PMH/Q and The Face: Narratives of consumption in the UK music press in the 1980s

This article challenges the view that the use of consumer-based vocabulary in the music press is at odds with valuing popular music qualitatively. This is placed in the context of those who have written specifically on the music press including Forde (2001), Strachan and Leonard (2003) and John Stratton (1982) as well as some of the key figures in Popular Music Studies: from Adorno (1942) and Reisman (1950) to Goodwin (1988), Grossberg (1993) and Negus (1996). The piece focuses in detail on The Face and Q during the 1980s and includes a resume of the personnel and institutions involved. However, the main focus of the article is the textual analysis of both titles and, in particular, the interpretation of this in light of Pierre Bourdieu’s work in Distinction (1979). It is argued that while education and cultural taste are integral parts in the function of the music press, it is the reflexive construction of the self that is primary in the judgements made about popular music.