How did the NME and Melody Maker end up being 'indie'

I'm not sure about Melody Maker, but I'd imagine it left the singles chart behind and concentrated on "album" rock around the same time. It had strong jazz coverage well into the 70s, though, and had a brief chartpop phase (Eurythmics album of the year!) around 1983 when the NME was in political mode.

The big shift is — sorry, it's true — post- Pistols. Pistols and Clash set up (v.effectively) an argt abt CONTROL; Pistols esp. threw lurid light on the PROCESS, the inner chambers of corporate decision (they were full, it proved, not of sinister masterminds in top hats, but plump fifth- rate idiots in a a constant panic). This gibed (somewhat) with the Underground's unfocussed yippie hostility to the Man (an ideology at first made coherent (if at all) via Murray's fandom of i.Zappa, ii.the New Wave in Science Fiction). Arrival on paper of actual punx0r: JulieB/TonyP, by virtue of their anti-nazism quicly recurited by the (then) IS = forerunner (give or take hairsplitting) of SWP = arrival of a "socialist critique" (ten times less coherent than Murray's), in which ALL BUSINESSMEN WERE DEMONS and ALL TRUE PUNKS WERE PROLETARIAN BOLSHEVIKS. Arrival on paper of more punXor (who cared abt music more than i. Revolution,ii. Selves and Careers): Paul Morley/Adrian Thrills = is essence small-businessmen (they had both been fanzine editors) and militant small-is- beautiful regionalists (Morley from Manchester; Thrills from London-as-Local- Place-for-Local-People). Second wave of punk had created space for new notion of control and decision (to Clash question abt Control, Buzzcocks response AUTONOMY). R.Boon's NEW HORMONES label is first (and arguably GREATEST) of Indies-in-Modern- Sense: coherent sleeve design, attitude, approach, all treat consumer as intelligent hungry explorer... In 1978 (I think in response to Rough Trade turning from an import shop to a label) Thrills and Morley cowrite a very very very influential piece in NME about the uge rise in INDEPENDENT ALBELS, highlighting some of the front- runners (my 1980 copy of the Zigzag Independent Labels guide surfaced briefly in my ocean of tat a week ago: it has submerged again — guesswork says that it features c.250 tiny UK labels which had set up SINCE 1978). NME briefly throws doors open to the future — has a column reviewing home-made CASSETTE TAPES (ie indie labels which are the size of someone's bedroom): this arts-and-crafts utopia very soon collapses (a. umanageably many tapes flood in, b. they are nearly all total imitative rubbish). BUT ITS ECHO REMAINS AS A POTENT DREAM CHARGING THE ROOM THROUGHOUT THE 80s: eg The Smiths — the godhead round which mid-80s indiedom orbits — have direct lineage to New Hormones (via Morrissey's close friendship with Linder, buddy of Boon and co-creator of the NH label-look).

The real 80s dialectic is thus between SMALL LABEL (absorbed into the machine but not yet co-opted?) and BEDROOM-SIZED LABEL (not absorbed: and in c.1988 bursting forth with renewed vigor, as digital technology allows quality-control to STEP AHEAD of Official Studio Practice).

This sounds like A GOLDEN AGE type history. No: NME 77-80 contained more worse stupid writing diluting the good and confusing the issue then prob. even now (where everything has clustered round the merely average). But back then, people were making up the rules as they went along — from NME editor level (Nick Logan) down to bedroom cassette-tape practice. The problem today is these rules (or quasi-opposed selective elements thereof) are still taken as INVIOLABLE BLUEPRINTS for ACCEPTABLE PRACTICE.

(I have omitted much and I wuz — yes — a militant NME-hed in these times...)

Mark and Andrew: well, I didn't want to write a complete off-the-top-of-my-head internal history, when actually I am taking a morning off dayjob to work on MY BOOK (haha). I think you are both correct: but NickD's question was, at what point did the rockpress turn towards indie... And induction of Morley/Thrills = (for me) exactly that point.

Subpoint re eg Ornette and/or world music — both of whom were "my patch", as R.Cook's NME protege — goes to long-awaited haha official mark s response to my AS IF PUNK NEVER HAPPENED thread: to me at time, this domain was useful as it needed not allegiance to either faction (trans. I was used by both factions, at least after M.Snow left); but it too contained sedimented traces of undeclared rock/anti-rock punk/pop art/ pol autonomy/collusion argts which I must gather and deliver, one of these days and NOT TOO LONG sigh.

throughout the 80s it devoted much column space to chart pop in a way that it ceased to do at the end of the decade, perhaps in the wake of C86, but more likely due to the commercial success of the stone roses and nirvana.

i'm not convinced that the nme fully embraced indie until the concept of indie had moved into the mainstream. even today the nme tends to ignore or sneer at truly independent labels, and prefers to champion those bands that are marketed as "alternative" by major record labels.

has the nme has really shifted its focus that much since the early eighties? in many ways the indie bands of today sound much like the pop bands of twenty years ago.

perhaps its not the nme that has changed, but pop.

Is this true? Was this true?

This lack of change is itself a huge change. If you're not moving forward you're falling behind. Can we imagine the bands of 1980 sounding exactly like the bands of 1955, and being written about breathlessly by the music press as if they were just as exciting as their inspirations?

I can certainly imagine bands of 1980 sounding exactly like the band of 1965 and being written about breahlessly by the music press as if they were just as exciting as their inspirations. The 50s are considered naff today, for a reason. But the 60s are still seen as a golden age.

did mick mercer have the best taste of any melody maker critic in 1984?

their Melody Maker entry is very brief at the mo:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melody_Maker

What key events / issues / themes should be included on Melody Maker wikipedia entry?

particularly 70s, 80s and mid 90s

the NME wikipedia entry has more info than MM entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Musical_Express

http://i.imgur.com/MPPvC8u.jpg

Which led to http://i.imgur.com/EoFSeMT.jpg

does anyone remember who the 32 new stars for 2001 were?

I have that issue in front of me but its not a list of band as such

the last year of melody maker covers are just tragic, cancelling it was a mercy killing, really

http://thumbs3.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/m1n1lYuZIwYO1k3H6Z3oEvA.jpg

some optimistic fellow on ebay is asking £6.50 for that, condition: used

Used for what?

Looked through it and typed out the bands mentioned-

Starsailor
Disturbed
Papa Roach
Taproot
Allstars
Boom!
Dukes Of Nothing
Brothers
Lady Luck
Zoot Woman
NERD
OPM
DJ ME DJ You
BS 2000
Outkast
Bilial
Crashland
Lowgold
Little Hell
The Avalanches
Ping Pong Bitches
The Strokes
Speedealer
Elbow
Gamers In Exile
The Zephyrs
D-12
Vincent Gallo
Lil'Bow Wow
The Cooper Temple Clause
Futureshock
Wheatus
Shyne
Mum & Dad
Lisa Left Eye Lopes

kudos to the NME for tipping Outkast as new stars for 2001, ahead of the curve there

I will forgive them everything for including Mum & Dad though, they were great. actually I bought both Mum & Dad's first album and A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure by Matmos after being introduced to both by a feature in the NME called 'this music will make you SICK!!!' or similar where half the page was taken up by a picture of some vomit.

V/Vm was featured in the article as well but I couldn't find any of his records in HMV

amen? FLC? oh.. i guess that's Fun Loving Criminals. jeez..

I still have a soft spot for DJ Me DJ You.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKlhyLf2hN4

Amen were ok

No Papa Roach, no AWESOME CD FROM PAPA ROACH thread.

Starsailor
Disturbed
Papa Roach
Taproot
Allstars
Boom!
Dukes Of Nothing
Brothers
Lady Luck
Zoot Woman
NERD
OPM
DJ ME DJ You
BS 2000
Outkast
Bilial
Crashland
Lowgold
Little Hell
The Avalanches
Ping Pong Bitches
The Strokes
Speedealer
Elbow
Gamers In Exile
The Zephyrs
D-12
Vincent Gallo
Lil'Bow Wow
The Cooper Temple Clause
Futureshock
Wheatus
Shyne
Mum & Dad
Lisa Left Eye Lopes

Jesus fucking christ.

Dukes Of Nothing, eh? It's not just a clever name.

the singers in turbonegro now

Dukes of Nothing were the best 'rock' band on that list by several light years, which I realise isn't the highest bar ever set

not sure what's supposed to be clever or otherwise about the name especially?

is the Boom! referred to the same Boom! who did 'Falling'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PvRmpdaSfQ

one of them married Lisa Scott-Lee from Steps and another is an aspiring WWE Diva, apparently

OPM!
Wheatus!

This was all the crap that used to be shown on the likes of Kerrang! (the channel) and MTV2 at the time, if I remember. Fucking awful shite.

Ping Pong Bitches were good. they have one one of those kind of poignant wiki entries that talks about how they have 'recently' been in the studio recording an album due for release in early 2007, also that the band is 'Fronted by three rather risque members'

Not a bad list actually. Five or six undeniable legends and quite a few others that were fun for a while.

yes, I imagine that the equivalent lists for the next few years would be quite a lot worse, certainly more dominated by post-Strokes indie (I love the Strokes themselves, though)

"the last year of melody maker covers are just tragic, cancelling it was a mercy killing, really"

^ I'm pretty sure this was deliberate.