I popped into Tower Records on my lunchbreak today to pick up a copy of State. I’ve been a big reader of music mags for many years, not to mention a constant sneerer at Hot Press, so I figured a new contender on the scene was worth a fiver of my money, at least for the first issue.
The first thing to say about it is that it looks fantastic. The design is fresh and easy to read, and the photos are of an exceptionally high quality. Shots like those accompanying the Goldfrapp and Ham Sandwich pieces are noticeably composed with an aesthetic in mind; rather than simply being snaps to accompany the text, they are very beautiful in their own right.
The writing is often very good, and rarely less than competant. There was the odd slip here and there, but nothing that a slightly tighter subbing regime wouldn’t fix. Maybe I’m being too hard here, but it seems to me that when you’ve got such a professional looking product it’s a small effort to avoid ruining the effect with the kind of small blots that make usage and grammar snobs me like me cringe.
My favorite part of most music mags is the review pages at the back. Many’s the album I’ve bought on the strength of a pithily written capsule review. Because it’s the work of so many hands, its difficult to keep the quality of this section uniformly high, but State does rather well here, and sent me scurrying off in search of not a few of the albums reviewed therein.
In general then, a thumbs-up, though I do have a few small gripes. Mainly, I’d like a bit more attitude. If State, as it’s editorial acknowledges, is defined in part by what it isn’t, then it should perhaps have a bit more edge. I’d welcome a touch of the too-cool-for-school sneer of Mongrel or The Slate. The “100 albums to avoid before you die” series has the right idea, but I’d have liked a bit more in that vein. Sure, there’s an article about how very tiresome Stereophonics are, but it wasn’t mean enough to be funny, and seemed a little pointless – it’s not like Stereophonics are in town or have a new album out. When I saw a photo of Glen ‘n’ Marketa at the Oscars, I hoped for an entertainingly nasty write-up, but alas, State treated the pair as nicely as everyone else has. They deserve no less I suppose, but I would have been amused by a gratuitously unfair contrary stand. My favorite music mag ever was Select between 1990 and about 1996. In 1993 or thereabouts, they ran an article which casually declared that Sonic Youth were “the worst band in history”. I didn’t even agree, but I found such chutzpah very funny.
Lack of snark and funnies aside, State has a likeable feel to it. You sense very strongly that the people involved really love music, and it doesn’t push any agenda other than that love. That’s my favourite thing of all about it, and its something you can’t fake. To have developed a coherent personality so early is a great achievement, and enough to bring me back for issue two.