Loud and Quiet

An Independent Music Magazine Born as a Fanzine

Loud and Quiet is a British independent music magazine based in London. Founded in January 2005 by Stuart Stubbs, it began as a home-printed fanzine made in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, and grew into a free magazine distributed through record shops and venues across the United Kingdom and, from 2016, in New York City. It focuses on new music from underground indie, alternative, electronic and hip hop artists, published in print and online with long-form interviews and photography.

The magazine is published bi-monthly in its current form, following a period as a free monthly and a relaunch in newspaper format. Its ISSN is 2049-9892. Stubbs remains its editor, and the title remains fully independent — a fact central to its identity and, during the Covid-19 pandemic, to its survival appeal to readers.

The First Issue in 2005

Issue one of Loud and Quiet appeared in January 2005 with Pete Doherty on the cover. Only 150 copies were produced, in a homemade fanzine style, and distributed through independent record shops and clothes shops in London. The magazine had been created by Stubbs in a spare room in Southend; in 2006 it relocated to London, the centre of the music scene it covered.

That origin shaped its editorial character. Loud and Quiet was written by fans and working music journalists outside the large publishing groups, and it championed artists early, before mainstream coverage. Later covers and features included acts such as Crystal Castles, Foals, Fuck Buttons, Bat for Lashes and The Horrors, many covered as they emerged from the underground rather than after commercial breakthrough.

Format Changes: From Fanzine to Newspaper to Relaunch

The magazine's physical form changed repeatedly as it balanced ambition against print costs. It began as a small black-and-white publication, printed two A4 magazine issues in 2008, and was then relaunched as a newspaper in 2009 to reduce the growing cost of printing. The newspaper format, distributed free, allowed larger print runs and a wider stockist network than a conventional glossy could have supported for an independent publisher.

In March 2018 the magazine relaunched again with a new format and design, returning to a more conventional magazine form. Following the pandemic, it settled as a bi-monthly title under a subscription model, while back issues and digital editions extended its life beyond the free distribution network.

Distribution, Circulation and the Free Model

For most of its life Loud and Quiet was given away free, funded by advertising, much of it from live music, record labels and festivals. It was distributed heavily in and around London and in around 30 other UK towns and cities, through record shops, venues and other music outlets. In March 2016 distribution began in New York City, a rare transatlantic step for a British independent music title.

Total circulation was reported at 32,000 in 2012. For a free independent title that figure represented a substantial national presence, achieved without a newsstand cover price because copies were picked up where music fans already gathered. The model's weakness was its dependence on advertising, which became starkly visible in 2020.

Editorial Focus: Underground and Alternative Music

Editorially, Loud and Quiet concentrates on new music from underground indie, alternative, electronic and hip hop artists. Its characteristic content is the long-form interview: extended conversations and photo shoots that give emerging artists serious treatment at a stage when larger publications might offer only a short review. Album reviews, features and opinion pieces support that interview core.

The design style has been described as clean and minimal, a deliberate contrast with the visual clutter of many music titles. Photography plays a major role, with contributors — writers, photographers and illustrators who, as the magazine puts it, love music — forming a loose creative community around the title.

Loud and Quiet Recordings and Alt-J

To mark its fifth anniversary in 2010, the magazine created a small record label arm, Loud and Quiet Recordings. Its first release was a compilation, I AM V, featuring bands that had appeared in the magazine, including Health, Metronomy, Gold Panda and Telepathe.

The label achieved an notable place in British music history in October 2011, when it released Bloodflood / Tessellate, the debut single by Alt-J. The band went on to win the Mercury Prize in 2012. That a fanzine-born magazine's label released the debut single of a Mercury Prize-winning band illustrates how deeply Loud and Quiet was embedded in the underground scene it covered — it did not merely report on that scene, it participated in it.

Midnight Chats, Video and Live Events

In 2016 the magazine launched Midnight Chats, a music interview podcast, extending its long-form interview approach into audio. The podcast, along with video content and live events, became part of a wider operation that also worked with festivals. These extensions mattered editorially and commercially: they gave the magazine year-round contact with readers between print issues and gave artists and partners additional ways to work with the title.

The interview remained the common thread. Whether in print, on the podcast or at a live event, Loud and Quiet's product was the extended conversation with musicians, conducted by interviewers who knew the underground scenes those musicians came from.

The Pandemic and the Subscription Turn

The Covid-19 pandemic struck the magazine's model directly. When venues closed and gigs and festivals were cancelled in March 2020, the live-music advertising that funded the free magazine disappeared almost at once. Stubbs described the effect as like a tap being turned off.

In April 2020 Loud and Quiet launched a subscription model, asking readers to pay for what had been free. The package, priced at fifty pounds a year, included the next six issues delivered to the home, digital editions, monthly playlists and other benefits, alongside a limited fifteen-year anniversary zine produced, home-printed and stapled, in the style of the very first edition. The magazine announced it would remain in print as a bi-monthly title. The episode was widely reported in coverage of how British music magazines fought to survive the pandemic, and Loud and Quiet's direct appeal — that underground media could survive if enough readers valued it — became its defining example.

Audience and Cultural Position

Loud and Quiet's audience is readers who follow new and underground music closely: gig-goers, record buyers and listeners who discover artists through independent media rather than mainstream charts coverage. Its stockist network of record shops and venues placed it physically inside that culture, and its free price removed the barrier between a curious reader and a new artist's first long interview.

In the landscape of British music publishing, it occupies the independent sector that historically produced fanzines and the alternative press. As large-circulation music monthlies closed or moved online during the 2010s, titles like Loud and Quiet carried the tradition of print music journalism at a smaller, community-funded scale.

Significance and Continuing Publication

Loud and Quiet's significance lies in its longevity and its trajectory. A magazine that began as 150 home-printed copies in Southend in 2005 was still publishing two decades later, having distributed in New York, launched a record label that released a Mercury Prize-winning band's debut single, built a podcast audience and reinvented its funding model under pandemic pressure without selling to a larger publisher.

Published from London, focusing on underground indie, alternative, electronic and hip hop music with long-form interviews and photography in print and online, it remains a working example of independent music journalism sustained by its readers.