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Magazines

Roots World

This is an online magazine in that a) you can read its content online and b) if you subscribe you are emailed the content before its posted on the web. You get a CD for subscribing and may receive others during the year as they are available and at the whim of friendly record companies (the RealWorld compilation CD Bliss was sent in Summer 1998). If you choose wisely and are lucky, you can come out ahead on your $20 membership.

The Beat

This is a great magazine and a bargain, too. Even if you don't read the Reggae articles, as I tend not to, there's more content here then Rhythm Music Magazine. The editor is CC Smith, who used to host The African Beat on KCRW, before that station cut back on the amount of world music it played. They don't have a web-site as far as I know, but you can read the articles written by Bob Tarte at his website.

Dirty Linen

Good extensive reviews. Coverage of more folk than I care for. Extensive concert listings.

"fRoots" (formerly Folk Roots)

A British magazine with good reviews and good listings, but they, too, cover more folk than I tend to be interested in. The concert listings are Euro (UK)-centric. Not cheap, but probably worth it if you have the spare cash. A CD comes twice a year bundled with double issues. The tracks are selected by the editors of the magazine instead of by record company publicists and are uniformly excellent and/or real interesting. Even if you don't subscribe, you should spend the $10 or so it costs to pick up the issues with the CDs that come out in July and December (if you can find them).

"Songlines

Published by the company that publishes Grammaphone and edited by the editor of Rough Guide to World Music, this British bi-monthly magazine has a lot to read. Articles about particular music (e.g., Rai, Gamelon and Son) and instruments (e.g., Shakuhachi, the Kora, the Sitar) and about performers, producers and other hangers on provide the reader with a magazine that can't be consumed in a sitting. There are reviews for about 100 CDs. Compared to fRoots, there's less English language folk, the articles do not have quite the same depth and the letters page isn't as entertaining. It's not that expensive and worth the expense. The magazine is published in U.K., but seems to be aware that it has readers in the U.S. Not surprisingly, though, the ads are mostly targeted at readers in the U.K. They have contests with pretty significant prizes , with enough lead time to get your answer back to them is long enough that folks in North America have a chance. Some technology reviews (e.g. devices that play DVDs or MP3s). Each issue includes a sampler from a world music label ranging from the predictable (Real World, Rounder) to the more obscure (Navras, xxx).

Rhythm Music Magazine

I stopped subscribing to RMM several years ago. I found it to be slick, thin (compared with the previous listings) and, I think, overly friendly to the folks they cover. Maybe that was a bad reaction to the full-color, glossy paper, but I thought they were just a tad more publicist-friendly than the other magazines listed above. That said, the editorials were often pretty sharp and critical of the industry in sensible ways, which made the softness of some of the articles that much more disappointing. I haven't read the magazine recently.
The magazine comes with a companion cd. Somewhat irritatingly, the musicians featured in the magazine are rarely if ever on the disk itself. The concert tour listings are pretty good, particularly if you live within driving distance of a big city, but don't get a newspaper from that city.

World

A new French world music magazine. I've only seen the second issue. It's thick, slick and comes with a companion cd. I got a copy in Montreal in 1998, but haven't seen it since. Since World Music magazines seem to be a growth market, this might mean that stores were sold out, but you never know.

Songlines

Published by the company that publishes Grammaphone and edited by the editor of Rough Guide to World Music, this bi-monthly magazine has a lot to read. In depth articles about particular music (e.g., Rai, Gamelon and Son) and instruments (e.g., Shakuhachi, the Kora, the Sitar) and about performers, producers and other hangers on provide the reader with a magazine that can't be consumed in a sitting. There are reviews for about 100 CDs. It's not that expensive and worth the expense. The magazine is published in U.K. and but seems to be aware that it has readers in the U.S. The ads are mostly targeted at readers in the U.K. They have contests with pretty significant prizes , with enough lead time to get your answer back to them is long enough that folks in North America have a chance.