Mojo

About Mojo

When it launched in October 1993 with Bob Dylan and John Lennon on the cover, Mojo set out to do for rock music what the great rock writers had always done for it in prose: take it seriously, dig deep, and tell the stories properly. Conceived by Emap as a magazine for the 30-to-45-plus generation — the baby boomers who had grown up with the Beatles, Dylan, Bowie and the Stones — Mojo became Britain's most respected monthly music magazine: famous for its definitive cover features, its bespoke covermount CDs, its 30-plus pages of reviews, and writing from some of the finest music journalists ever to put pen to paper.

Published monthly in London — initially by Emap, and by Bauer Media Group since January 2008 — Mojo covers classic and modern rock, folk, soul, country, reggae, electronic and experimental music, celebrating quality over mere popularity. Below is a detailed profile: its founding, editorial philosophy, ownership, formats, signature features, celebrated contributors, and its enduring influence on music journalism.

History and Founding

Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title that would cater to the burgeoning interest in classic rock music. The new magazine was designed to appeal to the 30 to 45-plus age group — the baby boomer generation — and was aimed specifically at ABC1 men aged 25 to 44 who, disillusioned with the music of the day, remembered the music of the 1960s and 1970s with nostalgia.

Mojo was first published on 15 October 1993, launched by Emap Metro at a cover price of £2.25 with an initial print run of 65,000 and an estimated settled circulation of 40,000. In keeping with its classic rock aesthetic, the first issue had Bob Dylan and John Lennon as its cover stars and carried a feature on Van Morrison. The launch editor was Paul Du Noyer, a former editor of Q, with members of Q's design team producing a perfect-bound magazine on good-quality glossy paper. The editorial was to concentrate more on features than on music criticism — long, immersive reads rather than quick reviews.

The magazine was an immediate critical and commercial success, and its formula — intelligent, passionate, deeply reported music writing — proved so influential that it inspired imitators including Blender in the US and Uncut in the UK. In January 2008, publication passed from Emap to Bauer Media Group, the Hamburg-based media company, which has published it ever since.

Editorial Focus and Audience

Mojo's mission statement declares: "At Mojo we cover the good stuff." Its award-winning editorial team prides itself on delivering a magazine packed with insight, passion and revelatory encounters with the greatest musicians of all time, whether established or emerging. The magazine prefers to celebrate quality over popularity — music that will stand the test of time — and its writers aim for depth and craft that only a monthly music magazine can deliver, taking the time to get to the core of a story.

While the magazine frequently covers classic rock acts such as the Beatles, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Paul Weller, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Neil Young, it has also championed many newer and "left-field" acts — it was the first mainstream magazine in the UK to focus on the White Stripes, and modern cover stars have included Lana Del Rey and Arctic Monkeys. From classic and modern rock to folk, soul, country, reggae, electronic and experimental, Mojo's range is wide but its criterion is constant: enduring quality.

The audience is predominantly male, adult, ABC1 — music obsessives who buy records, attend gigs and argue about producers. The magazine is loved by its readers and artists alike, the publishers say, because it engages them on the subject they love most: music itself.

Ownership and Publishing

Mojo was initially published by Emap from its launch in October 1993 until January 2008, when it passed to Bauer Media Group as part of Bauer's acquisition of Emap's consumer magazine business. Bauer Media Group, headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, is one of Europe's largest media companies, and Mojo sits within its UK music portfolio alongside titles such as Kerrang!. Bauer also operated a digital radio station, Mojo Radio, devoted to classic rock, extending the brand beyond print.

The magazine is published monthly from London. Its editors have included launch editor Paul Du Noyer, followed by Mat Snow, Paul Trynka, Pat Gilbert and Phil Alexander; the current editor is John Mulvey. The title's website is mojo4music.com.

Print Editions and Frequency

Mojo is published monthly in the United Kingdom — twelve issues a year. It has been one of Britain's best-selling music magazines for much of its life: in the second half of one recent reporting year it recorded an average monthly circulation of 98,484, overtaking its Bauer stablemate Q, and market research has cited circulation figures around 114,000 at its stronger periods. The print magazine is a premium, perfect-bound glossy built for keeping: long features, lavish photography and the famous reviews section reward the monthly rhythm.

Bauer also launched Mojo Special Limited Editions in 2002 — bookazine-style specials, each dedicated to a band or genre, beginning with 1000 Days That Shook the World: The Psychedelic Beatles — extending the brand into collectible, high-value publishing.

Digital Presence

Mojo's website, mojo4music.com, offers what the magazine calls "a daily download of what's going on" — news, features and reviews updated far more frequently than the monthly print cycle allows. The brand is active on social media, and a Mojo app for Android and Apple devices lets readers take the magazine with them. Membership and subscription offers, including digital access, form a growing part of the brand's commercial model.

The site extends the magazine's authority into the daily music conversation while the print edition remains the definitive monthly statement — the long read, the definitive interview, the carefully compiled CD.

Iconic Features

Every month Mojo brings readers a definitive cover feature on an iconic act — the in-depth, career-spanning interview-profile that is the magazine's signature. It also includes a bespoke covermount CD, specially compiled by the editorial team or by a major musician in Mojo's world, tying in with a current article or theme — a feature that has introduced readers to countless new artists over the years.

The Filter — the magazine's famous reviews section — runs to 30 pages or more of the best of the month's music, both classic and contemporary, covering new releases and reissues with authority. The magazine also runs celebrated top 100 lists and themed issues, and in 2004 it introduced the Mojo Honours List, an awards ceremony combining readers' and critics' awards that became a fixture of the music industry calendar.

Mojo's guest editors have included David Bowie, Tom Waits, Noel Gallagher and the Red Hot Chili Peppers — a roll call that demonstrates the magazine's iconic status among musicians themselves.

Notable Contributors

Many of the most noted music critics of the modern era have written for Mojo, including Charles Shaar Murray, Greil Marcus, Nick Kent, David Fricke, Jon Savage and Mick Wall — a roster of bylines that reads as a hall of fame of rock journalism. The magazine's launch editor Paul Du Noyer set its tone of intelligent passion, and successors including Mat Snow, Paul Trynka, Pat Gilbert, Phil Alexander and current editor John Mulvey have maintained it.

The magazine's founding proposition — employing the world's best music writers and photographers — has remained its editorial creed: no other music magazine, its publishers claim, can tell Mojo readers something they don't already know about the music it writes about, and its readers repay that authority with unusual trust and loyalty.

Cultural Impact

Mojo helped define the modern form of the intelligent monthly music magazine. Its emphasis on long-form features, historical depth and serious criticism — applied equally to canonical classic rock and to emerging left-field acts — set a template widely imitated on both sides of the Atlantic, directly inspiring titles such as Blender and Uncut. Its covermount CDs pioneered the idea of the magazine as curator, a role that streaming playlists would later adopt.

The Mojo Honours List gave the magazine an institutional role in recognising musical achievement, while its guest-editor issues — placing artists such as Bowie and Waits in the editor's chair — blurred the line between the magazine and the music it covered. For three decades it has been, in its own phrase, an immersive experience: a magazine readers lose themselves in, and keep.

Awards and Recognition

Mojo describes its editorial team as award-winning, and the title has collected industry honours for its writing, design and covers throughout its history. The Mojo Honours List, launched in 2004, became an awards institution in its own right, celebrating the artists the magazine champions. Its sustained commercial performance — repeatedly Britain's best-selling music monthly — and its influence on subsequent music titles are further measures of its standing.

In early 2010 the magazine was at the centre of an industry controversy when Bauer attempted to impose new contracts on photographers and writers across its music titles, with some 200 contributors to Mojo, Kerrang! and Q reported as refusing the terms — a dispute that highlighted the value placed on the freelance talent behind the brand.

Recent Developments

Under Bauer Media Group's ownership, Mojo continues to publish monthly from London as Britain's leading intelligent music magazine, with its print edition complemented by mojo4music.com, its app, and its social channels. The brand's formula — the definitive cover feature, the bespoke CD, the 30-page Filter — has proved remarkably durable across three decades of upheaval in the music industry, from the CD boom through downloads to streaming.

As the generation Mojo was launched to serve has aged, the magazine has aged with it while continuing to champion new music — from the White Stripes in its early years to Arctic Monkeys and beyond. More than thirty years after Dylan and Lennon graced its first cover, Mojo remains the magazine musicians want to be interviewed by and music lovers want to be seen reading: still covering the good stuff.