It's that time of the month when the most exciting Observer supplement rolls around: the Music Monthly, or OMM as I like to call it. The Sunday mornings when I head across the road to the convenience-shop-with-no-name clutching £1.90 are the best Sunday mornings.This month, Caspar Llewellyn-Smith treats us to a global special (NB, not a world music special, ok?), which is a difficult term that seems to mean 'music from places that usually get ignored'. Well, it's a good enough reason to put CSS on the cover.
Can monthly music magazines compete in an age of New Meejah? The two big features (CSS and Sebestian Tellier's Eurovision) emphasise the time lag suffered by monthlies. Terry Wogan is probably the only person still thinking about the ESC 2008 final, and the CSS interview dates back to January, before Ira departed over a guilty eco-conscience. Maybe the OMM have been sitting on that one for a while due to the second CSS album being pushed back to July (was it pushed back? I'm only making assumptions because they lost a bassist). Compared to the instant access of the internet, liveblogging and all, will Ver Kids of the future be interested in monthly music magazines? Ones printed on paper with photos and all that?
I hope so. The OMM reviews section is just about the right size, and I also like looking at whose written each piece and pondering any hidden significance. DBC Pierre gets the arbitrary top spot for a 5 star review of the new Sigur Ros offering, and Neil Spencer gets a double review of albums from Seth Lakeman and Eliza Carthy. What does it all mean? How do the reviews get divvied up? I like to imagine all the freelancers summoned for a meeting, then sipping tea and nibbling biscuits while tensely eyeing up a pile of choice promos. Finally, someone makes a grab for Beck's Modern Guilt and suddenly there's Jammy Dodgers all on the floor and an argument over who gets stuck with the new Usher album.
Anyway. The Observer Music Monthly global special. Well done, everybody.
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