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AND THERE goes another year...

They tend to fly by, especially if you’re knocking them off in the month-by-month rota of a magazine production cycle. Indeed, at the end of last week we were discussing ideas for the issue of Q that goes on sale in June 2008, which is already halfway through next year. In such ways we age with terrifying haste.

On which pleasant note, let us return to the current issue of Q wherein we, as tradition almost dictates, cast our collective eyes back over 2007, The Year In Music. In broad brushstrokes, this means that Led Zeppelin are our Band Of The Year (who else did, or could, entice 1.2 million folks to enter a lottery for tickets to their one-off reunion show, and have one particular gentlemen be prepared to part with £83,000 for the pleasure?), and grace the cover in what is their first new photo shoot since all the hoopla surrounding that date at the O2 Arena began.

Arcade Fire have made our Album Of The Year, and Kaiser Chiefs, Mika and The Police are among our People Of The Year, for reasons many and varied, and the rise of the teenager is our Trend Of The Year. For further details on all this, well, that’s what the issue itself is for.

For what it’s worth, personally speaking, The Year In Music has been a rum old thing. The world is changing around us at ever greater pace, a fact that is having profound consequences for the music business. CD sales are down everywhere, catastrophically so in the US, which usually acts as a lightning rod for everywhere else when it comes to such things. And yet, there has been as much fine music made this year as ever.

I’d suggest that this year the Americans – the aforementioned Arcade Fire, but also the likes of The White Stripes, The National, The Hold Steady, The Shins, The Decemberists, Bright Eyes, Interpol, Spoon and more – had the edge when it came to records whose joys were both distinctive and durable, but generally there was much to brighten the gloom, not least yet another magical offering from our old chums Radiohead. The good stuff will endure, wherever and however it might be delivered.

Likewise, for Q and much of the media too, 2007’s waters have been difficult to navigate and always uncertain. With so much choice on offer, we thank you for your continued support. We made certain changes to the magazine in the Spring of this year which seemed to bring some stability and growth; more of the same will follow.

And one of the real pleasures – and challenges – of the year for us has been expanding the Q remit across this, the website, and also via the radio and TV shows we have developed (Q The Jury, New To Q, Q The Music), and Q The Music Club Live At The Hospital, the monthly live event we launched last August. All of these activities move us out of the comfort zone of producing a monthly magazine, but being able to host the likes of KT Tunstall, Kate Nash and the Kaiser Chiefs in our radio studios, have Stereophonics perform exclusively live for our TV pilot, and see Shack peform one of the great gigs of the year at The Hospital is reason enough to press ahead with these, and further, endeavours.

If you have supported or consumed any of the above, thank you again. I hope you enjoyed the experience. You’re among a million and more music fans doing the same thing each month. Again, we hope to bring you more of the same in the coming months. Please, as ever, let us know your thoughts on what we’re doing, and what you’d like to see more, or indeed less, of. They are always welcome.

As the year winds to a close, we have Richard Hawley’s eagerly anticipate performance at Q The Music Club on 19 December to look forward to. Come the New Year, come albums from the likes of Coldplay, R.EM., Madonna, U2, Green Day, Franz Ferdinand, Oasis and many more. We will back at Glastonbury in June, continuing Q’s long-standing relationship with the world’s greatest music festival. And in October the Q Awards will return…

…But there we go again, wishing away time. For now, on behalf of all at Q, may I extend the very best wishes for the season and for a happy and healthy New Year to you all.

Until 2008…

PAUL REES – Editor, Q

9:00 AM | 29/11/2007