What are your best magazine articles of all time?
Do you agree with the US list of the top magazine features of the past 50 years – and what else would you include?
On the trail of radical chic: Tom Wolfe in 1966 with the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and the band's manager, Rock Scully. (Wolfe is the one in the suit.) Photograph: Ted Streshinsky/Corbis
The US website Cool Tools has compiled a list of the best magazine articles of all time that has sparked much online debate.
No doubt compiled with an eye to reading on the iPad, it's a fascinating (if subjective) trawl through the past half decade of magazine publishing.
It's heavy on the "state of the nation"-style articles from the likes of Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe in which Esquire and Harper's specialised in the 1950s to 1970s. They were times in which magazine articles really mattered: you could argue that Richard Hofstadter's 1964 "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" summed up an entire era.
Elsewhere, there's Tom Wolfe's biting analysis of "radical chic" and Hunter S Thompson's notorious "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved".
There's also a smattering of heavyweight tech articles, including Ron Rosenbaum's groundbreaking 1971 Esquire piece on phone-hacking "phreakers", which sparked interest in hacking before there were even home computers.
Wired magazine makes a strong showing in more recent articles; few would dispute the influence of Chris Anderson's 2004 piece on "the long tail", for example.
There's a lot to argue with in there – not least the lack of articles by women – but it's an interesting starting point.
With the rise of online news and Twitter, are long-form articles on the way out? The list highlights the fact that magazines such as the New Yorker and Wired are still publishing strong in-depth pieces – but this kind of journalism clearly needs investment.
Would iPad users be willing to pay for an app that compiled long-form articles? The site Longform.org already provides this kind of service – either for printing out or reading using the Instapaper app.
The list also makes one wonder whether British magazines such as the New Statesman or the Spectator have less influence than their US counterparts – or at least why their writers get less acclaim.
So did Christopher Hitchens or Paul Johnson's work in the New Statesman inspire you? Or Julie Burchill or Tony Parsons in the NME? Clive James in The Listener? James Brown in Loaded?
I can think of a 1983 Melody Maker feature on the Smiths by Dave McCulloch titled "Handsome Devils". It wasn't the best-written piece ever – it even spelled the singer's name as "Morrisey" – but, along with John Peel on Radio 1, it helped turn me from youthful punk rocker to fey indie kid. The NME, Sounds and The Face went on to inspire me throughout my teenage years.
Let us know what you think are the best magazine articles of all time below.
No doubt compiled with an eye to reading on the iPad, it's a fascinating (if subjective) trawl through the past half decade of magazine publishing.
It's heavy on the "state of the nation"-style articles from the likes of Norman Mailer and Tom Wolfe in which Esquire and Harper's specialised in the 1950s to 1970s. They were times in which magazine articles really mattered: you could argue that Richard Hofstadter's 1964 "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" summed up an entire era.
Elsewhere, there's Tom Wolfe's biting analysis of "radical chic" and Hunter S Thompson's notorious "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved".
There's also a smattering of heavyweight tech articles, including Ron Rosenbaum's groundbreaking 1971 Esquire piece on phone-hacking "phreakers", which sparked interest in hacking before there were even home computers.
Wired magazine makes a strong showing in more recent articles; few would dispute the influence of Chris Anderson's 2004 piece on "the long tail", for example.
There's a lot to argue with in there – not least the lack of articles by women – but it's an interesting starting point.
With the rise of online news and Twitter, are long-form articles on the way out? The list highlights the fact that magazines such as the New Yorker and Wired are still publishing strong in-depth pieces – but this kind of journalism clearly needs investment.
Would iPad users be willing to pay for an app that compiled long-form articles? The site Longform.org already provides this kind of service – either for printing out or reading using the Instapaper app.
The list also makes one wonder whether British magazines such as the New Statesman or the Spectator have less influence than their US counterparts – or at least why their writers get less acclaim.
So did Christopher Hitchens or Paul Johnson's work in the New Statesman inspire you? Or Julie Burchill or Tony Parsons in the NME? Clive James in The Listener? James Brown in Loaded?
I can think of a 1983 Melody Maker feature on the Smiths by Dave McCulloch titled "Handsome Devils". It wasn't the best-written piece ever – it even spelled the singer's name as "Morrisey" – but, along with John Peel on Radio 1, it helped turn me from youthful punk rocker to fey indie kid. The NME, Sounds and The Face went on to inspire me throughout my teenage years.
Let us know what you think are the best magazine articles of all time below.
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