NME to bullet the Singles Review page

hellfire, it's the NME. it should review *ringtones*.

hey, we did that at the ****** ******, where i used to work. a very, very short-lived series of MP3 reviews a couple of years ago. we were pioneers, man.

why is their playlist dominated by singles ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/music/playlist.shtml

when people in their 20s/ 30s/ 40s that listen to the station do not buy singles.

presently 6 Music is glorified promotions machine for record companies [majors/ large independents] that are on the plugging circuit.

this obsession with singles does not serve the listeners - so why do the bbc dinosaurs carry on with it?

The British music industry/ media needs a massive shake up - 6 Music in particular needs a radical shakeout/ change in music programming and playlist policy.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/media/story.jsp?story=563210

i give it six months.

wankers.

Our job on Rip & Burn will be to share our passion for great music in cyberspace - and movies, DVDs, games and gadgets which cross-breed in the online world - while guiding the fan through the virtual megastore of downloadable tracks.

what utter, utter bollocks.

"our job on rip and burn will be to jump on a bandwagon, hold on feebly for a few months, then fall off and skin our arses."

wankers!

'Why a magazine and not a website, though? Unlike a clunky desktop or even laptop computer, it is inexpensive, accessible, tactile and above all mobile - a piece of old technology that harmonises with the cutting edge of the new listening experience. No wonder my board of directors said yes.'

will there be url's? and knowing how accurate the spelling is on the enema will it be the correct url? and who is going to type http://users.ispname.com/~blah_de-blah/music/new/this_week/mp3list.html etc..?

Hm. Shoot this person.

A reason may be that if it's a single, there's a chance a 6Music listener may have heard the song elsewhere (other radio, TV) as well, so its recognisableness is greater than when the station plays another song from the album. Listeners do not like to hear (radio programmers think/know/fear) too many (to them) unknown tunes on the radio.

Stuart Maconie, Andrew Harrison, Paul Du Noyer, Jim Irvin,
Tom Cox, Nigel Williamson, Marcello Carlin, Mark Beaumont....

Stevie Chick

aaaaaah! must ... listen ... to ... now ... wow, what a great song that is.

there was a bloke called ian something ... i think ... who was a writer in the early nineties ... little guy ... wrote *the* greatest single reviews ever. crazy self-indulgent genius that still managed to tell you what you needed to buy that week.

I believe the last time i read some McCann was when the boy Ian contributed to the Mojo reviews section, when Keith Cameron(also formerly at NME, of course) was , well, Reviews Editor at Mojo.

I'm sorry, I really love a lot of what Angular Records are doing (The Vichy Government, The Violets, The Long Blondes), but there is no way Art Brut count as an exciting new band. I thought we all got over all that meta-textual stuff years ago.

Yeah!

gosh. music journo course.

i now seriously fucked up my college years in not choosing my course more carefully.

more fun, yes ... but would it have been more use? i doubt it.

you can teach people the basics of news journalism, ie how to report the facts; and you can teach them about structure and the basic rules of feature-writing and reviewing. (most of them won't listen, of course, but hey.)

but i genuinely believe that, above and beyond that, they're on their own. you can't teach someone to find exclusives or win interviewees' trust or - from a stylistic point of view - how to go from being a bog-standard hack to a talented writer.

to be honest, the idea of teaching people to write about music terrifies me. without exception (IMHO) the great music writers have been singular talents.

I also bought the frist ever Artrocker magazine. None of the above applies to it, unsurprisingly.

Would I write for either? Probably. Would they want me? Less probably.

Well that's true - you can't teach a whole lot more than that. It's just that I'd have loved to have had a few more music journo geek conversations. I know that's what forums like this are for, but it's nice to have full on academic discussions. Obviously that's not gonna turn you into a great writer, but it's interesting. It's also the English lit graduate in me - I love talking about writing and I'm not the sort of person who thinks everything you learn at uni should be geared towards getting you a job. The chance to hear respected journos talking shop was brilliant too.

Certainly the course was of massive use when I worked (albeit briefly) for a local rag, but they let me go at the end of my probabtion, the bastards. I'd already realised it wasn't really for me though. Good experience though.

unless i'm getting my wires crossed.

had a look in my local Megabore and agree re the spread of genres is impressive, but something just didn't sit right. its spotty and all over the place.

feels a mess and i wasn't too impressed with the layout. (the burning icon by reviews - yawn ..)

the fact that i dont subscribe to this whole music-online culture (give me a proper album anyday .. i did say "Give" ..) probably sways my opinion somewhat ..

picked up Plan B instead.

the fact that i've hardly any idea on the bands covered is both a good thing and a bad thing ..

we get unfairly saddled with this all the time: while it might have been true of careless talk, i don't think it is of plan b.

[faint bell rings] ... might he have been the partner of the then course organiser, whose name i forget? lovely woman ... mckay? jenny mckay? ach, i'm getting old.

Why not write for both? Other people do. It's not a fucking competition