Has music journalism changed for the better?

Eighteen months ago, it was just possible for middle-aged nostalgists to delude themselves that music magazines still had anti-establishment credibility. Cameron Crowe's film Almost Famous plugged straight into retained memories of the days when Stuart Cosgrove interviewed the IRA for the NME... and asked them what their favourite Northern soul records were. Sitting in a darkened cinema amid assorted overweight throwbacks to the early 1970s, it was pleasing to recall that P J O'Rourke honed his writing style by penning pieces for Rolling Stone, and that Julie Burchill launched a lifetime of spleen as a hip young gun-slinger on the NME.

It was drivel, but it felt good. Now? Melody Maker and Select were both axed two years ago. This month's edition of Ministry magazine is the last. The blend of dance-music and lifestyle journalism that briefly made it the bestselling title in the sector no longer works. A new magazine covering issues relevant to "global youth culture" may be launched next summer.

NME is outsold by the rock, punk and metal title Kerrang!, which has just appointed its youngest editor ever, the 26-year-old Ashley Bird. Rolling Stone staff toil under the consciously anti-intellectual leadership of Ed Needham, former editor of the "new lad" glossy FHM.

Nobody should doubt Bird's dedication. On appointment, he said: "In many ways I feel like I just married my childhood sweetheart." His boss, Dave Henderson of Emap, the parent company, said, "Ashley is the absolute real thing in the world of Kerrang!. If he couldn't be writing and editing it, you know he'd be buying it and down at the front at all the Kerrang! gigs."

The point is well made. The music of rebellion has become just another niche marketing opportunity, not the stuff on which counterculture journalists feed. The reshuffle that preceded Bird's appointment was part of the pattern. Paul Rees handed over the editorship of Kerrang! to take control of Q. He had boosted Kerrang!'s sales by 60 per cent, winning Media Week's "brand of the year" title on the way.

The success of nu-metal bands helped that surge, but the changing face of Britain's music press owes less to the emergence of scintillating new talent than to a reluctance to give it a fair hearing. Simon Frith, professor of film and media studies at Stirling University, says, "Much of the serious music criticism that the rock magazines used to do is now done in the broadsheet newspapers. Now everything has to be branded, and that effects the sort of copy editors are prepared to commission. Each title is serving a particular market. Even market leaders such as Q are doing that."

Part of the explanation lies in the growth of multimedia. There are more exciting ways for fans to obtain information than in magazines. It is available online. So is the music. Music magazines are losing influence and commercial appeal. The industry they cover is a feeding-ground for tabloid gossip, internet chat and digital radio.

The result is growing conservatism. Magazines fight to consolidate their hold on an established niche, not to shock and surprise. Take a look at NME's website or Kerrang!'s digital TV channel. The sense that those publications know precisely what their readers like is powerful. They will recycle the same acts rather than confronting young minds with too many new ideas.

The early press coverage that was once vital in launching the careers of young bands deemed too "alternative" for mainstream radio-play has become harder to get. The music-magazine market is dominated by titles that are reluctant to promote an artist until they have won a fan-base. Top circulation is still achieved by the staid, establishment title Q, although it lost 10 per cent of its sale between January and June this year. Mojo, a more retro publication, managed 3 per cent growth in that period.

The recent launch of X-ray, aimed at the micro-niche between Kerrang! and Q, was touted as an opportunity for readers "to experience new stuff and make up their own minds." The editor, Richard Sutcliffe, explained that he wanted to "reflect the new consumers who like a variety of music. It means we can put The Strokes next to The Streets, FC Kahuna with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Ms Dynamite with Coldplay, without it looking unusual."

There is a real battle between Kerrang! and NME. But nobody expects it to be won by an editor asking an aspiring novelist to pen 2,500 words on the symbiosis between nu metal and the anti-globalisation campaign.