About
The first question is always: ‘What is a meme?’. A meme (as defined by the philosopher, Richard Dawkins) is a ‘cultural gene’, an idea, phrase, melody, etc. that seems to self-replicate itself through human communication. Meme Magazine is therefore a magazine about memes, but is, crucially, also a meme itself (work it out).
(The second question is inevitably ‘How do you pronounce Meme?’, to which the answer is that it rhymes with ‘Cream’).
Reviews
Meme’s reviews are based on the fact that we will only present you with the highest quality music, so everything we show you will be top-drawer. Hence, we don’t rate the LPs, but we do provide you with a number of unique views of the style and type of music you can expect on the record.
iPod / Dinner Party – this scale shows whether the LP is best kept to your own headphones or would be welcome at one of your high-class dinner parties.
Instant Love / It’s A Grower – sometimes music takes a while for us to really appreciate it; this scale tells you whether you should give the LP a few chances before you form an opinion.
Hit & Miss / Everyone’s A Winner – particularly useful on compilation LPs, this scale tells you how consistently good the songs are across the whole LP.
GenreWeb:
Because music, even on the same LP, can be so diverse, this is our unique way to show the genre of the music across all the possible genres. The size of colour against each of the genre types shows how much of that particular type is exhibited on the LP. Most will cover a large blob around the same sort of area, or be very specific to one genre, but some more diverse LPs (compilations, in particular) will look more ‘spikey’. Once you have worked out your ‘ideal’ genre web it is easy to quickly identify whether the reviewed record matches your tastes.
SoundCloud Track of the Week
Every week we choose a track from SoundCloud each week and post it up on our Home Page. So that you can keep track of the tracks we’ve chosen in the past, you can access them from the News menu.
Pick of the Week for Laid Back Radio
Each week, we bring the listeners of Laid Back Radio, our favourite recent track. Each track we feature is also included on our main site and can be accessed from the News menu. For all feedback, please email or tweet using the links on the right.
Mixes
We’ve got a whole heap of exclusive mixes for you to download and listen to. Use them to help you discover new music and then go out and buy the records. Also check out ourSoundCloud page for more treats.
Download – You can download each of these from the Soundcloud widget by clicking on the Down Arrow on the right of the stripe.
Listen – You can listen to each mix right here on the site using the Soundcloud widget (just click Play).
Subscribe – You cansubscribe to podcasts of these mixes which will automatically sync as soon as they are published. Go to ourPodcast page for full instructions.
General
Meme Magazine is about helping people discover the absolute best new, and old, music. We focus on Soul, Funk, Dance and Electronica but we also include any music that we think is good enough for your ears. The concise reviews provide more than just an opinion and summary of the LP in question: there are, of course, 5 star ratings, but also ratings for whether this is a record you would play at a dinner party or is best kept to yourself on your iPod; whether the songs will instantly grab you or will take you a few listens to get to love; or, how consistent the quality of the songs on the LP are. Each LP is categorised by multiple genres and contains links to where you can actually hear the music so you can make up your own mind. Should you like what you read and hear, there are also links to where to buy the music (please buy the music – the artists we feature tend not to be multi-millionaires that everyone assumes they are). In other words, it is a fully interactive, gratifying cultural experience that you won’t get from a print magazine or by randomly trawling the internet.
Most importantly though, the music has been reviewed and filtered by Meme Magazine so you will only get the very best music available today. And what sort of music is that exactly? Well, it’s not the established, ubiquitous bands that you will hear on the radio every day, but it is also not the absolutely cutting-edge or way-over-to-the-left-field music that will challenge your ear drums. Meme Magazine is about class music, new and old – the new music will be just ahead of the curve (the stuff everyone will be talking about in 6 months time), and the old music will be classic sounds that you have either forgotten about or missed the first time round. Meme Magazine is not snobbish – we just like very good music (some of the music may challenge you a bit, but you like a challenge, don’t you?). We review it and tell you about it because we love it. We are completely independent – there are no paybacks, no adverts, no promotions – just cool sounds for you.
The unique format provides simple concise qualitative reviews backed up with a set of quantitative ratings and links to hear the music, find out more and maybe buy. We hope the journalism and design please you and make your Meme experience a happy one. We want Meme to find as many people as possible (like a meme, duh!), so please pass on the url to as many people as you know who appreciate great music and want to expand their horizons. This helps the music get to the right people so they buy it which encourages the artists to make more. Which makes us all happy.
