An interesting confession today from David Hepworth, the distinguished boss of Development Hell, the company behind Word magazine and now Mixmag, too.
Speaking at a private gathering of music business types and media, at an event staged by Nokia, Hepworth revealed that when he and Mark Ellen were cooking up Q magazine 20 years ago, he was the one who came up with the idea of a star ratings system for album reviews.
So he's responsible for the posters and TV ads telling you that every new big album is a five-star job.. a 10-star job... We as journalists have made the record company marketing boys' job easier; and we've all suffered and become lazy.
It's Hepworth's contention that people no longer trust the press and easily appropriated sloganeering - most of us would rather go on the recommendation of 'my mate Tony' when looking for new music. As it happens, journalists are always debating the merits of such star systems (at least in my experience they are).
But of course, Hepworth may well be right; and when we look over our shoulders at the proliferation of online reviews and blogs and at the success of services such as Amazon and lastfm... well, it's clear that people can increasingly discover new music without our assistance; and that's not considering the more general spread of pop across all media since the days when a Nick Kent review in the NME could make or break a record.
So: the ante's been upped.. (Quick plug here for the next issue of the Music Monthly magazine, out a week Sunday. We think we're getting there! >Coughs<.)
Anyway, the Nokia conference - which followed last month's rambling Changing Media event staged by the Guardian - demonstrated that everyone in the game is obsessing about one thing only at the moment: how to serve you better.
