NME - IS This Part Of The Reason It's So Rubbish ?

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This weeks letters page. Top letter:
"What happened to rock n roll as the most extreme and radically expressive art form? Jesus! There are artists refusing to comment on the Iraq was so they don't harm their US sales and Chris Martin's anti-Bush comment at the brits was the only noticeable sign of resistance. Theres hardly a dissenting voice to be heard over the fascistic laws about internet downloading(the oh so dull The Thrills even put pro-industry messages on their album cover.)
And when there is rebellious gestures within rock(Radohead's 'Hail To The Thief', BRMC'S 'Take Them On's so called 'music fans' write into NME to complain!
I'm longing for some bands that are prepared to defy the industry, the censors, the philistines, the authority and MTV. Commericialism is the enemy of individuality and progress in art, and now is as good a time as any to seperate music rom the music industry. It's down to artists and fans to create art outside the industry and work towards making music free.
Anon."

Sarah Dempster's Reply:
Come on , Anon. Punishing a band for toeing the party line is a bit like shouting at oxygen for allowing record companies to exist in the 1st place. How else could your favourite band's music reach fans around the world(Internet pilfery - which leave bands as well as the music industry out of pocket - notwithstanding)? As you dont posit an alternatve, we can only assume you envisage a future in which free music flows like running water and bands are content, ahem, 'create' without any financial reward whatsoever. Which is an awfully nice concept but one which is also, sadly, rooted in hippy-fied poppycock. Commercialism may be the enemy of individuality, but idealism, it would seem, is the foe of rational thought - SD"

No comments on the Anti-war points. Didnt NME used to stand for something? Has the NME been ever so far out of touch wth the music fan of today?
As for the new look NME it may look nicer, but the actual content is as bad, if not worse as before. Substance before style s what is needed Mr McNicolas.

― Karen Shaw, Thursday, 18 September 2003 12:23 (twenty-two years ago)

Readers that stupid deserve the NME anyway

― dave q, Thursday, 18 September 2003 12:30 (twenty-two years ago)

well, also not so surprising that nme takes an anti-file-sharing line, bearing in mind its parent company... still, i hardly think this is the problem- personally i couldn't give a fuck about the nme alligning itself with any particular political ethos, rather i care about it writing about NEW MUSIC, WELL - it doesn't.

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Thursday, 18 September 2003 12:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Sarah Dempster's reply is far loess objectionable than the original letter. I'd rather eradicate people who think that HTTT and BRMC (!!!) are 'rebellious' than the NME to be honest, as bad as it is.

― The Lex (The Lex), Thursday, 18 September 2003 12:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Wouldn't a more honest reply be: "The NME is published by IPC Media, which in turn is owned by the AOL/Time Warner conglomerate. We are therefore obliged to express opposition to concepts such as file-sharing which will make potentially serious dents in the profits of our parent company. Your misunderstanding of the NME or IPC Media as a bastion of socialism ignores the fact that our Brand Director, Mr Sutherland, crossed NUJ picket lines on two occasions, in 1980 and 1984, and is therefore a contented and conservative servant of unrestricted capitalism. Thank you for your letter"?

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 18 September 2003 12:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh that would be much more honest...

BUT the NME of old did have a political ethos, it had a position on certain issues and would stand up for them... an immediate example is when they dropped Morrisey from their pages for having a union jack on stage in the early 90s. Rightly or wrongly they stood for something. Now (well not "now" technically because i stopped reading it about a year ago) interviews can be filled with misogynistic or homophobic rubbish and their editorial stance seems to be a shoulder-shrugging "that's not what we think"...
If their core readership has been used to a certain political stance it's no wonder they get bemused when it suddenly changes... just like if the Guardian suddenly went right-wing.

Before i stopped reading it there had been a definite adoption of a pro-major label, pro-music business ethos. A review of Andrew WK salivated over the fact that it cost half a million quid (or whatever) to get that guitar sound... I couldn't help but think "you're the fucking NME! when did you start approving of spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on production?"

Just one of the many, many reasons why a once good mag is now shit.

― Officer Pupp, Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:07 (twenty-two years ago)

but Mr Sutherland is no longer Brand Director he has been promoted to Editorial Director !

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:09 (twenty-two years ago)

in 1985 NME read like the music wing of Socialist Worker, the shift to the consumerist branded culture has been a bigger shift to the right than New Labour.

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:12 (twenty-two years ago)

If someone thinks the stated opinion of one NME writer on the letters page is the opinion of every single NME writer ever, there is no hope for them.

I don't see what's so shocking about Dempster's opinion, anyway - "making music free" might be a laudable intent, but without any idea of how to realise it it's just a patently unfeasible pipedream. Unless we'd prefer musicians to all have day jobs.
A lot of NME stuff I've read has been pro-filesharing, so there clearly isn't a grand consensus (that issue's news article on the RIAA's latest actions is perfectly neutral, but then I'd be shocked it if wasn't), IPC ownership notwithstanding.

― cis (cis), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:17 (twenty-two years ago)

well we writers (and some of us are part-time ipc employees!) have to have day jobs, why not musicians?

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Because that would make it hard for them to go on tour.

― cis (cis), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:24 (twenty-two years ago)

most musicians do have day jobs - they just don't publicise them. kerrist, i feel like blowing the lid off of the corruption that exsists in yer 'underground' press, people!

uncut is rubbish! it needs to die! i mean wtf?

― st tremaine, Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:27 (twenty-two years ago)

point of interest: did Mr Sutherland not also cross an IPC picket line during the 1991 strike, when he was still at Melody Maker, or am I confusing him with someone else?

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Really expensive production often sounds really fantastically great so why shouldn't the NME like it? (What did they think of the Propaganda album in '85 when NME was a Socialist Worker offshoot apparently?)

Cis' vision of a brave new world is v.appealing.

There was a great line in a Chris Roberts review in Uncut this month.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I know a Karen Shaw. Karen?

― David. (Cozen), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I know a David! David?

― st tremaine, Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:30 (twenty-two years ago)

ah robin you're thinking of when sutherland took over at the nme and several writers, including collins, maconie and hobbs, handed in their notice vis-a-vis scab history.

i can't really disagree with paul about uncut either (and we've both written for it in our time!).

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:33 (twenty-two years ago)

You get the NME you deserve, folks

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:35 (twenty-two years ago)

actually, the wire must die as well.

tom: cath carroll (!) reviewed secret wish in nme in '85 and slagged it off. still made #28 in their end-of-year poll, though (you don't want to know most of what was above it - Pringle soulboy hell).

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Didn't NME have a section called 'burn it', encouraging illegal copies to make compilation CDs?

Yes, they did.

Huh?

― mei (mei), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:40 (twenty-two years ago)

We get the New Momus Experience we deserve. I know.

HEY. I've never written for UNCUT. I ... I ... would never ... DAMN YOU MARCELLO...!!! but those bitches at uncut STILL have not paid me.

actually ctcl must die as well. oh wait. actually select must die as well. oh wait. actually jesus christ must die as well. oh wait. actually bang must die as well. oh wait!

― st tremaine, Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:42 (twenty-two years ago)

didn't select die a long time ago - so painfully that they had to give their sacked editor (alexis petridish) a sympathy job at the grauniad?

also of course twats like sean o'hagan (the journo, not the high llama) wet themselves over "sonic theft merchants" in the nme in the mid-'80s at the time when sampling went overground.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:45 (twenty-two years ago)

ok marcello you win.

yer obscurism beats me down into admitting i am a fool when it comes to the history of music journalism!

― st tremaine, Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:47 (twenty-two years ago)

All music journalists must die - that means you Marcello

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:52 (twenty-two years ago)

... oh I forgot, you have a proper job, you can escaped with being maimed

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:53 (twenty-two years ago)

What is it with the broadsheet ex-NMEer thing? Surely it's got worse: Kitty Empire, William Leith, O'Hagan... I haven't read it since I was 19, and that was 4 years ago.

― Henry K M (Enrique), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Re: the strike - yep, unless I'm mistaken there was one in 1991. There is much enjoyable bitching on this old thread, including this contribution from Andrew (Collins, presumably).

1992. Popular, rotund, football loving NME editor Danny Kelly leaves for pastures Q. Various NME staffers publicly apply for job - in name of continuity at what was a great time for the NME - Steve Lamacq, Stuart Maconie, Andrew Collins, Gavin Martin, James Brown and Brendan Fitzgerald (the people's choice, non-nonsense Antipodean Deputy Ed). None of whom even got the courtesy of a second interview - instead we were all shocked to find that MM deputy ed Steve Sutherland would be "crossing the floor" from Melody Maker to be our new boss - just weeks after a pathetic live review in MM which he wrote saying that Suede were all that MM stood for (grace, glamour, originality) and Kingmaker were all that NME stood for (lumpen, crappy stude rock). It was typical of his useless writing style and his imagined "feud" between the papers - both owned by IPC and one floor apart in the same building. We at NME did hate the MM, but mainly because they all crossed an NUJ picket line that very year, despite our pleading of solidarity. So we were going to be run by a scab who'd tried to turn NME vs MM into column inches for cheap effect. And we'd heard he was a tosser. Lamacq and Mary Anne Hobbs resigned at exactly the same time as the announcement. I resigned later that day, only to be talked back into working under Sutho for a few weeks, which I did - hated it, hated him, hated the atmopshere, and I eventually left. (Stuart followed a month or two later once Lamacq and I were installed at Select and could offer him a lifeline. James Brown stayed at IPC - they gave him carte blanche to start his own magazine - the rest is history.)

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:56 (twenty-two years ago)

nme leads to bigger things, maybe? dunno?

― st tremaine, Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Why is the vociverous and opinionated Anon Anonymous?

Pussy.

Unless...he doesn't exist???

(or she?)

― mei (mei), Thursday, 18 September 2003 13:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, but why always the wack ones? Should know that. Innaresting that all of the MM, Collins, implies crossed the picket line. Reynolds? Pricey (if he was there at that point)? Say it ain't so.

― Enrique (Enrique), Thursday, 18 September 2003 14:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Who gives a flying fuck about any of this?

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 18 September 2003 14:07 (twenty-two years ago)

People who click on threads named 'NME - IS This Part Of The Reason It's So Rubbish', I'm thinking. Also disgruntled freelancers.

― Enrique (Enrique), Thursday, 18 September 2003 14:13 (twenty-two years ago)

fwiw, Enrique, i think Reynolds crossed the NUJ picket line in 1991. not sure about Price (who had been there since late 1988, and whose Independent on Sunday reviews are better than any popcrit the Guardian has tried in aeons).

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Thursday, 18 September 2003 15:41 (twenty-two years ago)

or the Observer, for that matter

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Thursday, 18 September 2003 15:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Sean O'Hagan the hack and the High Llama are one and the same. Aren't they? (His Roy Keane piece was better than any of his rock stuff IMHO)

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Thursday, 18 September 2003 15:48 (twenty-two years ago)

No, they are different ppl.

― Andrew L (Andrew L), Thursday, 18 September 2003 17:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Robin, as with yr site/blog stuff: unrivalled erudition. And someone said you were only 23? What've I been doing?

― Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 19 September 2003 07:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Cis makes a bunch of reasonable points.

Select folded in autumn/ winter 2000. It was owned by Emap Performance, a company which has nothing to do with Guardian Media.

And again into the prepared speech (look, everybody just trots out their favourite line on these threads, I just admit it): ILM will never be happy with any music magazine because by default the users of this site care far more about music than most commercial magazine buyers. Sorry, we're stuck with capitalism now and journalism is a popular form. It has to sell. For a 15 year old taking the first steps away from their brother's CD collection a blog like Church of Me would not be at all accessable in terms of content or visability. Most magazines are mass market, ILM is not. Stop being magazine rockists.

(Anyone who mentions maiming, raping or killing journalists wil not be threatened with violence, but at some point I will track them down and read them an excruciatingly boring essay on freedom of speech and expression, and point out to them that if time Warner etc actually implemented their ideas then many human rights organisations would be up in arms.)

This is a recording... This is a recording ... This is a recording ...
This is a recording... This is a recording ... This is a recording ...
This is a recording... This is a recording ... This is a recording ...

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 19 September 2003 08:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Gavin Martin, James Brown and Brendan Fitzgerald (the people's choice, non-nonsense Antipodean Deputy Ed)

What the fuck is my Dad doing there! He never told me this at all!

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 19 September 2003 08:56 (twenty-two years ago)

(xpost):

Your prepared speech patronising and insulting the intelligence of 15-year-olds (what is this "accessability" and "visability") does not negate or supersede any others.

Please listen carefully, for I shall say this only once: CoM is not a music blog and is not written for anyone except for Laura, for Gail, for me and for the few others whom it is intended to reach. Nonetheless the hit rate for the site increases daily and it's going to be published in book form...not for any monetary reasons (because I do not expect it to make a fortune or sell thousands, or even hundreds) but because Laura's friends want it published and my mum wants to see me published. End of story. OK?

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 19 September 2003 09:04 (twenty-two years ago)

look stop this nonsense and just accept that my dad is the peoples choice, a no nonsense antipodean deputy editor.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 19 September 2003 09:08 (twenty-two years ago)

his dislike of all music is a revolutionary stance.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 19 September 2003 09:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Anna - you also make several good points, it isn't just a straight choice between NME as it exists now and an uncommercial, inaccessible loss-making publication featuring pages and pages of inpenetrable rockcrit.

There's a difference between being accessible and commercially viable and treating your readers like idiots.

(x-post) Ronan - so is your dislike of Tanya the result of some deep-set Oedipal complex?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 19 September 2003 09:12 (twenty-two years ago)

yes but his is a much more hip passive dislike, he simply turns off stereos and buys no cds.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 19 September 2003 09:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Marcello - I used COM as an example because it's the blog that comes up most often on these threads.

Matt makes very sensible points, and God knows as a writer it would be nice to have more freedom. However, I do feel that ILM makes no allowances for the existance of a wider market.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 19 September 2003 09:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, let's get Ronan's Aussie dad in.

― Anna (Anna), Friday, 19 September 2003 09:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Look, I'm not saying that all music writing has to be the equivalent of the Grove Dictionary. What I want is music writing which has within it some element of individuality, difference, fun, reverence when needed, irreverence when not needed, sex, passion, curiosity...just some sign of life. Not all this by-the-book capsule rota of stock phrases and recycled PR blab which in any case is usually rendered unreadable by the charity bazaar graphics which the NME and similar consider essential. For £1.80 per week one is entitled to a good read. Some indication, at least, that publications are striving to stimulate the highest common denominator of its readership rather than continually and cynically pandering to the lowest.

All writers have freedom. You put pen to paper. No one is stopping you.

Why should ILM make allowances for the "existance" of a wider market? There is no demand for a music magazine as there would be for a pair of shoes or a loaf of bread. That is not why we are here.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 19 September 2003 09:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Jesus H - it's £1.80 these days?
Demand, linked to expectations, isn't a static state bottom-line thing. The NME sold way more when it had Morley. Yeah there were other factors, but editorial timidity plus shrinking wordcounts (this isn't a writer whinge, it's a reader whinge) have definitely diminished people's expectations.

― Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 19 September 2003 10:49 (twenty-two years ago)

sometimes ILM reads like a discarded 'High-Fidelity' script by Nick Hornby... just an observation.

― st tremaine, Friday, 19 September 2003 10:53 (twenty-two years ago)

We-ell, maybe, but HF (I read it when I was 15) has this crass emotional arc in which stopping being into music + getting girl = emotional maturity. Which is rubbish obviously. Salt in the wound that the protag has no definable, individual taste at all: oh, you like Motown - swell. Dylan you say? Remarkable.

― Enrique (Enrique), Friday, 19 September 2003 10:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Skipping 9 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

The shop was Moss Bros last time I looked, but it's several months since I was last there.

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 19 September 2003 12:07 (twenty-two years ago)

i dunno marcello seems to me that hornby's been laying pods around this place...

― st tremaine, Friday, 19 September 2003 12:39 (twenty-two years ago)

even hornby could teach you something

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 19 September 2003 14:05 (twenty-two years ago)

the thing that most bemused me about the new look NME is the way it had a glowing article about a pr0n website, complete with link. it was kind of a riot grrls go slutty kind of thing. bizarre stuff. truly pr0n is the new rock and roll.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 19 September 2003 14:12 (twenty-two years ago)

NME is at least six months behind every other fucker re: Suicidegirls, actually...

― DJ Mencap (DJ Mencap), Friday, 19 September 2003 14:19 (twenty-two years ago)

''Please listen carefully, for I shall say this only once: CoM is not a music blog''

that's news to me.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Friday, 19 September 2003 14:41 (twenty-two years ago)

just admit it marcello - church of me is A TEEN-CULT FOR ROCK'N'ROLL SUICIDES. you know you've always wanted to open up a cult, baby and now you've got it CUE MARCELLO: the numbers have been steadily rising and my various tracts are being prepared for publication!!!!!!!

― st tremaine, Friday, 19 September 2003 14:45 (twenty-two years ago)

well there is that aspect to it as well...

― Marcello Carlin, Friday, 19 September 2003 14:47 (twenty-two years ago)

hahahahah!!

TRUTH!

gots to go. have a good weekend marcello!

― st tremaine, Friday, 19 September 2003 14:49 (twenty-two years ago)

three years pass...

Maybe you saw that Keith Richards item that started popping up all over the place on Tuesday (April 3) — the one about how he'd admitted to snorting the ashes of his late father after his body had been cremated? Great story, right? And yet, like so much in the world of celebrity journalism, totally untrue.

In case you missed it, this little yarn first appeared in the pages of London's notoriously unreliable New Musical Express. The magazine quoted the Rolling Stones guitarist as saying, "The strangest thing I've tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn't have cared. ... It went down pretty well, and I'm still alive."

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 16:20 (eighteen years ago)

didn't think they were notoriously unreliable, just notoriously lame

― blueski, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 16:22 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah it doesn't really seem worth zinging NME here, it's hardly one for the factcheckers is it

― DJ Mencap, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 16:28 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah it doesn't really seem worth zinging NME here

Why change ILM's habit of a lifetime!

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 17:20 (eighteen years ago)

NME sucks, not because they write about white UK guys with guitars (after all, most of the best music of the past 20 years has been made by white UK guys with guitars), but because of their pathetic "next big thing" thing, which means anyone they've backed a month ago they are supposed to tear down this month.

― Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 18:07 (eighteen years ago)

(after all, most of the best music of the past 20 years has been made by white UK guys with guitars),

oh geirpaws

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 18:09 (eighteen years ago)

He's not even trying any more.

― Dom Passantino, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 18:15 (eighteen years ago)

It was just a jaded automatic response wasn't it?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 18:35 (eighteen years ago)

By Geir, not you Dom.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 18:36 (eighteen years ago)

arf

― Michael Philip Philip Philip philip Annoyman, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 18:46 (eighteen years ago)

Damn, Geir stole Dom's schtick!

― Charlie, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 20:46 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPvmwuLaXhE

― Catsupppppppppppppp dude ‫茄蕃‪, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 21:35 (eighteen years ago)

― latebloomer, Wednesday, 4 April 2007 22:35 (eighteen years ago)

One thing though, that the contemptable Demptser's attitude shows up, is that most music isn't even pretending to be radical and it should to make the music more fun.

It's a curious paradox, that music proclaiming to be radical, no matter how at odds it seems to be with the musicians lifestyle choices can be exciting.

like Killing Joke doing 'The Empire Song' in 1982 on top of the pops during the build up to the Falklands.

Its easy to critisise musicians being political, Killing Joke themselves may not have been brimming with love for humanity, by 82 they were starting to sound a bit samey too, the message was rather simplistic and didn't change anything.

None of which matters - Jaz staring into a BBC camera shouting 'another empire backfire' was just brillianr and we need more of that kind of stuff.

Dempsters analysis of the finances of the music industry is dismal journalism too. Does she still work for the NME?

― Sandy Blair, Thursday, 5 April 2007 07:02 (eighteen years ago)

this was the first time i'd seen this partic nme thread (i think) and yeah, the thing in the first post is fucking sick. nme writers tend to go on to the murdoch papers now.

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 5 April 2007 11:02 (eighteen years ago)

Dempsters analysis of the finances of the music industry is dismal journalism too. Does she still work for the NME?

Don't think so:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1476908,00.html

I remember she seemed to hate everything she reviewed when she was working there anyway.

― Bocken Social Scene, Thursday, 5 April 2007 11:19 (eighteen years ago)

nme writers tend to go on to the murdoch papers now.

Which ones? I'm trying to think who writes for the Times in the week but I never read it

― DJ Mencap, Thursday, 5 April 2007 11:26 (eighteen years ago)

well, julie burchill obv, but i mean of more recent writers victoria wotshername, stevie chick of this parish, um some1 else i can't remember...

― That one guy that quit, Thursday, 5 April 2007 11:34 (eighteen years ago)

ooh, i haven't written for the times in a good 18 months or so. i miss the money, but it means i can hate on that cunt murdoch while being ever so slightly less of a hypocrite about it.

― stevie, Thursday, 5 April 2007 11:48 (eighteen years ago)

and i was writing for the times at least a year before i was writing for NME...
MELODY MAKER NEVER FORGET

― stevie, Thursday, 5 April 2007 11:59 (eighteen years ago)

NME's next big scene = http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Democrat_black_metal

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Thursday, 5 April 2007 14:43 (eighteen years ago)

http://images.wikia.com/uncyclopedia/images/9/94/LDBM1.jpg

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Thursday, 5 April 2007 14:44 (eighteen years ago)

hip bands such as Muse and Interpol

Sarah Dempster does appear to have gotten into music journalism as part of an episode of "Faking It". I can only assume that perhaps in reality she is a 63 year old parish newsletter editor, who after three weeks intense training from Imran Ahmed and Johnny Dee managed to fool a gang of professionals by noting that some guitars sound "angular", and that !!! have a "funny name".

― Dom Passantino, Thursday, 5 April 2007 14:46 (eighteen years ago)

That was from the standfirst, Dom, I doubt she wrote that. I always quite liked her turn of phrase as it goes, although who knows if she's ever had an interesting opinion on music

― DJ Mencap, Thursday, 5 April 2007 14:58 (eighteen years ago)

She's writing for the Guardian, jeez, do they at least make her go to the gigs she reviews?

― Sandy Blair, Thursday, 5 April 2007 17:09 (eighteen years ago)

HAHAHAH sandy, oh god ... no, i'm not going to share that story. there was an, umm, episode involving the scotsman and a meat loaf gig many years ago and i'm leaving it at that. but you've no idea how much your comment made me chuckle.

anyway: i know ms D of old; she used to write reviews and the odd feature for me ... FUCKING HELL, 10 YEARS AGO NOW. she was in many ways a very fine writer. i liked her a lot personally, and i still think she's nae bad at all. i certainly don't think she's deserving of the opprobrium being heaped on her here.

― grimly fiendish, Friday, 6 April 2007 12:29 (eighteen years ago)

I was aware of the Meatloaf SECC cancelled gig review when I made the comment, a quick google can confirm the details.

I can't comment on her personality and my dislike of her writing isn't personal, it's because I dislike the writing. I know that many ILXers are music critics, but the double standards invovled everytime a critic is castigated here are very odd - would you suggest that my complete loathing of (say) Razorlight is undeserving because they are nice people? Would you suggest that a critic should only praise Kasabian because they bring pleasure to thousands.

It's not as if Dempster avoids the personal herself, google is your friend here, in this article, she describes wanting to see Damon from Blur seriously injure himself: http://living.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=886&id=887772006

I'm not even objecting to her right to make such comments (shabby as they are), I just want the right to object to her writing without having to consider if she 'deserves it'.

Her reply to that letter is a pile of muddled shite, she sets up a false dichotomy (either all musicians act as servile music industry puppets or there is no music) and brings in irrelevant arguments about musicians being paid. So by her logic Radiohead shouldn't be paid for being controversial? In my view they shouldn't be paid from not being controversial enough.

(I was at that show and Blur were great by the way.) Not such a fan of Blur on records but they played some very fine pop concerts... erm where was I?

― Sandy Blair, Friday, 6 April 2007 15:42 (eighteen years ago)

I'm pretty sure I remember Simon telling that story somewhere actually ages ago.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 6 April 2007 15:48 (eighteen years ago)

I just want the right to object to her writing without having to consider if she 'deserves it'.

er, read what i actually wrote, dude. i said she isn't deserving of the opprobrium heaped upon her here (not just by you). she's not god's gift to music journalism, but she does seem to be being singled out for a disproportionate mauling since this thread was revived. i'm not saying she doesn't deserve criticism per se. all writers do: look, here i am criticising your post.

only i very much doubt anyone will still be criticising it in three and a half years' time :)

kerr: i've mentioned the story, but never SD's name. still, bag open, cat zipping about under the table and stuff now.

― grimly fiendish, Friday, 6 April 2007 23:05 (eighteen years ago)

basically, i just think that even in the basically-pretty-facile world of music writing, there are FAR greater concerns than whether SD's brand of glib humour works or not!

― grimly fiendish, Friday, 6 April 2007 23:07 (eighteen years ago)

note to self: don't use the word "basically" so much.

― grimly fiendish, Friday, 6 April 2007 23:08 (eighteen years ago)

(and, of course, i suppose i shouldn't forget that the mere mention of zoe williams turns me into a foaming mass of bile; so hey, i suppose we're all entitled to our slightly irrational and chippy loathings of some-time guardian contributors. hey ho. as you were.)

― grimly fiendish, Friday, 6 April 2007 23:15 (eighteen years ago)

I think my response to Dempster is the same as my response to every other music journalist ever: she/he isn't as bad as that dickbag with the glasses from thelondonpaper

― Dom Passantino, Friday, 6 April 2007 23:16 (eighteen years ago)

i am unaware of said dickbag. link?

― grimly fiendish, Friday, 6 April 2007 23:23 (eighteen years ago)

actually, no, fuck that. i've just had a look at their website. no link. ever.

― grimly fiendish, Friday, 6 April 2007 23:27 (eighteen years ago)

You mean there's music journos more hated that Alexis Petridis? (judging by that rolling thread it's not just Marcello that hates him)

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Friday, 6 April 2007 23:43 (eighteen years ago)

OMG, thelondonpaper's website is horrible. Ugh. OMG.

I quite liked the Meat Loaf review, and the chutzpah required to turn it in when you'd clearly spent the night in with your feet up watching EastEnders is to be admired, clearly.

― ailsa, Saturday, 7 April 2007 10:27 (eighteen years ago)

TS: chutzpah v journalism :/

― grimly fiendish, Saturday, 7 April 2007 13:03 (eighteen years ago)

I want a musician to write a review of me doing nothing at home. That sounds great!

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 7 April 2007 13:15 (eighteen years ago)

i thought sarah was a great writer at NME - we did some weird real life vs virtual life thing there together years ago, tho we've never actually met. but the meat loaf thing was, i reckon, much more laziness than chutzpah.

― stevie, Saturday, 7 April 2007 14:34 (eighteen years ago)

thirteen years pass...

weirdly this is now the currently most read thread despite no new posts

https://ilxor.com/ILX/Pages/most-read-threads.jsp

― Oor Neechy, Thursday, 11 March 2021 19:30 (four years ago)

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