MARKET FORCES: A byline for the '80s and now the '90s. Roughly translated it should mean that the public get what the public want. Anyone passingly familiar with Paul Weller's 'Going Underground', however, will not have escaped the perspicacity of his line "the public gets what the public wants". What this all amounts to is that cash is king. If something is sufficiently profitable for the parties concerned, it gets their support, but there's no consideration given to any value other than commercial.

Unfortunately for you and me, music is an art. And while certain works of art can be used to realise vast profits, the value of the majority is only in their intellectual or emotional value. This, of course, is nothing new to the average aspiring musician - whether you've had your demo tactfully rejected by the head of A&R at CBS or had it destroyed by your mother in the interests of "peace and quiet", you'll have met up with the thin end of the market forces wedge. The problem presented by market forces revolves around appeal. If your music is widely popular, you're going to find market forces work for you. If, on the other hand, it doesn't, you're fighting them.

Of course, market forces affect many more commodities than music - always to the detriment of the minority. Given that you're probably already making minority interest music, you're also making it in a minority interest way - by far the most popular way of making music is still the old-fashioned way, using drums and guitars. It will come as no surprise, then, to realise you're reading a minority interest magazine - the trade call it a "specialist" magazine.

When it comes to operating under market forces, the magazine retail trade are capable of being just as ruthless as the music biz. One of their current moves is a drive to fill their floor and shelf space with more profitable merchandise (when did you last come across a highstreet newsagent who only sold newspapers and magazines?). And the trade themselves are predicting that amongst the next couple of years' casualties of this course of action will be many of the "specialist" magazines. Now, I'm not just talking about MT here, I'm not even just talking about specialist musicians' magazines, I'm talking about any magazine that isn't sufficiently popular to make the cash-hungry news trade enough dosh. I'm also talking about magazines you rely on for information and entertainment.

In America the news trade has been led by market forces for many years now and, consequently, there is a course of action we can adopt to protect ourselves. Following America's example (as we seem perpetually destined to), we can turn to magazine subscriptions. These have not previously been as popular over here as they have in the States, largely because they deprive you, the reader, of the right to refuse a particular issue if you feel there's nothing of interest to you, and they require you to put your cash upfront. Fair comment. The alternative, however, is to risk losing access to magazines like MT. But certainly, the casual reader will lose his or her opportunity to buy the occasional issue as a direct result of the news trade's actions.

It's no accident that MT began a "subscriptions drive" last month - it will become a commercial necessity for any magazine not dealing with mainstream issues. And to ease the transition into this phase of capitalism, we are going to make various offers and concessions to you should you subscribe to the magazine - take advantage of them.

Finally, if this editorial steps out of line with MT's usual theme of music, gear and philosophy, it's not as a result of publisher's directives or any other commercial pressures, it's simply an editor's wish to protect an area of journalism he regards as important to certain areas of music and the musicians that make it. Believe it.