Rock Candy carrying the flag of yesteryears music and more !!!

Who: Rock Candy Magazine
What: a leading specialty music magazine in the current market
When: Issue #1 April 2017
Reads Like: early Classic Rock AOR that was front to cover reading

Typically this blog is about undiscovered or rediscovered artists. But every now and then we explore beyond artists and in the past have covered labels that support our theme. But this time around it is about a magazine. From the days of one’s youth, there was no doubt that the UK music newspapers of Sounds, NME and Melody Maker were top shelf material. With each newspaper focusing on different aspects of musical genres there was a personal preference to Sounds. With the likes of writers such as Geoff Barton and Pete Makowski (R.I.P.) the transitioning to an early first full color UK magazine Kerrang, there was a little too much focus on heavy metal and this particular writer did not make the transition. Since then the UK has presented several genre specific magazine and while Classic Rock AOR was the bomb, Rock Candy has more than filled that void. But not initially!!!
 
With the likes of Derek Oliver heading up Rock Candy with his staff of Malcolm Dome (R.I.P.), along with Howard Johnson, Dave Ling, Dave Reynolds, Rob Evans and Jon Hotten to name a few, the writers were clearly a winning combination, or at least on paper. However, with the record label already in place dating back to 2005, despite the magazine being founded 12 years later, the early impressions of the magazine was that it was a promotional supplement to the record label. Over the years these early impressions have since been eradicated.

With the top shelf writers in place and also the technological genius of Ross Sampson, the magazine layouts, high gloss photography is supplemented with a digital copy but not at the expense of a physical primary magazine subscription, it is nothing short of stellar material. And frankly the demise of Classic Rock AOR after 13 issues at the end of 2014, there has not been another magazine that is compelling enough to read from cover to cover. Rock Candy since its development and expansion has become one of those magazines.

Now Rock Candy is not just a top record label to reissue great rock music of yesteryear but now it is a magazine that is still focused on that particular musical taste, but one that is beyond just focusing on self promoting its label but also branching out and bringing in bands of that beyond their exclusive label and early magazine focused era. It is no longer about self promotion but a magazine that stands on its own. And with a review of a magazine that promotes re-discovered artists, now that the Angel catalog has been completely re-issued on the fantastic record label how about a look at the Punky Meadows/Mickey Jones pre-Angel album in the band called Bux? And just when you thought this was an unbiased review!!! But seriously this is a great magazine in its own right aside from its mother ship record label.
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https://rockcandymag.com​

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