30 years of Paper Recordings. DJ friends of the label pick their favourite records, some good tales from the early days
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Not any particular article, but the general normalisation of misogyny and the intentional undermining of Women, and their right to Be. Largely driven by the Right, along with their blatant hypocrisy of outrage at the victims of abuse committed by some ethnic groups whilst remaining silent (at best) at the depressingly constant epidemic of male-perpetrated violence against women. The brutal murder of Sarah Everard and the reaction to it (including the shocking Public Order Act 2023) were a huge shift that didn’t get anywhere near the widespread anger it should have. One of many societal shifts that.
Sadly many on the the Left have shown they are part of the problem. Victims of sexual violence are not legitimate if they don’t conform to the who passes the test of victimhood. The end result, women who are victims of sexual/violent abuse are still ignored. My ex was sexually abused by her PhD supervisor, a well renowned department head at one of Edinburgh’s biggest Universities, someone who ticked every progressive box on paper - specialising in cultural theory, anti-colonialism, patriarchy, Western exceptionalism, Anthropocentrism…
The recent shocking cases in Hampshire of the non custodial sentences of the boys convicted of violent rape is a case in point - lots of outrage for political goals with zero debate on how to tackle the causes, and safeguard women.
The role, and the lack of accountability, of social media in all of this will of course change little.
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The man who sleeps in the doorway of a £200m mansion (empty of course)
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Interesting overview of Where Things Are At by Joe Muggs, which is well worth a read - although I’m not sure about the conclusion. He complains about an old school media (whoever ‘The Media’ in 2026 is) effectively ignoring all the exciting, niche things going on around the world, which may well be true - but in order to identify Where Things Are At, there surely needs to be some kind of consensus to create a narrative, no? If music culture has fragmented to the point there are no unified mass movements, just a zillion micro scenes, loosely welded together by shared internet experiences, and a media fragmented to the point each one of us is now The Media, how does that help us understand culture as a largescale generational thing?
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I don’t think there needs to be a consensus anymore.
I think it would have been quicker for Joe just to write “Music journalism just isn’t that relevant anymore”. This is borne out by exactly what he describes.
Kids these days don’t need someone to hold their hand and tell them what’s hot and what’s not as he rightly suggests.
He seems to recognise that- but then suggests it’s a problem (out of touch music journalists clinging to the old ’ genre defining/ scenius’ models)
Well, it’s only really a problem for music journalists.
Scenes and generational experiences have always been entirely subjective and based on individual perception- that newer generations have the means and insight to recognise that it was all an illusion anyway is no surprise to my mind.
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It also seems to me that time is compressed - Spotify doesn’t tell you whether a record came out 10 or 20 years ago or yesterday. Same with clothes, I see kids walking around here looking like they could be straight out of any decade in the last 60. They have access to it all.
I worked at a dance rag and an indie rag in the noughties, and saw the internet kill both those businesses. I had no concept of what the internet would do to publishing really, I was just a writer, I could put words together. I didn’t even really like blogs, I was so attached to print media. But some heads I worked with became bloggers and are still industry pundits today.
We didn’t argue about what was relevant much, I think everybody had their own genre strengths and that’s what made it half decent, maybe. But we weren’t the English music press who had to decry what was cool and what was ‘dead’ at all time. The indie chicks knew what was legit in their scene, where you had to be cool as well as kinda good at music. I knew about Fela and the breakbeat continuum and Ewan Pearson and blah blah, so they could throw all that stuff my way. There was a techno guy around. Others could play guitars.
I’ve since worked at a predominantly jazz radio station, they were all oldheads mostly and weren’t even aware that the whole LDN jazz resurgence was popping off, they just pottered around in the world they already know. I would have thought it was crucial for the station to cover that particular burst of creativity, but no one was fussed. Different generations.
I used to think about digital fragmentation a lot too for a while there. I was worried that people wouldn’t gather en mass to have transcendental experiences that could remind them that humans were OK. I could not have been more off the money. All the really good artists cut through. Like the first time that Nicola Cruz came to my city, instant sellout. And that dude is culture. Artists that good just cut through, all types of heads were there that night young, old, Latin, crackers, whatever.
The kids are more than fine, and however they are using the internet or what the internet becomes they are all over the good stuff. “Innovation is stalled…” pfft, Resident Advisor is stalled maybe.
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Last night I accompanied my ex-journo wife to Simon Reynolds being interviewed by Miki Lush and taking q&a from a throng of other 90s music journos for the launch of his latest book.
Back then I loved lots of the actual writing but hated their power as gatekeepers esp as they were often so enamoured by ‘scenes’ that the writing was often about bands/music that simply didn’t deserve the exposure.
Most of the discussion last night was about the writing rather than the music (fine) but it struck me that they just weren’t fans in the way the rest of us are. In fact mention was made of Caitlin Moran being told off for ‘writing like a fan’.
(highlight of the evening for me was after Reynolds had said “MBV were never going to write a tune about the poll tax” the stranger standing next to me mumbled “well that sentence ended 4 words too long” 
)
edit: wife’s review of the book for anyone interested
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Reynolds and his ‘Hardcore Continuum’?
Not for me.
Always seemed to want the music to fit his journalistic narrative - his critical position on the increased musicality in drum and bass mid nineties missed the point- people had got better gear- synths not just Akai s950’s-they didn’t care about his narrative- he assumes this was some intentional militancy when in fact people were just trying to make music with what they could afford due to socio economics to a significant extent (to my mind he always was trying to force a white punk perspective on the black music scene) Producers, in contrast just wanted to push the envelope from what I remember- if they could afford better gear, great.
It’s telling that he continues to write about music scenes of the past. It allows him to continue the out of date perspectives and practices Joe Muggs critiques
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What I didn’t get is why Muggs cares about “white middle aged male” commentators. If they’re so irrelevant and out of touch, why does it matter what they think? 20 years ago I remember a load of similar articles about how MySpace was democratising everything, how gatekeepers were extinct, and yet here we are still talking about gatekeepers
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I think maybe he wants to see music journalism that is increasingly relevant in our 21st century landscape -
Not a bad thing if it’s your bread and butter.
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another candidate for my theory that musical changes are often defined by either breaking the limits of (or introduction of new) technology. and that one of the reasons that a lot of the newest music feels so stale or uninteresting is because there haven’t been giant leaps in technology since everything went mega-digital.
drum machines, samplers, DAWs, auto-tune, tempo warping - all of these things changed the way music was made, and shortly after, someone broke the parameters and made something the tech never intended. and there just hasn’t been that much new tech - it’s cheaper, and more flexible, but that’s about it.
so with that in mind, it’s now all about the lens the storyteller wants to filter the story through. the journalists hear the music change, develop their theory on all the different factors, and craft their narrative. but ultimately, it’s just people trying to make something new by stretching the limits of what their gear can do.
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Having spent yesterday listening to people natter on about AI, and how wonderful it was this was a good counterpoint. Quite impressed with myself for reading in one go too! 
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Interesting take, I think I agree. I’ve known Joe over 25 years when he was a waiter and doctor’s receptionist, dreaming of becoming a writer. He hauled his way up through sheer grit and an endless pursuit of knowledge. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve met anyone more passionate about both music AND words. He is endlessly curious and has always been plugged in to shit I had no idea about (and frankly didn’t care about). Sub genres of sub genres. I think the piece above is as much a lament about the diminishing importance of music writing, as you say. My 17yo daughter listens to all sorts of music, all the time, has been creating play lists since she was 10. I’m certain she has never and will never read a word of music journalism. I felt old and a bit overwhelmed reading this piece. All this stuff passes me by, and that’s fine.
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For anyone without subscriptions I’ve been highlighting the first bit of text in an article, then copy and pasting into textedit on a mac. Works pretty much every time I’ve tried it so far. You do get a bit of guff but you can at least read anything you fancy.
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Tony Price about “user-generated content” and “narrative campaigns”
Great piece on Italo Disco. Looks like its going to be a series
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Remember reading this when it came out (HMV was excellent for all the music books). Excellent read though '97 was probably too early to fully make sense of things.
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