STORY OF THE FACE: The Magazine that Changed Culture

When the music journalist Nick Logan moved on from New Musical Express and Smash Hits to launch a new monthly magazine The Face, he was making a cultural statement. As his editor Sheryll Garratt says, "If you come from Mars, or even from 2017, and you want to know what was happening in popular culture in the 1980s and 1990s, pick up an issue of The Face and it will pretty much tell you all you need to know". The Face revolutionised the production and consumption of music media in the Thatcher era through Logan's mixture of charm and relentless grasp of essentials, epitomised in his question "What is there on page four that makes me want to turn to page five?". Funding the first issue himself in an era of global uncertainty, Logan decided to give primacy to the look of the magazine with photography a major element and very few ads. Early designs have the streamlined quality of the Bauhaus era 50 years earlier, especially after designer Neville Brody came on board. The first issue majored on The Clash, with a cover photo of Specials frontman Jerry Dammers emerging from a dim basement and included a feature by Ian Dury on Elvis Presley. Julie Burchill was on board from the beginning, although she dismissively classed Logan with the ex-Mods who had "glimpsed Nirvana and settled for Neasden". Bowie became a regular cover face and others would feature Boy George, Bob Marley, Bjork, Kate Moss, Robbie Williams, Christian Slater and other influencers. Britpop was a game-changer in the mid-90s, and the magazine weathered the notorious Jason Donovan lawsuit, but it started to lose out to laddish culture when the launch of Loaded indicated that the zeitgeist was moving on. The prestigious Mark Boxer award revived their fortunes, but by the end of the 90s Logan was looking to bail out. 24 x 30cm, 352pp, softback, superbly illustrated in colour throughout, list of all contributors.
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