Mixmag
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Mixmag is the world's bestselling dance music and clubbing magazine. It began in 1982 in the United Kingdom. It covers dance events and reviews music and club nights. Mixmag has coined terms and phrases to describe genres and conventions within dance music.
Mixmag, in association with their original publishing company, DMC Publishing, released a series of CDs under the heading "Mixmag Live". Mixmag was sold to EMAP in the mid-1990s before being bought by Development Hell in December 2005.
Mixmag is the world’s biggest dance music and club culture magazine in terms of sales and reputation. The first issue was printed on February 1st 1983 as a 16-page black and white magazine published by DMC — the DJ mailout service. The first cover was Shalamar, the first editor DMC’s Tony Prince and the first advertiser was a company called Technics Panasonic.
When house music began, editor and DJ Dave Seaman turned the magazine from a newsletter for DJs to a magazine covering all dance music and club culture. Mixmag covered acid house, the subsequent rave era, the rise of superstar DJs and the Ibiza explosion. The magazine’s trusted and informed voice made it the number one authority on Britain’s emerging dance drug culture — BBC Newsnight and even the Home Office have turned to Mixmag. The magazine coined the terms superclub and trip hop and launched the world’s first legal DJ mix tapes, the Mixmag Live series.
Now in its third decade, Mixmag still covers the waterfront of dance music, reviewing the most upfront releases and clubs, talking to the biggest figures in clubland and covering the world’s most vibrant music culture.
Mixer magazine in the USA and 'Mixmag' in Russia have no connection to the UK magazine.
Mixmag carries a cover mix CD each month by a different DJ or artist. Recently these have included the likes of Richie Hawtin, Sven Vath, Erol Alkan, Tom Neville, Smokin' Jo, Ferry Corsten and DJ Touche. Several have become collectors items in their own right, fetching large sums on ebay.
[edit] The Development Hell era
Development Hell acquired Mixmag from EMAP ltd. in April 2005. The company also owns The Word music magazine. Development Hell relaunched Mixmag in May 2006 with a revamped design and the aim of appealing to a wider (both male and female), older readership than had been targeted by EMAP. Editor Andrew Harrison told the Press Gazzette that that staff had previously "focused the magazine very tightly on a young clubber, a very committed hardcore nutter clubber and we thought that wasn't necessarily the right way to go.
"Mixmag is now a magazine for the entire world of dance music, whether you like hard boshing music that's quite druggy, or chill out music, or you're someone like me who likes to keep in touch with the music but has grown out of clubbing.
"This idea that dance music is a kind of minority interest, a bit like ska, is wrong. The biggest album of last year was by the Scissor Sisters."
In addition to the change in editorial tone, the relaunched Mixmag features a fashion section, larger size and improved production values.
[edit] Trivia
- Mixmag is mentioned in the film Human Traffic, in which the main character of the film pretends to be a Mixmag writer to blag his way into a nightclub.
[edit] External links
- Mixmag website
- Mixmag (label) - Discogs listing of CDs given away with Mixmag magazine
- MySpace.com/Mixmagmagazine Mixmag's MySpace page
