“Probably the broadest, most accessible guitar mag in the world… It has been an absolute privilege”: Total Guitar to close after 30 years in print

Total Guitar magazine, once the biggest-selling guitar magazine in the UK and Europe, has produced it’s last-ever print edition, onsale this week.

Launched in 1994, at the height of Britpop, Total Guitar quickly became the biggest-selling guitar magazine in the UK. Where other magazines for musicians could be ‘muso’ and elitist, Total Guitar was down to earth, with a modern and irreverent take on every aspect of the world of guitars.

Cover stars included up and coming bands like Oasis, Blur and Supergrass, as well as established stars like The Edge, Jimmy Page, Johnny Marr and Slash.

It embraced the ‘total’ part of its name, with interviews, lessons and reviews, a whole-hearted love of all-things guitar – and of all genres of music.

Tim Tucker took over as Editor from issue two, replacing launch Editor Karl Foster, and worked on the magazine until 1997. “We were focused on developing a new style of guitar magazine,” he says. “One that reflected the contemporary guitar bands of the 1990s and appealed to a new generation of musicians.”

With a free covermount CD, the magazine became renowned for its song transcriptions – with full audio and backing tracks on the CD for readers to play along with – while its extensive reviews section also had a section on the CD, with gear demos so that people could hear the sounds they were talking about.

“I stayed for 30 issues,” says Tucker, “and that period remains the most exciting and rewarding full-time job I ever had.”

When Britpop faded, the magazine turned its sights to the nu metal and pop-punk scenes, with cover interviews with the guitarists of Slipknot, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Blink-182, Green Day, The Distillers and more.

When Slash formed Velvet Revolver, Total Guitar had the first interview. They got Noel Gallagher together with his hero-turned-friend Paul Weller, not once but twice. When Slipknot’s Mick Thomson complained that producer Ross Robinson had banned guitar solos, the magazine got him in to do a lesson in soloing, with audio on the CD.

The magazine’s most recent Editor, Chris Bird, will go on to become Lessons Editor, working across GuitarWorld.com and our sister sites MusicRadar and Guitar Player, serving up high quality tuition content for the guitar-playing community.

For its final issue Total Guitar presents a huge retrospective cover feature looking back at some of the magazine’s greatest moments – a celebration of 30 years of the magazine starting at issue 1, which featured a guide to Jimi Hendrix’s licks and gear, and asked the burning question of the day: Is the Parker Fly the guitar we’ll all be playing in the future?

Editor Chris Bird says: “Total Guitar has been an institution for the guitar-playing community for 30 years, employing a massively talented and creative team of staffers and freelancers since day one. In that time, TG has probably been the broadest, most accessible guitar mag in the world. I always say we focus on putting the ‘Total’ in Total Guitar.

“It has been an absolute privilege for me to have worked with such an amazing team for the last 17 years and to have served our readers the best tuition, reviews features and more in that time. Thanks for reading.”

The final issue of Total Guitar is onsale 18 October. Existing subscribers will be contacted and offered a refund or a subscription to Guitarist magazine.