Spex (magazine)

Spex

Cover of Spex No. 321 (July/August 2009)
Categories	Music and pop culture magazine
Frequency	Bi-monthly
Total circulation (2008)	21,249
First issue	1980
Company	Piranha Media GmbH
Country	Germany
Language	German
Website	http://www.spex.de/

Spex is a prominent German rock and pop culture magazine located in Berlin, Germany. Besides music news, Spex also covers literature, cinema, fashion and contemporary social trends. Since January 2008, Spex is headquartered in Berlin and includes an audio CD.

The paper's first issue was published in Cologne in 1980 by a small group of writers who decided to found their own music paper: they were Gerald Hündgen, Clara Drechsler, Dirk Scheuring, Wilfried Rütten and Peter Bömmels. They first considered naming it 555 but finally pitched on Spex – which means "glasses" in English slang. The name Spex reminds of the then very famous punk band X-Ray Spex. The magazine was initially distributed in record stores and railway stations. The articles were not as elaborate as those in comparable magazines, as the objective was to present new young artists. Four issues were published in the first year. Spex turned monthly in 1981. In 1983 its main competitor, Sounds, closed down. That paper addressed very modern artists and tendencies like punk, new wave and the German new wave. Most of its editorial team was hired to work for Spex, like Diedrich Diederichsen (forthcoming editor) or Olaf Dante Marx. The articles took a new turn, more theoretical and more literary.

Around 1983, Spex gained recognition as a major music magazine thanks to the quality of its editorial line, competing with British music magazines such as the New Musical Express or The Face. The magazine's strength was to focus on pop music in the context of pop culture, while still covering social and political issues in a humorous and ironic tone. Some Spex writers saw their profile rise as they started writing opinions columns, such as Diedrich Diederichsen, Rainald Goetz, or Clara Drechsler's editorials, which earned her comparisons to Julie Burchill. Spex is not only a platform for new authors but also for new trends. One of the first publications to put Madonna on their cover (November 1983), the magazine also opens its pages to debate on contemporary technical and social issues such as "girlism".