Spex (magazine)
Encyclopedia
Spex is a prominent German
rock and pop culture magazine located in Berlin
, Germany
. Besides music news, Spex also covers literature, cinema, fashion and contemporary social trends. Since January 2008, Spex is headquartered in Berlin and includes an audio CD.
in 1980 by a small group of writers who decided to found their own music paper: they were Gerald Hündgen, Clara Drechsler, Dirk Scheuring, Wilfried Rütten and Peter Bömmels. They first considered naming it 555 but finally pitched on Spex – which means "glasses" in English slang. The name Spex reminds of the then very famous punk band X-Ray Spex
. The magazine was initially distributed in record stores and railway stations. The articles were not as elaborate as those in comparable magazines, as the objective was to present new young artists. Four issues were published in the first year. Spex turned monthly in 1981. In 1983 its main competitor, Sounds
, closed down. That paper addressed very modern artists and tendencies like punk
, new wave
and the German new wave. Most of its editorial team was hired to work for Spex, like Diedrich Diederichsen
(forthcoming editor) or Olaf Dante Marx. The articles took a new turn, more theoretical and more literary.
in the context of "pop culture", while still covering social and political issues in a humorous and ironic tone. Some Spex writers saw their profile rise as they started writing opinions columns, such as Diedrich Diederichsen, Rainald Goetz, or Clara Drechsler's editorials, which earned her comparisons to Julie Burchill
. Spex is not only a platform for new authors but also for new trends. One of the first publications to put Madonna
on their cover (November 1983), the magazine also opens its pages to debate on contemporary technical and social issues such as « girlism ».
However, because of its huge freedom Spex was inclined to speak only about topics that interested the editorial team, and to ignore other newsworthy trends. Some good artists were rejected on principle. The Smiths
, for example, never appealed to Spex, whereas Die Toten Hosen
have always been the object of graceful praises. Diedrich Diederichsen, the editor from 1985 to 1991, brought the spotlight on American indie punk bands (predominantly from the SST Records
) at the expense of other kinds of pop music like house
or hip hop
. At the end of the year 1999, after nineteen years of existence, Spex went bankrupt and was bought by Piranha Media. This signalled the end of self-production and the magazine was completely restructured as many employees chose to leave. Critics saw the buy-out as a loss of Spex's independence and predicted that it would become a mouthpiece of the music industry.
). This decision has sometimes been seen as a pretext taken by Piranha to get rid of the editorial staff. The move, first planned in the summer of 2006, was carried out in December; the Cologne staff who resisted the move were fired after the publication of the January 2007 issue. Max Dax was named as the new editor and Spex settled in the Kreuzberg
neighbourhood, where Groove, a Piranha publication dedicated to techno music, was already located.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
rock and pop culture magazine located in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Besides music news, Spex also covers literature, cinema, fashion and contemporary social trends. Since January 2008, Spex is headquartered in Berlin and includes an audio CD.
The foundation
The paper's first issue was published in CologneCologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
in 1980 by a small group of writers who decided to found their own music paper: they were Gerald Hündgen, Clara Drechsler, Dirk Scheuring, Wilfried Rütten and Peter Bömmels. They first considered naming it 555 but finally pitched on Spex – which means "glasses" in English slang. The name Spex reminds of the then very famous punk band X-Ray Spex
X-Ray Spex
X-Ray Spex were an English punk band from London that formed in 1976.During their first incarnation , X-Ray Spex were “deliberate underachievers” and only managed to release five singles and one album...
. The magazine was initially distributed in record stores and railway stations. The articles were not as elaborate as those in comparable magazines, as the objective was to present new young artists. Four issues were published in the first year. Spex turned monthly in 1981. In 1983 its main competitor, Sounds
Sounds (magazine)
Sounds was a long-term British music paper, published weekly from 10 October 1970 – 6 April 1991. It was produced by Spotlight Publications , which was set up by Jack Hutton and Peter Wilkinson, who left "Melody Maker" to start their own company...
, closed down. That paper addressed very modern artists and tendencies like punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, new wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
and the German new wave. Most of its editorial team was hired to work for Spex, like Diedrich Diederichsen
Diedrich Diederichsen
Diedrich Diederichsen is a German author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is one of Germany′s most renowned intellectual writers at the crossroads of the arts, politics, and pop culture....
(forthcoming editor) or Olaf Dante Marx. The articles took a new turn, more theoretical and more literary.
The fame
Around 1983, Spex gained recognition as a major music magazine thanks to the quality of its editorial line, competing with British music magazines such as the New Musical Express or The Face. The magazine's strength was to focus on pop musicPop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
in the context of "pop culture", while still covering social and political issues in a humorous and ironic tone. Some Spex writers saw their profile rise as they started writing opinions columns, such as Diedrich Diederichsen, Rainald Goetz, or Clara Drechsler's editorials, which earned her comparisons to Julie Burchill
Julie Burchill
Julie Burchill is an English writer and journalist. Beginning as a writer for the New Musical Express at the age of 17, she has written for newspapers such as The Sunday Times and The Guardian. She is a self-declared "militant feminist". She has several times been involved in legal action...
. Spex is not only a platform for new authors but also for new trends. One of the first publications to put Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
on their cover (November 1983), the magazine also opens its pages to debate on contemporary technical and social issues such as « girlism ».
However, because of its huge freedom Spex was inclined to speak only about topics that interested the editorial team, and to ignore other newsworthy trends. Some good artists were rejected on principle. The Smiths
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
, for example, never appealed to Spex, whereas Die Toten Hosen
Die Toten Hosen
Die Toten Hosen is a German punk band from Düsseldorf. They have enjoyed decades-long mass appeal in Germany.The band's name literally means "The Dead Pants" in English, although the phrase "tote Hose" is a German expression meaning "nothing going on" or "boring"...
have always been the object of graceful praises. Diedrich Diederichsen, the editor from 1985 to 1991, brought the spotlight on American indie punk bands (predominantly from the SST Records
SST Records
SST Records is an American independent record label formed in 1978 in Long Beach, California by musician Greg Ginn. The company was initially called Solid State Transmitters through which Ginn sold electronics equipment...
) at the expense of other kinds of pop music like house
House music
House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, United States in the early 1980s. It was initially popularized in mid-1980s discothèques catering to the African-American, Latino American, and gay communities; first in Chicago circa 1984, then in other...
or hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
. At the end of the year 1999, after nineteen years of existence, Spex went bankrupt and was bought by Piranha Media. This signalled the end of self-production and the magazine was completely restructured as many employees chose to leave. Critics saw the buy-out as a loss of Spex's independence and predicted that it would become a mouthpiece of the music industry.
The removal
In December 2006, parent company Piranha Media announced the relocation of the editorial staff from Cologne to Berlin. Editor Alex Lacher claimed it was necessary for practical reasons (being closer to the music industry in Berlin), and for financial reasons: the loss in revenue caused by the prohibition of tobacco advertising in German newspapers obligated them to close one of their three editorial offices (Berlin, Cologne, and MunichMunich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
). This decision has sometimes been seen as a pretext taken by Piranha to get rid of the editorial staff. The move, first planned in the summer of 2006, was carried out in December; the Cologne staff who resisted the move were fired after the publication of the January 2007 issue. Max Dax was named as the new editor and Spex settled in the Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg, a part of the combined Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte since 2001, is one of the best-known areas of Berlin...
neighbourhood, where Groove, a Piranha publication dedicated to techno music, was already located.
The new Spex
In March 2007, the first issue of the new Spex from Berlin came out. At that time, the paper became bi-monthly. This choice was driven by the in-depth transformation of the magazine's content and the decision to emphasise analysis of wider musical and artistic trends over news coverage. Spex is no longer focused on listing new releases, but also on critical analysis of modern social evolutions. It has more pages, longer articles, and fewer but more detailed record reviews. The conditions of the production of art are a topic of interest, with special reports on globalisation, the rise of digital culture, depolitisation and the difficulties of the music industry. There are many reasons for those editorial changes. In the last years of the Cologne period, readers complained about a degradation of the editorial quality, claiming that the magazine was losing its trademark wit and just compiling record reviews indifferently every month. In that sense, Spex was no longer a voice distinct from other music magazines such as Intro, Uncle Sally or Musikexpress. In addition, the financial difficulties of the music industry, meaning declining ad buy figures, might have decided Spex to diversity the subjects covered. Today, Spex in Berlin has outgrown the initial difficulties, with a solid financial situation and positive feedback from its readers and peers: with a 18 400 circulation in early 2007, it grew to 21 349 copies one year later, a 14% raise. (source : (IVW)).External links
- German language online version
- Ripening on the rhine: the Cologne art world of the '80s - Critical Essay ArtForum, March 2003 by Daniel Birnbaum (accessed 31 August 2006)
- Das letzte Wort: Die 100 Platten des Jahrhunderts (Spex' 1999 listing of the best records of the twentieth century)
- - Spex im Internet
- Wir Lassen Den Dom In Kölle. Spex zieht nicht nach Berlin. De:Bug News, 24 August 2006
- Spex-Eklat: Komplette Redaktion fliegt raus. laut.de, 15. Dezember 2006
- Telepolis: Spex wird geschreddert. 21 Dezember 2006
- Jahres-Bestenlisten von Kritikern und Lesern der Spex (1981–2006)
- Diplomarbeit „SPEX CD-ROM“ (FH Potsdam, 2001. Über die CD-ROMs, die 2000/2001 als Heftbeilage produziert wurden. Enthält auch Informationen zur Zeitschrift selbst)
- Informationsgemeinschaft zur Feststellung der Verbreitung von Werbeträgern