BB King and Steve Rothery among others).
The 50 pence cover price from 1982 / 83 adjusted for inflation equates to around £1.73 today (according to the BoE).
Still got a lot of Kiss & Pantera featured mags for nostalgia... but I stopped buying magazines in the early 00's. Still got the price tags on, between $11.00 - $13.50 AUD.
I have always enjoyed seeing the new gear available the Ads often are the best showcase i get as a exposer to companies and i like gear reviews. Content has to be there though.
I started playing in 2002 and Total Guitar and Guitar Techniques were crucial to me. I learned a lot from them, and I absolutely loved when they'd put out a lesson on a song that included a playalong track minus the guitar. Really helped my development and I fondly recall learning Master of Puppets back in the day knowing it was accurate. However, in the age of the internet, these things just are not relevant any more, and the ads were fairly ridiculous. Anyways thanks for the memories total guitar and guitar techniques, not really too sad to see you go these days either!
I was buying Guitar Techniques since 2001 and at some point gave up and started following RUclipsrs for lessons. When I bought GT recently, saw that there is no CD as well as funny captions under the photos disappeared. That was the last one for me.
As a late in life guitar learner I am sad to see them go - I'd rather read a good magazine than watch many of the low intellect RUclips channels :)
I went to the UK to visit family this year and one of the things I usually do is buy one or two guitar magazines. I was able to find them in the newsagent in August but I baulked at the price of the magazine, so I decided not to bother this time around. It's a shame that the magazines are going out of business but I find that I can find everything I want on RUclips.
Every aspect of what was in guitar magazines is now done better on RUclips. Technique? RUclips. Song lessons? RUclips. Industry News? RUclips. Gear reviews? RUclips. Music production? RUclips. Random music themed nonsense? RUclips.
And they were always hit and miss with regards to value for money. Sometimes you would buy one for one song lesson or one interview. The rest could’ve been about genres you didn’t even listen to.
I used to buy them back in the day but it’s probably nearly 20 years since I bought one.
I remember the loss of the British 'Acoustic guitar' magazine. I've kept a lot of back issues, but I still miss it. The American version doesn't compare, although I think it's still available from the Newstand site.
Guitar World July 1999 - 206 pages and 5 transcriptions (Guns and Roses - Welcome to the Jungle, RHCP - Under the Bridge, Def Leppar - Photograph, Everclear and Sugar Ray. $4.95. Guitar World December 2024 - 110 pages, 3 transcriptions and price is $9.99 - so, double the price and half the content. "Reviews" are advertisements, because they don't review things they don't like apparently.
Damn. I was just the right age when i saw my first tabbed song in a GFTPM and subscribed to any magazine that had tabs. Learned so much and read them cover to cover (as a retired school librarian I had to preach to teachers that reading periodicals (magazines and newspapers) WAS reading and boys, on the whole, prefer non fiction and instructional material) and snuck digital copies of the ones we couldnt get in the US when the internet got going.
Such a huge loss, but RUclips has rendered waiting by the mail Box hoping a Ratt song would be tabbed in the new issue. Man, what I would habe given for RUclips in 1978.
You are the person to tell me all but 1 are gone. I hate you now. /s.
While I understand the good intentions behind this video, I think it is mainly making much ado about nothing because all influencers are is the new generation of print media--all put out by a single publisher, Google/Alphabet via RUclips.
*Guitar magazines haven't died. They've been replaced by RUclips influencers who perform much of the functions of the old magazines in a video format, including all the ads and conflicts of interest about reviews. The magazines themselves are becoming paywall sites. Likewise, RUclips influencers are essentially offering freemium information to encourage you to enter into some kind of paywall agreement, be it Patreon, affiliate links, or just watching ads. Therefore, even the free content is not "free," and usually it is of superficial depth and low quality precisely because it is free. The good stuff is behind the paywall.*
Where do we see a review of RUclips content creators' paywall goods and services? *That information seems suspiciously absent.*
*If content creator influencers had drastically different business models than legacy print media, I think the outrage against guitar magazines would be justified. But influencers aren't different from the magazines. So they have no grounds to criticize.*
Some background.
I was a long-time subscriber to "Guitar World" through the mid and late 1990s. The magazines are far cheaper if you buy them as an annual subscription. I still have hundreds in my closet.
These magazines were great in that *they combined news, promotion for bands' new albums/tours, gear marketing, and lessons all in one place. In that sense, guitar magazines went above and beyond music news magazines catering to non-musicians like "RIP," "Hit Parader," "Circus," "Kerrang!," "Metal Edge," etc., which offered little but promotional content for bands and ads. The guitar magazines did everything those general interest magazines did and more. The general interest magazines have mostly been replaced with blogs like "Metal Injection," "Metal Sucks," "Loudwire," "Revolver," etc.*
The downside with the guitar magazines' lesson section, their main draw, is *it is very hard to get much out of a guitar lesson coming from a static page.*
Further, *not all readers would object to ads if the ads made readers aware of new gear.*
More background:
When I was a student at GIT in 1999-2000, the library there had guitar, bass, drum, keyboard, vocals, and recording magazines going back to the 1970s that could be checked out. Most players consulted these magazines whenever they booked studio or rehearsal room time at the school. We consulted them as a lessons library that went above (although rarely beyond) the school's already excellent curriculum. *The lessons were useful if you wanted to specialize on a specific player's style as opposed to general concepts.*
*One guitar magazine that exceeded the others in quality was Japan's "Young Guitar," which featured interactive DVD lessons in English with Japanese subtitles going all the way back to the 90s. American magazines were slow to adopt this model and instead relied on REH Video, Starlicks, and other VHS lesson producers to fill in the video lesson gap. We had these videos in the library as well.*
*Now, many of these vintage magazines can be found in pdf archives online if one knows where to look and their lessons can be transcribed into Guitar Pro. Lessons from decades ago are still useful because guitar does not change. Old magazines make you aware of vintage gear. Meanwhile, a web site may not be archived, you must have Internet access, and you must continually pay to have access to it. Once the magazine is purchased, the transaction is complete.*
Equivalency between guitar magazines and today's influencers:
Why do I not have a problem with guitar magazines? Because *RUclips's like/share/subscribe/comment/buy my Patreon product/click my affiliate link is the same thing as the guitar magazines, just a slightly different business model.*
*RUclips is an influencer infomercial. As such its content creator influencers have no right to bash legacy media's business models when influencers use many of the same methods as the old print media to earn income, including not being forthcoming about conflicts of interest regarding gear reviews and how they are compensated.*
*Just like print magazines, when new gear drops, every major guitartube content creator influencer is going to talk about that gear at approximately the same time. Examples: Boss Katana, Axe FX III, Kemper Profiler, and so on.* This is just like the magazines covering the same newly released gear or albums or artists at about the same time.
*So, nothing has changed, nor has the business model--only the method of consumption (video vs. print).*
I like the guitar magazines. I like physical media. Why? *Because I own them without needing the Internet and no one can take them away from me, unlike online cloud access.*
Congrats on hitting 100k subscribers you deserve it!!! 😎
I'll quite often grab a copy of Guitarist to take with me on holiday. Sometimes it's nice to have something you can just pick up and peruse. They'll quite often do 3 issues for £3 and I'll take advantage of that and save them until I go away. Apart from that, i gave up on them years ago. Whats especially annoying is not long after they've come out in print, the reviews are up online and RUclips so you haven't really gained anything but physically buying it.
It’s crazy how many library images of Hendrix, GnR, or Elvis even etc have featured on magazine front covers!
Guitar mag slow death, always full of adverts and big double page shots, regurgitated articles, “Bursts” Two Rock, and ‘62 Strat. 😊
Premier also has a large presence on RUclips with their "rig rundown" videos
I used to buy quite a few guitar magazines, (Guitar Techniques, Guitarist ect) but my favourite was Total guitar which used to be really good back in the day, you used to get a cd with new forthcoming album tracks by famous bands and artists, some cool reader demos, new gear and review sound demos with some really cool little pieces of music to showcase some new effects processor, other new equipment or new guitars. They had full tracks and backing tracks of famous songs and interesting articles or stories but eventually after my subscription ran out I stopped buying it even though there was still quite a few additions after that that was still good as the early ones in the 90s but eventually come the millennium it just didn't seem as good as it used to be