quoted 3 lines Is it my imagination or do all dance music publications look the same now?>Is it my imagination or do all dance music publications look the same now?
>I just gotta copy of the latest XL8R8 and it looked like Revolution, Remix
>and Mixer.
Ok, I'll admit that I'm hella biased here, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to back that one up. Design-wise, I think XLR8R is waaaay different from Revolution & Mixer (don't know Remix, so can't comment); Revolution is all white space & internet-influenced design (lots of sidebars, insets, "link"-like text everywhere); XLR8R is much more about blocks of text, color, graphic. And while I'm not a fan of all of XLR8R's typography, it's attempting to do something different with the form, which Revolution decidedly was not, nor Mixer.
Content-wise (and here's where I'm really biased) I also think there are BIG differences between them. Good luck getting Boards of Canada, or better yet IG Culture, on the cover of Revolution or Mixer. XLR8R covers everything from pretty big-label releases (with the exception of crappy commercial trance) to seriously underground shit; not just "dance" music but noise and sound art as well. I don't recall reading any reviews of Ryoji Ikeda, Carsten Nicolai, et al in Revolution.
If anything, content-wise XLR8R is a lot more like Jockey Slut in the UK (minus that magazine's very cheeky British tone), with a bit of the Wire's esoteric angle creeping in there.
And by the way, I just picked up the new issue of Urb, and I have to give it props - one of the best looking, best-curated and best-written issues of that magazine I've seen in ages.
Phil