Gave up NME in the early 70's in favour of Melody Maker (when I was far less discerning about what I read and knew far less about the subject). Classic Rock has persistently annoyed by poor research and the regularity of pointless polls - some of the writing has improved with better authorative authors being commissioned in the last couple of years. Jazzwise which I subscribe to at the moment, has good cross-section of jazz reviews, but too often the articles on established jazz musicans, just report the obvious in the support of an album just about to be released. However, we do get info on promising new comers. Rather surprisingly, I've been told  their monthly charts is the first page many readers go to, in making decision sof what recording to buy next - tied with those reviews at the end of the magazine.  However, having received a renewal bill for a discounted subscription in the last week, asking for £43 for the next 11 editions (yes Jazzwise only publish 11 times a year - with Christmas edition supposedly being a double...), I wonder what I'm getting for the money (which is true with many other music magazine. Before Jazzwise, I subscribed to Wire, but got tired of many of the reviewers being professional musicans who often had little idea  how to communicate to non-musicians, what their reviewed album was about, and perhaps coveried too many different avante/eclectic musical types; then finally a piss take article spread over two editions on prog had me move on.

 

The least worse: Zig Zag, the magazine of the early 70's . Apart from the Rock Family Trees, an excellent run of interviews with Traffic (I think called 'The lost cottage years'), articles on Love/Arthur Lee, Kevin Ayers, etc. And probably if anybody wants to research the development of progressive music through to progressive rock, this is one of the prime sources of info and is largely relieable.