Sounds Magazine

Sounds Magazine was a UK weekly pop/rock music newspaper, published from 10 October 1970 to 6 April 1991. It was known for giving away posters in the center of the paper (initially black and white, then color from late 1971) and later for covering heavy metal (especially the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM)) and punk and Oi! music in its late 1970s–early 1980s heyday.

It was produced by Spotlight Publications (part of Morgan Grampian), which was set up by John Thompson and Jo Saul with Jack Hutton and Peter Wilkinson, who left Melody Maker to start their own company. Sounds was their first project, a weekly paper devoted to progressive rock and described by Hutton, to those he was attempting to recruit from his former publication, as “a leftwing Melody Maker”. Sounds was intended to be a weekly rival to titles such as Melody Maker and New Musical Express (NME).

Sounds was one of the first music papers to cover punk. Mick Middles covered the Manchester music scene for Sounds from 1978 to 1982 writing about many of the up and coming bands of the time from Buzzcocks and Slaughter & The Dogs to The Fall and Joy Division. John Robb joined in 1987 and used the term “Britpop” to refer to bands such as the La’s, the Stone Roses and Inspiral Carpets, although it did not develop into the Britpop genre/movement at that time (as these acts were grouped under labels such as Baggy, Madchester and indie-dance). Keith Cameron wrote about Nirvana after Robb carried out the first interview with them.

The Obscurist Chart ran for about a year, first appearing on 5 September 1981 issue, as an alternative to the main, sales-driven record charts, allowing bands and music outside the mainstream to be recognized. The chart was started by Paul Platypus, who played with Mark Perry in The Reflections and compiled the first nine charts. The last chart appeared in 11 December 1982 issue… read more >