If the NME were still like it was in the 1980s...

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ie featuring politicians, filmstars, writers, actors, directors etc; generally trying to be a bit more ambitious & incurring the wrath & ridicule of the readers.

Who would be in it today? Gordon Brown (moody b&w portrait by Anton Corbijn)? Haruki Murakami? Jamie Oliver?

― bham (bham), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:07 (nineteen years ago)

This period in its history always gets slated (it did at the time, iirc), but I'm kinda nostalgic for it. There are certainly a few cultural figures from recent history that I would have liked to see getting the 80s NME treatment (Irvine Welsh interviewds by a young Steven Wells, for example)

― bham (bham), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:10 (nineteen years ago)

Well, yes.

bah, it's all ringtones and downloads. What happened to the revolutuin? etc continued 100 threads...

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:12 (nineteen years ago)

But who wants to read about Haruki Murakami, Jamie Oliver, Irvine Welsh anyway?

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:12 (nineteen years ago)

I'd be in it for a start.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:14 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

Who wants to read about Muse?

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:15 (nineteen years ago)

Their new album's one of the albums of the year!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:16 (nineteen years ago)

The Darkness with lightness.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:17 (nineteen years ago)

I'd rather read about Muse than Haruki Murakami, Jamie Oliver, Irvine Welsh

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:17 (nineteen years ago)

"I'd be in it for a start."

I'd be reading it.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:18 (nineteen years ago)

I quite like Muse, I just don't care to read band interviews any more.

I'd be way more interested in Haruki Murakami. But interviews mostly seem pointless.

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:18 (nineteen years ago)

You misunderstand.

Jamie Oliver as interviewed by S.Wells.

Now yr talkin.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:19 (nineteen years ago)

i was looking at an nme from about 1984 and this guy called mark sinker or something was reviewing the autobiography of c.l.r. james. you can't imagine that happening now.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:19 (nineteen years ago)

You didn't actually like Steven Wells did you?

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:21 (nineteen years ago)

If you don't grok Swells, you are pitiful.

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:22 (nineteen years ago)

Ha ha ha.

sWessl was briefly great, he just ran his schtick on for way, way too long.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:22 (nineteen years ago)

"swessl"? sWells, even.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:23 (nineteen years ago)

Does anybody remember when Swells used to turn up on Channel 4's pre-Big Breakfast breakfast programme? That was a great show, Kim Newman used to be a reg too.

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:24 (nineteen years ago)

Although yeah I've seen some of his recent online journalism and the schtick is staaaaaaaaaaale.

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:24 (nineteen years ago)

Swells and Quantick is the greatest lost double act of all time.

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:25 (nineteen years ago)

Swells was always rubbish. I hadn't actually seen (I use that word advisedly) the contents of an NME for about 12 years but this week I found one in the paper bin in my house. I tried to read it but I actually found it impossible!

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:27 (nineteen years ago)

Pitiful, I tell ya.

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:30 (nineteen years ago)

What schtick do you mean anyway? The working-class-redder-than-thou-skinhead-who-actually-went-to-public-school schtick?

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:30 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.manbytesdog.com/Photos/Images/2002/pitiful.jpg

― Goo-night, Swede Hurt (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:32 (nineteen years ago)

His last good moment involved a telephone interview w/ Stuart Murdoch.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:33 (nineteen years ago)

Quantick's really gone downhill since then (though obviously not financially) - now a stalwart of staid Radio 2 "comedy" with Rowland Collins and Andrew Rivron and oh wasn't it funny NO IT FUCKING WASN'T

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:36 (nineteen years ago)

unlike his review of Duran Duran's Thank You which is one of the best reviews NME ever published (48 out of 10 indeed!).

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:36 (nineteen years ago)

i like steven wells.
quantick was really good.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:36 (nineteen years ago)

"What schtick do you mean anyway? The working-class-redder-than-thou-skinhead-who-actually-went-to-public-school schtick?"

Far be it from me to impugn Mr. Wells' reputation.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:38 (nineteen years ago)

To be fair to him, I haven't read anything by Steven Wells since the 1980s, what's he been doing since?

What you don't get in the modern NME I suppose is Mark E. Smith going out for beers with Shane McGowan, Nick Cave and Steven Wells and annihilating all of them (while drinking all of them under the table, natch): you're a useless drunk perpetuating negative Irish stereotypes/ you're a self indulgent middle class junkie playing at being a rock and roller/ you're working-class-redder-than-thou-skinhead-who-actually-went-to-public-school

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:38 (nineteen years ago)

SWells, to be fair, did write some of the funniest NME singles columns ever, up there with Danny Baker and Morley at their finest.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:39 (nineteen years ago)

Exactly.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:40 (nineteen years ago)

Mark E. lashes out with the useless drunk accusations shockah.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:41 (nineteen years ago)

80's - raving in print about bands whose singer is one of yr writers whilst failing to declare an interest, somehow.

00's - raving in print about bands who are signed to the parent co's rekkird label w/o declaring an interest somehow.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:41 (nineteen years ago)

80's - we're talking about the Redshins, and the praise was fair comment (I know you disagree, etc...)

00's - who be this?

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:43 (nineteen years ago)

Mark E. Smith wasn't a useless drunk in 1988 (xxpost)

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:43 (nineteen years ago)

We supported Fabulous once.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:43 (nineteen years ago)

Were they heavy? boom boom

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:46 (nineteen years ago)

i am surprised that dom and nick really don't like swells.

wonder if lex likes him (or 'would like him if he'd heard of him' obv).

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:46 (nineteen years ago)

Anyway, if NME were still like it was in the '80s, then Lex would be our Errol.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:46 (nineteen years ago)

Bagsy not being Paolo Hewitt.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:47 (nineteen years ago)

And the Bowie "I've got all their records at home sorry who are we talking about again?" running gag would still be running.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:49 (nineteen years ago)

The praise for the redskins may have been "fair comment", but not mentioning the fact that the singer was one of the paper's more prominent writers was as sketchy as fuck. (plenty of other examples of this, of course, see the noisy riot grlz singer's boyfriend, the 8-legged "gro0ve"(haha)machine's college mate etc etc etc)

the very fact that the paper is now owned by a big record company = nothing it prints can be trusted.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:50 (nineteen years ago)

They didn't exactly fall over themselves to heap praise on ZTT in the '80s.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:51 (nineteen years ago)

Or the Boomtown Rats.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:54 (nineteen years ago)

Oh, and Dele Fadele's band neither. Although they did get onto that "Number ones" album, for what good it did him...

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:54 (nineteen years ago)

I used to like reading Dele Fadele.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:55 (nineteen years ago)

Dele Fadele's band were appaling! The very fact they were mentioned at all speaks volumes (see also: adorable)

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:56 (nineteen years ago)

& yeah, I used to like reading his stuff as well.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:56 (nineteen years ago)

(That's what I'm saying.. I don't think they ever did get mentioned)

Me too.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:57 (nineteen years ago)

Isn't the Wire a bit like NME in the 1980s? The goth/industrial side of NME that is - Biba Kopf, Don Watson, shit like that?

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:58 (nineteen years ago)

The Wire would be better if Swells wrote for it.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 08:59 (nineteen years ago)

or edited it

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:06 (nineteen years ago)

Steven Wells shouldve been kept as far away from the NME as possible.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:07 (nineteen years ago)

So instead of including Einsturzende Neubauten in every issue, what would he include? Cock Sparrer?

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:07 (nineteen years ago)

Maybe yr getting swells & OI GARRY mixed up? Swells' star rubbish punk band in the '80's was the Newtown Neurotics.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:10 (nineteen years ago)

Neubauten/ Neurotics, 's all 80s nostalgia innit?

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:12 (nineteen years ago)

nme couldn't be like it was in the '80s cos the music scene's not what it was, and nor is the political 'scene'.

they could do more non-music stuff. but maybe 17-year-olds don't read in the way they used to.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:14 (nineteen years ago)

Now I'm stuck with the image of Bushell editing The Wire.

"ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS: IS HE A FUCKING POOF OR WHAT?"

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:14 (nineteen years ago)

The NME should be written entirely in txt spk.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:17 (nineteen years ago)

I wd lgh.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:17 (nineteen years ago)

I shudder to think what Derek Bailey would have made of Steven Wells

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:18 (nineteen years ago)

Future guest editors of The Wire.
Tony Blair
David Cameron
Bill Clinton
Noodle Vague
and?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:18 (nineteen years ago)

shaun ryder

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:19 (nineteen years ago)

i have a very solid lex-y feeling that i'd hate derek bailey's music.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:19 (nineteen years ago)

Shaun Ryder:

"ANTONY & THE JOHNSONS: IS HE A FOOKING POOF OR WHAT?"

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:20 (nineteen years ago)

For an embarrassing amount of time I thought that Ben Watson and Swells were the same person.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:22 (nineteen years ago)

Future guest editors of The Wire:

Blixa Bargeld
David Tibet
Peter Christopherson
Marc Almond
Jim Thirlwell
Nick Cave
Lydia Lunch
Nick Sex Fiend

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:23 (nineteen years ago)

hahaha good point re the watson/swells thing. peas in a pod, but not.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:23 (nineteen years ago)

That's the answer though. Swells to edit Wire and Ben to edit NME. "KENNY PROCESS TEAM CENTRESPREAD SPECIAL"

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:23 (nineteen years ago)

Swells should actually buy "The Wire", then he could appoint Sven Hassel as the new editor.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:26 (nineteen years ago)

is it not ok for swells to have gone to public school? not being funny like, but a fair few nme/wire types come from -- would-you believe? -- a similar background.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:27 (nineteen years ago)

I think it's the dichtomony between "I AM THE HARD PROLE SCUM PH34R ME INDIE PONCE"

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:28 (nineteen years ago)

...and the public school background a la genesis har har har

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:28 (nineteen years ago)

Indeed, but did they masquerade as working-class Yorkshire bootboys? (xxpost)

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:30 (nineteen years ago)

I mean, being a skinhead in 1984, how poncey was that? None more poncey, say I.

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:31 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

I'm sure Gabriel did that costume.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:32 (nineteen years ago)

how should public schoolies act though?

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:33 (nineteen years ago)

They should wear top hats for a start

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:34 (nineteen years ago)

They should abuse fags.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:34 (nineteen years ago)

They should act however they please, with the caveat pretend to be a prole and you might get mocked/not taken too seriously.

Also top hats, yes. or dress up like cleopatra & sing in a prog rock band, I could def. do w/more of that.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:35 (nineteen years ago)

I mean, being a skinhead in 1984, how poncey was that?

Sal Solo. I rest my case.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:36 (nineteen years ago)

did swells pretend to be a prole though? he didn't when i read it.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:40 (nineteen years ago)

When did you read him?

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:43 (nineteen years ago)

90s.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:44 (nineteen years ago)

i mean his whole steez was uber-lefty but anti-veggie, right?

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:45 (nineteen years ago)

I think he imagined being anti-veggie and "hard" was more working class. As I said above, I don't remember ever reading so much as a sentence from him after the early 90s, who was he writing for>

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:48 (nineteen years ago)

I don't remember him ever claiming to be working class. I mean, he was in the SWP. They don't let proles join, do they?

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:48 (nineteen years ago)

That's true

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:51 (nineteen years ago)

Ha ha I just read that other sWells thread linked to above, it's great - stelfox & julio on fire, calum bizarrely otm etc.

I mean, he was in the SWP. They don't let proles join, do they?

Ha ha, quite.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:51 (nineteen years ago)

He once wrote an article bemoaning the media coverage given to Stanley Matthews' funeral, because football in the 1950s was solely watched by the middle classes and not EDGY WORKING CLASS YOOF, who might listen to Destiny's Chohwaithewasaprotolex.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:52 (nineteen years ago)

Rilly? He never did know anyfink about football.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:54 (nineteen years ago)

I'm sure part of his anti-indie schtick was that it was the music of soft posh middle-clarse student boiz, but tbh, my memory may be at fault.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:54 (nineteen years ago)

That sounds about right

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:56 (nineteen years ago)

well he was right in that! and just coz he went to public school doesn't mean he was a softy, kind of thing?

xpost

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:56 (nineteen years ago)

He was right about: indie, Sven Hassel, veggies.
He was wrong about: the Inspiral Carpets.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:57 (nineteen years ago)

Soft posh middle-class student boys like, errrrrrrrr, Morrissey, Barney Sumner et al

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:58 (nineteen years ago)

Destiny's Chohwaithewasaprotolex

GREATEST BAND NAME EVER

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:58 (nineteen years ago)

Sven H is back in print, btw. I saw a block of his books in borders last week. Did me 'ead in a bit to see them there.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 09:59 (nineteen years ago)

Soft posh middle-class student boys like, errrrrrrrr, Morrissey, Barney Sumner et al
-- ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (dadaismu...), June 30th, 2006.

a lot of their fans, though...

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:04 (nineteen years ago)

Cultural Studies / Sociology Essay Question:

which has become more pro-capitalist over 20 years?, compare and contrast [New] Labour values and the NME brand in 2006 to 1986.

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:04 (nineteen years ago)

Actually, the NME is ANTI-CAPITALIST and is trying to put touts out of business. Paying £20 extra for tickets to see The Kooks because you were too lazy to order them before they sold out being the #1 problem affecting this country at the moment.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:06 (nineteen years ago)

what a contribution to scholarship that would be.

xpost

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:06 (nineteen years ago)

a lot of their fans, though...

Rather less (as a percentage) than Redskins' fans I'm willing to guess (ditto the "Newtown Neurotics")

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:10 (nineteen years ago)

Sven H is back in print, btw. I saw a block of his books in borders last week. Did me 'ead in a bit to see them there.

This seems pointless as they are in charity shops all the time. I have often wanted to own a complete set of them and maybe I should make it happen this summer. I'm sure they must be good books. I would like a complete collection of Guy N Smith as well.

I never understand why people hate ticket touts. What are they doing that every other business doesn't?

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:18 (nineteen years ago)

um, not paying tax!

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:21 (nineteen years ago)

Plenty of businesses don't do that.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:23 (nineteen years ago)

Further research reveals that Mr Murdoch's main British holding company, Newscorp Investments, has paid no net corporation tax within these shores over the past 11 years. This is despite accumulated pre-tax profits of nearly £1.4bn. Payments were made in some years, but in others rebates were claimed.

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:24 (nineteen years ago)

Generally you get knighted for doing shit like that under New Labour

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:25 (nineteen years ago)

but that's a bad thing!

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:25 (nineteen years ago)

lol trickle-down theory

― Duck Rivers (noodle vague), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:27 (nineteen years ago)

I wouldn't say touts were good but as far as shady business practices go they are on a very low level compared to, well, about every large business ever. Oh no, someone had to pay over the odds for a Guillemots ticket! Get yr act together and buy on time, loser.

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:28 (nineteen years ago)

Why isn't the NME also campaigning to stop people selling 'limited edition' singles on eBay to people who didn't catch onto bands immediately. It's the same thing.

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:29 (nineteen years ago)

And let's stop hacks selling promo CDs. No tax paid there NME!

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:30 (nineteen years ago)

Indeed.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:32 (nineteen years ago)

Who says there are no great issues to fight for anymore?

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:34 (nineteen years ago)

Melody Maker?

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:36 (nineteen years ago)

In the end it wasn't worth fighting for.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 10:57 (nineteen years ago)

What would the NME political left agenda of 1986 think of New Labour through a crystal ball twenty years on:

2006 - the crazy world of New Labour Capitalism, Incompetence, Sleaze and State Control

1. Plans to introduce ID Cards...more crazy than a george orwell essay

2. Students to pay tuition fees as well as taking out loans for living expenses...you mean on top of no grants there are fees to attend university? yes, more right wing than even Thatcher

3. slapping another 3 years working sentence on the working class, retirement age to be eventually raised to 68...what happend to workers rights?

4. Having a deputy PM with no direct government responsibilities because he is a cheating office shagger..even the tories would dismiss a deputy PM in these circumstances

5. Supporting the Globalisation Big Business Agenda, letting British based companies outsource British based jobs to places such as India with no penalties and restrictions....you mean the Labour Party would not defend British jobs? and shrug their shoulders and spout capitalist big business dogma of globalisation, yes unfortunately.

6. allowing privatisation in the state education sector..what about labour run LEAs and commitment to local services run by elected [labour] councils?

7. running the NHS incompetently and allowing health professionals to be sacked due to a bureacratic mess of financial budgets. ...but surely Labour would defend public services and fight job cuts. Nope, not in 2006.

8. Thinking about introducing new Nuclear Weaapons...what happend with Labour and the CND agenda? by the way you do realise that the eastern bloc and soviet union no longer exists

9. Supporting Right Wing US Republicans in a bogus war based on lies that costs British tax payers billions... crazy !

10. Introducing laws that people can be arrested in inner London for reading out a list of names of British soldiers killed in an illegal war...your having a laugh?

What would the NME in 1986 think of New Labour of 2006 ...this sounds like a crazy right wing tory party.

New Labour in 2006 is a failing political ideology, based on overt pro-Capitalism, Incompetence, Sleaze and growing State Control.

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 30 June 2006 11:43 (nineteen years ago)

I don't know what IPC Media Brand Director Steve Sutherland who walked through the picket lines in two separate NUJ disputes in the '80s would have thought of that.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 11:49 (nineteen years ago)

does the nme support new labour though?

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:09 (nineteen years ago)

They seemed to side with the Lib Dems last time. Or at least a poll of their readers did.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:11 (nineteen years ago)

That's all of what? 12 readers?

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:12 (nineteen years ago)

I doubt it was 18 year old shelf stackers from Walsall.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:19 (nineteen years ago)

compare and contrast in a nutshell:

New Labour in 2006 is a failing political ideology, based on overt pro-Capitalism, Incompetence, Sleaze and growing State Control.

NME in 2006 is a culturally failing music magazine brand, based on serving a niche teenager audience via business brands / co-sponsorship / advertising, incompetence and ignorance of interpreting the past, present and future music agenda, Sleaze was celebrated re: ~~Pete Doherty~~ and the NME brand exudes a tight editorial control of a trad songs rock guitar agenda.

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:32 (nineteen years ago)

We're all going to hell in a handcart innit?

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:33 (nineteen years ago)

I despise New Labour and NME in 2006.

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:36 (nineteen years ago)

if only the nme still supported the fantastic and thoroughly socialist labour party of the '80s, huh.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:36 (nineteen years ago)

Who should they have supported?

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:40 (nineteen years ago)

they don't have to support anyone!

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:40 (nineteen years ago)

do we expect 'empire' or 'total film' to take a line on uk general elections?

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:41 (nineteen years ago)

no-one. politicians are all cnuts. i thought that was rock n' roll rulez. (xpost)

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:41 (nineteen years ago)

Who should they have supported in 1980s if not the "the fantastic and thoroughly socialist labour party of the '80s"?

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:43 (nineteen years ago)

the point is, the labour party are where they are now because of where they are then, and i don't see the point of honouring old lost causes.

i doubt the nme of the late 70s supported a mainstream political party.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:45 (nineteen years ago)

Just a teeny bit simplistic that don't you think? The NME of the 70s didn't have Thatcher to contend with.

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:47 (nineteen years ago)

well that sort of explains why they don't support anyone now -- thatcher also took over the labour party.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:52 (nineteen years ago)

Enrique - my 20 years 10 points compare and contrast overview is an accurate snapshot assessment of how far the labour party has fundamentally shifted it's values / policies towards the right-wing.

x-post: Most of my personal political viewpoints are in line with the Liberal Democrats, not old Labour.

also the NME of 1986 [more politics, a wider music outlook.] compared to the trad rock for teenagers NME of 2006 is almost a completely different entity.

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:54 (nineteen years ago)

Enrique - my 20 years 10 points compare and contrast overview is an accurate snapshot assessment of how far the labour party has fundamentally shifted it's values / policies towards the right-wing.

yeah i agree. i'm not sure whether

1) this has anything to do with the nme
2) if it does, whether at the end of the day, everything in society changes over a two-deacde period and the nme is not exceptionally culpable
3) nme should, in 2006, hold the same positions it held in 1986

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 12:59 (nineteen years ago)

the NME brand exudes a tight editorial control of a trad songs rock guitar agenda

Have you read it recently, Martian? Obviously not. Recently there was a whole page review of a Faust reissue, while the mag was one of the first to champion the new weird america stuff - I read about Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom in NME ahead of anywhere else... sure the cover stars are uniformly whiteboy indie bands, but you don't have to dig too deep to stray from that formula...

― Pat Long (garagefreak), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:30 (nineteen years ago)

hahaha, wow revolutionary, faust!

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:37 (nineteen years ago)

Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom are about as weird as my arse.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:37 (nineteen years ago)

As I said upthread, I actually found it impossible to read any of it, my eyes couldn't find anywhere to rest on any of the pages

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:42 (nineteen years ago)

Forget the knee-jerk record snobbery for a second and reread my post before you make yourself look even more stupid. I wasn't saying that Faust or Joanna Newsom were obscure, I was using them as rock solid examples of how NME 2006 strays from the lazy 'trad songs rock guitar agenda' that DJ Martian applies.
But then again - which other nationally syndicated magazine around would dedicate a page of editorial to Faust?

― garagefreak (garagefreak), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:44 (nineteen years ago)

THE NME is still promoting rubbish such as The Kooks, Razorlight, Panic at the Disco, Dirty Pretty Things

"new weird america" - was done several years back by The Wire

I don't need the NME to find out about other things.

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:46 (nineteen years ago)

But then again - which other nationally syndicated magazine around would dedicate a page of editorial to Faust?

Mojo, Uncut, Wire, even Q

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:50 (nineteen years ago)

But then again - which other nationally syndicated magazine around would dedicate a page of editorial to Faust?
Mojo, Uncut, Wire, even Q

Don't make me laugh. Wire, obviously, but have you even read any of these other magazines recently? Q this month is like a cover version of an issue from 1990.

― garagefreak (garagefreak), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:52 (nineteen years ago)

Well, Q was pushing it, I admit!

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:54 (nineteen years ago)

I used to write for Uncut, as do you, so less of the bullshit please.

"IPC writer having a go at Emap publication" shock horror youth cult probe.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:55 (nineteen years ago)

what did nme say about faust?

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:55 (nineteen years ago)

They didn't like them in 1972 either.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:57 (nineteen years ago)

I do remember reading a 2- or maybe 3- page feature on Faust in Q, though admittedly that was over 10 years ago.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:58 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.nme.com/sxsw/blog

It takes a while to adjust to the Zen of SXSW: basically there is no point making detailed plans to do anything according to schedule because you'll always get distracted. Everyone carries around a piece of paper in their pocket with a detailed and precise plan of which bands to go and see when, but about 20 minutes into the festival this list is covered in beer and lying in the gutter outside of Rippolini's Pizza on 6th Street. This, incidentally, is where I just saw Anton Newcombe ruining what mystique he still has left after Dig! by stuffing his face with a pepperoni slice and looking like an out-of-work binman.

But yes. Things have not always gone the way that they were supposed to go today. The NME BBQ was generally considered to be a big success, something I'm more than happy to take credit for even though I had absolutely nothing to do with its organisation or execution. It was held outside in the back of a bar called The Mean Eyed Cat, which was apparently used as one of the sets in the original version of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. If you haven't seen the film, it's basically 95 minutes of pro-vegetarian propaganda about a mad family (I think they're called The Sawyers) that lure unsuspecting passers-by in with the promise of free BBQ. In the film, the Sawyers then murder their guests and then turn them into even more free BBQ. We didn't do this, which is good news for fans of The Cribs, Be Your Own Pet, Editors, The Zutons and The Mystery Jets, who all came along to watch Dirty Pretty Things play as goods trains rumbled past in the background. I even saw Pat, the drummer from My Morning Jacket, and we shared a laugh and a joke about both being called Pat on St. Patrick's Day. Good times.

But fickle fingered fate shaped the rest of my night. I was too ambitious. I was greedy. There are well over 1,000 bands playing in Austin this week and I tried to go and see too many of them - the result being that I spent most of my time racing between venues and standing in queues to get into places. This means that I couldn't get in to see the Editors, whose gig at The Ritz was the most-talked show of the night - more indeed that the Arctic Monkeys, a gig which I also failed to get into. I did see a ferociously loud bearded Dutch industrial noise duo called ZZZ, though. Oddly, there was no queue for them at all...

Pat Long

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Friday, 30 June 2006 13:59 (nineteen years ago)

The thing about threads like these is that certain people have pre-ordained ideas about the manifest horrors that exist within the pages of NME and various other mainstream music mags without even bothering to read them. It's like going on a thread about electronica and trying to post knowledgeably despite not having listened to any since the early '90s - ie pseudy and boring. Yes, NME puts Dirty Pretty things and other similarly awful indie bands on the cover. That's because if they did a Jewelled Antler Collective cover feature no-one would buy the mag...

― garagefreak (garagefreak), Friday, 30 June 2006 14:01 (nineteen years ago)

Stop talking like a fucking robot Pat and we might consider taking you seriously.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 30 June 2006 14:02 (nineteen years ago)

In what way have my posts been robotic Marcello?

― garagefreak (garagefreak), Friday, 30 June 2006 14:05 (nineteen years ago)

I would put Triosk on the front cover of next week's issue of a rival weekly music mag to NME - if such a magazine existed.

Triosk
http://www.myspace.com/triosk

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Friday, 30 June 2006 14:08 (nineteen years ago)

Jazz Crunk is the new "Other"

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 30 June 2006 14:11 (nineteen years ago)

The couple of times I've read nme in the last year, it was pretty much as martian described. If I remember to, I'll pick up a copy on the way home tonight, and see if it's more as mr atthepines describes.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 30 June 2006 14:16 (nineteen years ago)

garagefreak is probably otm, really. i certainly haven't read nme since 2001.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 14:47 (nineteen years ago)

though fuck the new weird america/krautrock corpse-fucking.

― Roughage Crew (Enrique), Friday, 30 June 2006 14:47 (nineteen years ago)

OTM, toadly dood

― ¡Vamos a matar, Dadaismus! (Dada), Friday, 30 June 2006 14:50 (nineteen years ago)

I actually did pick up last week's nme, but a couple of days later, b/c borders' were o.o.s, so I got it next time I was in tesco's.

The coverage of music therein was pretty heavily mainstream indie biased. The big exception was a feature on "plan b" and even that put forward a possible genre "grindie", which sounds unimaginably bad. In terms of layout, readability etc, the magazine was a lot better that the pervious couple of times I've picked it up. It was at least readable, though the writing was pretty poor compared to LLSS, or Carlins' or Momus blog for example. I might pick it up a little bit more often in future.

The general music covered was kind of like perpetual 1975, I thought.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 10 July 2006 11:36 (nineteen years ago)

The lack of reviews (and size of reviews) is shocking.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Monday, 10 July 2006 11:41 (nineteen years ago)

Do you think NME will ever have a "prog - it wasnt so bad after all " issue?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Monday, 10 July 2006 11:43 (nineteen years ago)

The current issue has Kasabian on the cover making the bold claim that "this album will be up there with Definitely Maybe..."- don't make promises you can't keep, boys!

― Neil Stewart (Neil Stewart), Monday, 10 July 2006 11:45 (nineteen years ago)

And i dont mean by making Norman or Jim editors.
x-post

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Monday, 10 July 2006 11:45 (nineteen years ago)

They'd only be about 20 years behind Melody Maker if they did.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 10 July 2006 11:49 (nineteen years ago)

Nothing changes then, eh?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Monday, 10 July 2006 11:50 (nineteen years ago)

The front cover act on the issue I bought was the killers. See what I do for you lot? I SUFFER, that's what (I couldn't make it through the killers interview, it was unbelievably boring, mostly just propping bono as far as I could tell)

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 10 July 2006 12:00 (nineteen years ago)

What bands would you like to see NME cover?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Monday, 10 July 2006 12:03 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, they could certainly do w/upping the rteview count considerably.

I did notice they were doing a couiple of pages of gig listings again, which is pretty good, I think.

(x-post) Dimmu Borgir and the mediaeval baebes.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 10 July 2006 12:05 (nineteen years ago)

There should be lots more reviews and the reviews themselves should indeed have bigger word counts.
Why don't they do that anyway?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Monday, 10 July 2006 12:06 (nineteen years ago)

Because life is too short.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 10 July 2006 12:08 (nineteen years ago)

re: There should be lots more reviews

If they did more reviews, then the readers would be educated to realize there is more to music than the dozen or so sorry losers that the NME hype each year.

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 10 July 2006 13:18 (nineteen years ago)

Readers don't want to be educated. Life is too short.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 10 July 2006 13:19 (nineteen years ago)

Fuck the readers. make them learn!!!

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Monday, 10 July 2006 13:31 (nineteen years ago)

COMPANY RUN IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE "PROFIT". ILM POSTERS REPORTED "CONFUSED AND SCARED".

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 10 July 2006 13:38 (nineteen years ago)

I mean, you people do realise they spent the ass-end of the 90s trying to "educate" the reader by putting Godspeed You Black Emperor and Craig David on the cover, and that got them about a pubic hair's width away from the same fate as Melody Maker. Why on earth would they want to go back there?

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 10 July 2006 13:39 (nineteen years ago)

Steven Wells is alive and well and living in Philadelphia, where he writes for the Philadelphia Weekly. But he almost isn't alive; in a cover story for PW he recounts a brush this year with cancer which racked up $170,000 in hospital bills, inflated his testicles to such a size that he had to carry them around the house in his arms, and nearly killed him. Perhaps he offered the moving story to Conor McNichols first. No, probably he didn't bother. What use would the NME have for a matter of life and death?

― Momus (Momus), Monday, 10 July 2006 13:46 (nineteen years ago)

Why on earth would they want to go back there?

Better a noble death than to carry on in an iron lung.

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Monday, 10 July 2006 13:48 (nineteen years ago)

"Fuck the readers."

Not an option in the current market, much as I may secretly sympathise with it in a Milton Babbitt kind of way.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 10 July 2006 13:50 (nineteen years ago)

I seem to remember NME in the '80's putting some pretty obscure/left-field artists on the cover. My memory might be embellishing the facts a little, as it was a long time ago, but I'm sure I remember Jim Thirlwell, Lydia Lunch, Yer man above and Virginia Astley all being featured at some point as examples. Yet the NME sold pretty through the eighties, received wisdom sez a lot better than it does now,although I don't know if that's actually true or not. Sounds had an even more scattershot approach to genre etc - I remember Steel Pulse, Twelfth Night and Charge on the front of "Sounds" off the top of my head, yet "Sounds" did pretty well through the nineties.

Didn't MM sink in the end b/c it was saddled w/having to cover nu-metal by the higher ups?

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 10 July 2006 13:57 (nineteen years ago)

>> yet "Sounds" did pretty well through the nineties.

I'm pretty sure it didn't.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Monday, 10 July 2006 14:01 (nineteen years ago)

through the eighties, I meant, sorry.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 10 July 2006 14:03 (nineteen years ago)

Sounds finished in Spring 1991

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 10 July 2006 14:05 (nineteen years ago)

Sorry, I haven't contributed anything useful to this thread (or any others, really) but sometimes my pedantic urge becomes too strong to resist.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Monday, 10 July 2006 14:05 (nineteen years ago)

Tell you what.

I like(d) the NME best when the artist on the cover was one I didn't know.

What sunk the MM in my eyes was having The Stereophonics and Catatonia on the front cover every other week, alternating.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 10 July 2006 14:06 (nineteen years ago)

A bleak time in music for me, that. I pretty much gave up listening to new music in the late 90s. Thank heavens for the internet.

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Monday, 10 July 2006 14:09 (nineteen years ago)

If Sounds / Melody Maker were still being published in 2006, these artists would be covered for the rest of Summer 2006

Iliketrains
Triosk
Tv on The Radio
Cortney Tidwell
Isis
Agalloch
The Mars Volta
Slayer
Voivod
Envy
The Workhouse

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Monday, 10 July 2006 14:19 (nineteen years ago)

Of course, the major problem with the Godspeed You Black Emperor cover was that it was shit AND pretentious.

― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ is a GE Money Genie (ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!!), Monday, 10 July 2006 15:08 (nineteen years ago)

But it could be worse, they could be going around claiming Guillemots are the best new band on the planet just because the bloke from the band has been exchanging e-mails with the senior writer.

― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ is a GE Money Genie (ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!!), Monday, 10 July 2006 15:09 (nineteen years ago)

Kerrang barely cover Isis.
xx-post

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Monday, 10 July 2006 15:10 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

I'd be in it for a start.
-- Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, June 30, 2006 9:14 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

amirite?

PS who was errol?

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 12:28 (eighteen years ago)

Morley?

It's nearly an anagram.

― Mark G, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 14:10 (eighteen years ago)

What sunk the MM in my eyes was having The Stereophonics and Catatonia on the front cover every other week, alternating.

Had they stuck with Catatonia, that would have been one of the better things about them by the late 90s. By 1998, somebody needed to stand up for real music with real tunes before the big commercial and critical breakthrouh of Travis and Coldplay not much later.

― Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 22:03 (eighteen years ago)

The fact MM gave Catatonia album of the year is the point where they lost it for me. It's no surprise it got even shitter afterwards.

― Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 22:07 (eighteen years ago)

That album was one of the greatest albums of 1998.

― Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 22:17 (eighteen years ago)

I too am sick and tired of people trying to trick us with their fake tunes and imitation melodic intervals -- just the other day I bought a CD by the Fifth Dimension and found out all the harmonies were actually fourths!

― nabisco, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 22:48 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/1998.html

No, It wasn't even the best on any of these lists
NME Top Albums List 1998
Melody maker
Mojo
Kerrang
Terrorizer

Feel free to do a 1998 poll if you wish. I don't think we got past 1995 last time though so perhaps you better start 1996. Keep it in order.

― Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 22:55 (eighteen years ago)

x-post obviously

― Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 22:55 (eighteen years ago)

Uh, actually I just clicked that link and it is #1 on Melody Maker's 1998 list.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 22:58 (eighteen years ago)

I know it was no1 on MM, I said it was earlier, I meant it wasn't even the actual best album out of all the albums on those lists.

― Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 22:59 (eighteen years ago)

Gotcha.

― jon /via/ chi 2.0, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 23:00 (eighteen years ago)

no problem. I can't even remember what my fave album of 1998 was. Probably Mercury Rev at the time. I didn't hear the gybe album til later.

― Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 23:29 (eighteen years ago)

I dunno, obviously the best release of 1998 was the 3-CD set 'God Save the Kinks'. Who knows where Catatonia figure? Barely in the top five I reckon.

― Eyeball Kicks, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 23:36 (eighteen years ago)

Barely in the top 5000 IMO

― Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 23:41 (eighteen years ago)

You win the sponge.

― Eyeball Kicks, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 23:51 (eighteen years ago)

XXXXXX(whatever)-post

No, it wasn't best on my list either. But it was still excellent. And a great album in an otherwise not so great year. A good thing Travis and Coldplay helped rescue music again not much afterwards, just like Blur and Oasis had done a few years earlier.

― Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 5 December 2007 23:57 (eighteen years ago)

x-post as long as i dont win a Catatonia album.

A good thing Travis and Coldplay helped rescue music again

I wish you were just trolling and didn't really mean that.

― Herman G. Neuname, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:06 (eighteen years ago)

oh geir, that's an all-time low :(

― Just got offed, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:09 (eighteen years ago)

I expect he's said it many times before. The even sadder fact is that the uk public agreed with him and bought all those albums.

― Herman G. Neuname, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:17 (eighteen years ago)

Of course. Sane people want real music with real songs with real tunes, written by the people who perform them. And that's what they got.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:21 (eighteen years ago)

attaboy

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:28 (eighteen years ago)

Of course. Sane people want real music with real songs with real tunes, written by the people who perform them. And that's what they got.

-- Geir Hongro, Thursday, December 6, 2007 12:21 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

woo! just like elvis

― whatever, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:35 (eighteen years ago)

Elvis didn't write any of his material, and his songs were either bad blues/country songs or cover versions of antique 20s schmaltz.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:38 (eighteen years ago)

It's a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:41 (eighteen years ago)

Elvis is a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:42 (eighteen years ago)

Writing is a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:42 (eighteen years ago)

Politics is a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:42 (eighteen years ago)

The NME is a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:42 (eighteen years ago)

Above all else, the 1980s were a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:43 (eighteen years ago)

Racists are a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:43 (eighteen years ago)

Geir is a waste of a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:43 (eighteen years ago)

Churning these things over in your mind is a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:45 (eighteen years ago)

Learning the bass.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:45 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, learning the bass is a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:45 (eighteen years ago)

Morrissey is a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:46 (eighteen years ago)

Five years in Panama is a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:48 (eighteen years ago)

The long wait on Iran is a waste of time & it gets worse today, all today, following ILE thread suggesting we don't get to bomb 'em.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:50 (eighteen years ago)

Nuclear bombs are a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:51 (eighteen years ago)

Don't stop what you started.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:52 (eighteen years ago)

New vinyl at Juno Records is a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:52 (eighteen years ago)

For the first time ever, leaders of the Arab Gulf states invited Iran to attend a summit in Doha, Qatar, on Monday, but President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thought it might just be a waste of time.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:54 (eighteen years ago)

These bright young people, putting words next to words for the NME, were wasting their time, in the 1980s.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:56 (eighteen years ago)

This short ode
Is to give you a code
So that in this season
You have no reason
To cause a rift
And see your friends miffed

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:57 (eighteen years ago)

just go to http://www.clareflorist.co.uk?lpemail=ac and use code XMA at the checkout for a 10% discount on all products from Clare Florists.

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:57 (eighteen years ago)

I mean, what've you got to lose?

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 6 December 2007 00:59 (eighteen years ago)

That was a waste of time.

― Herman G. Neuname, Thursday, 6 December 2007 01:34 (eighteen years ago)

Geir, can I make a suggestion? Try posting to ILX during GMT office hours, when bored UK deskworkers may actually be dulled enough to respond to you.

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 6 December 2007 09:19 (eighteen years ago)

Wasting time is a waste of time.

― Mark G, Thursday, 6 December 2007 09:33 (eighteen years ago)

A while ago I went through a whole pile of NMEs from the late seventies at the British Library for a research project, and I can't say I was <i>that</i> phenomenally impressed.

― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, 6 December 2007 09:53 (eighteen years ago)

Late seventies was fairly nmeh. Try around 1984 or so.

Oh I like that mistype, keep that.

― Mark G, Thursday, 6 December 2007 10:03 (eighteen years ago)

They did a magazine-style compilation of the 'legendary' Burchill/Parsons punk rock era a few years back. I'm not a fan of their later writing, but even so, I was aghast at just how wretched most of it was.

In contrast, I had a copy of the 1976 hardcover NME annual, and that was pretty much wall-to-wall protopunk, and great stuff: dolls, iggy, alice cooper . .

(and while the rubbish punk singles thread was running, I actually found myself missing Sounds. Just for a minute, though.)

― Soukesian, Thursday, 6 December 2007 13:05 (eighteen years ago)

I never actually ever read Sounds.

― Herman G. Neuname, Thursday, 6 December 2007 13:28 (eighteen years ago)

They had cartoons by Alan Moore and Savage Pencil, and Pencil/Pouncey wrote for them. Standard of journalism rarely rose above fan level, but they did cover genres like metal and streetpunk which NME regarded as utterly beneath them.

The NME, on the other hand, gave you Penman and Morely banging on about Buck's Fizz and Dollar inna postmodern stylee. (Along with a lot of other good stuff, it must be said.)

― Soukesian, Thursday, 6 December 2007 13:51 (eighteen years ago)

Sounds was capable of being a bit more off-the-wall, NME bit stodgy. For instance Throbbing Gristle were always given a fair hearing in Sounds while NME wouldn't touch them, hated them in fact - well, not until they'd split up and they were mentioned in every third article

― Tom D., Thursday, 6 December 2007 13:55 (eighteen years ago)

Sounds were best for early UK punk coverage - Ingham/Dadomo/Suck etc - and their spring 1978 "New Muzik" supplement was, well, mind-expanding.

I stumbled across some late 70s NMEs a while back and was surprised at the high level of lameness on offer. Easy to selectively remember the good stuff, I guess.

― mike t-diva, Thursday, 6 December 2007 15:00 (eighteen years ago)

Well, you cherry pick, sure.

What would you cherry pick from thesedays?

― Mark G, Thursday, 6 December 2007 15:02 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.pecorfamily.com/Blog_202006_2D04_2D01_20Trees_thumb.jpg

― Tom D., Thursday, 6 December 2007 15:08 (eighteen years ago)

What would you cherry pick from thesedays?

In those days, there was the NME, Sounds and Melody Maker. And that was about it. I'm not sure even the Guardian covered pop music then. Nowadays, you have all the daily newspapers and their various music supplements and review sections, you've got quite a few magazines, you've got hundreds of blogs... Sure, 90 percent is crap, but it was ever thus, only in far smaller quantities. Having actually waded my way through dozens of copies of late 70s NMEs, I'm really not so sure it was that wonderful.

― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, 6 December 2007 15:24 (eighteen years ago)

Everyone's saying "Late Seventies", I'm sure it was more about the mid eighties myself!

― Mark G, Thursday, 6 December 2007 15:25 (eighteen years ago)

Well, maybe the mid eighties was much better, I didn't look at the NMEs from then.

I should add that it wasn't that there was nothing of interest from the late 70s NMEs I looked at, there were a couple of excellent interviews with Eno, for instance. But there was a vast amount of laddish fanboy crap too

― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, 6 December 2007 15:29 (eighteen years ago)

There were still quite a few old hippies hanging about the NME in the late 70s

― Tom D., Thursday, 6 December 2007 15:30 (eighteen years ago)

"I'm sure it was more about the mid eighties myself!"

You're right. And the answer to the original question is that the NME would contain the better stuff from the newspaper supplements and the numerous glossy music mags, which didn't really exist back then. Most of my favorite writers from the period seem to be at The Wire now.

Sounds is a sidebar that needs its own thread, though.

― Soukesian, Thursday, 6 December 2007 15:33 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, you had to get both really.

― Mark G, Thursday, 6 December 2007 15:37 (eighteen years ago)

Found a Sounds poll Sounds vs NME vs Melody Maker

― Herman G. Neuname, Thursday, 6 December 2007 15:51 (eighteen years ago)

Thread, not poll.

― Herman G. Neuname, Thursday, 6 December 2007 15:51 (eighteen years ago)

I think there's a good case to be made pegging 1984 as the NME's peak year, whereas I'd say 1978 for Sounds. Never was much of an MM reader, but was super-loyal to Record Mirror even in its wafer-thin final years (James Hamilton! The charts!). But I also got my info from Smash Hits (up until 1984 again), the style mags (The Face, i-D and Blitz), and Black Echoes / Blues & Soul. There was always a lot to wade through.

If the NME were still like it was in the 1980s, I'd be a happy man... but then again, I'm not like I was in the 1980s.

― mike t-diva, Thursday, 6 December 2007 15:54 (eighteen years ago)

No one has mentioned (I think) that at the NME this week it is LIKE THE 80s AGAIN!!! As daughter of 80s NME LEGEND Paul Morley conductes her first ever interview with meaningful rock band The Arcade Fire. The renaissance starts here!!!

― Raw Patrick, Friday, 7 December 2007 08:58 (eighteen years ago)

two months pass...

ILM branded as pretentious journalists

― mark e, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:26 (eighteen years ago)

Nnnggghh.

― Pashmina, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:28 (eighteen years ago)

the hell?

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:31 (eighteen years ago)

Are you sure? I think he's just treating that thread as a resource for the names of pretentious journalists from the era which he's discussing.

― DJ Mencap, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:31 (eighteen years ago)

journalists more like gothtards.

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:32 (eighteen years ago)

which journalists were inspired by bauhaus and where can i not read them?

― That one guy that hit it and quit it, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:32 (eighteen years ago)

Are you sure? I think he's just treating that thread as a resource for the names of pretentious journalists from the era which he's discussing.

ah ha that could be it actually.
a case of transference on my behalf perhaps - ahem.

― mark e, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:33 (eighteen years ago)

Which isn't to say that I understand his point, mind

― DJ Mencap, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:34 (eighteen years ago)

Someone goatse this thread asap.

― Dom Passantino, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:34 (eighteen years ago)

Maybe he searched for Bauhaus, found the fifteen Bauhaus threads which do exist and discovered that two of them included the word "pretentious" in their titles. I understand that this is what the Grauniad calls "research."

Two points:
a) We consider "pretentious" the highest of compliments.
b) Max Gogarty - let it go, chaps, you lost and you lost and you lost, deal with it and move along.

― Dingbod Kesterson, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:38 (eighteen years ago)

Guardian comin' thru with the rofflez again!

― Tom D., Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:38 (eighteen years ago)

And a third point:
c) Nice of them to refer to us as "journalists" especially as Michael "Reclaim Camden" Hann is particularly keen on using "trained journalists" to ~~rip off bloggers' ideas~~ write coherently structural articles.

― Dingbod Kesterson, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:41 (eighteen years ago)

or "coherently structured" articles proves his point dunnit

― Dingbod Kesterson, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:42 (eighteen years ago)

I preferred "coherently structural" actually. you could get a social sciences degree with that kind of waffle.

― Thomas, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:47 (eighteen years ago)

Indeed.

― Dingbod Kesterson, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 15:49 (eighteen years ago)

nine years pass...

A good thing Travis and Coldplay helped rescue music again not much afterwards, just like Blur and Oasis had done a few years earlier.
― Geir Hongro, Wednesday, December 5, 2007 11:57 PM (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I wish you were just trolling and didn't really mean that.
― Herman G. Neuname, Thursday, December 6, 2007 12:06 AM (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
oh geir, that's an all-time low :(
― Just got offed, Thursday, December 6, 2007 12:09 AM (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I expect he's said it many times before. The even sadder fact is that the uk public agreed with him and bought all those albums.
― Herman G. Neuname, Thursday, December 6, 2007 12:17 AM (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Of course. Sane people want real music with real songs with real tunes, written by the people who perform them. And that's what they got.
― Geir Hongro, Thursday, December 6, 2007 12:21 AM (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL!

― ...so music and chicken have become intertwined (Turrican), Tuesday, 11 April 2017 21:21 (eight years ago)

Does Geir still post here?

― Rod Steel (musicfanatic), Tuesday, 11 April 2017 23:50 (eight years ago)

No, I see him on Facebook and that's the best place for him (not being nastty)..

― Mark G, Wednesday, 12 April 2017 06:08 (eight years ago)

the realness tripartite is interesting in that it implies the possibility of real music with fake songs with real tunes, or fake music with fake songs with real tunes, etc

― Vlogs from other credible bands such as Shed Seven (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 12 April 2017 08:59 (eight years ago)

e.g. Chris Gaines.

― Mark G, Wednesday, 12 April 2017 10:09 (eight years ago)

Im FB friends with him and he never mentions the things he's infamous for here except in the ilxors now playing group if he posts some britpop or synthpop act but usually with a ;)

Of course who knows what his posts in Norwegian are about :)

― Odysseus, Wednesday, 12 April 2017 15:30 (eight years ago)

dude you're friends with chris gaines???

― years of immersion in the seduction community (bizarro gazzara), Wednesday, 12 April 2017 15:38 (eight years ago)

hah

― Odysseus, Wednesday, 12 April 2017 15:49 (eight years ago)

seven years pass...

Record collector bloke flips through and summarises old editions of the NME in an absolutely pin-perfect BBC Schools & Colleges accent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMm6kij3RN0

― Maresn3st, Sunday, 22 September 2024 19:58 (one year ago)

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