The Wire is a British music magazine publishing out of London, which has been issued monthly in print since 1982. Its website launched in 1997, and an online archive of its entire back catalog became available to subscribers in 2013. Since 1985, the magazine's annual year-in-review issue, Rewind, has named an album or release of the year based on critics' ballots.
Originally, The Wire covered the British jazz scene with an emphasis on avant-garde and free jazz. It was marketed as a more adventurous alternative to its conservative competitor Jazz Journal, and targeted younger readers at a time when Melody Maker had abandoned jazz coverage. In the late 1980s and 1990s, the magazine expanded its scope until it included a broad range of musical genres under the umbrella of non-mainstream or experimental music. Since then, The Wire's coverage has included experimental rock, electronica, alternative hip hop, modern classical, free improvisation, nu jazz and traditional music.
