OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

Argh, nu-ilx has shrunk it slightly past readable; here's a direct link - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/njsouthall/Screengrabs/onsellingoutexepose.jpg

I just boggled at this over my lunch.

"Jonny" is a name for gaywads

This only proves again that editors and writers are two different professions. Hence the two names.

You are actually posting a scan of an article from a student newspaper as the basis for a thread, aren't you? Good lord.

It's a screengrab from the pdf off the website! They didn't have a normal text version...

can you link to the website? photobucket seems to be banned here.

http://www.exepose.ex.ac.uk

goes from strength to strength -- feeder mention is possibly the high point.

System of a Down's top 20 single was six and a half years ago, fact fans.

"Recent developments in music have given Architechs a top 5 single"

surely this can't be THE jonny garrett?

http://www.myspace.com/chasingfaces

(yeah, they have a myspace already, the sellouts)

I suspect it must be, StanM.

I assume, from their name that they like Snow Patrol and The Small Faces.

um, holding up articles by students as examples of 'bad music writing'? talk about shooting fish in a barrel. Matt DC OTM.

Following in the footsteps of West Country acts like Muse and Thirteen Senses by already winning over interest from various major and independent record labels, things are definitely looking good for the boys. Having recently been asked to support New Zealand favourites The Checks who have just finished touring with the likes of JET and Oasis.

"I know someone who knows someone who knows the guy from Young Heart Attack quite well"

blueski and Matt DC offtm, this is the new web2.0 media era, we're all critics now, user provided content is the new professionally written content.

Even in the realm of student media this is BAAAAAAAAD though, Steve - I flick through Exepose every week and this is BY FAR the worst thing I've ever seen in it; hence not starting a thread every week.

Haha I used to write for that paper. I wonder how long before he Googles his own name and finds it.

It would be so wonderful if he googled this thread and responded. What an utterly thrilling discussion and exchange of views that could lead to.

Hey, with any luck he might hop over to ILE and start posting about his sex life or something.

(my question: is the article motivated by his own band possibly signing to a major soon?)

Maybe I should unleash the views of Chris Erasmus at you all?

Haha, yeah, I'd imagine so, StanM.

Hello Jonny's mom! No, he hasn't posted about his sex life yet. Try again later. Bye, ILX.

blueski and Matt DC offtm, this is the new web2.0 media era, we're all critics now, user provided content is the new professionally written content.

-- Dom Passantino, Monday, 18 June 2007 12:36 (11 minutes ago) Link

Dom is entirely correct here. I mean, the chuckle factor is diminished by him being a student, but the democratization of criticism basically leaves us with this sort of landscape (coughcoughP.E.W.cough).

also why do nearly all student newspaper writers write in what feels like the same voice? there's certain syntax and word choices that only student newspapers ever seem to have.

Nobody knows how to sub-edit when they're 21, that's why.

^^not unrelated to why writers in the say, New York Times tend to sound the same. for that matter, ever read Blender? Despite the bylines it seems to be written by one many-armed poprockbot.

that really is quite incredible.

New York Times doesn't have sub-editors? That's crazy!

Hey Jonny, your band fucking suck.

Jonny Garrett of Exeter University, that is.

I think you mean <a href="OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?;>Jonny Garrett</a> of Exeter University.

BOO HTML

Kudos on sticking it to Westlife, tho, Jonny Garrett of Exeter University. Those bastards have had it their own way for too long.

Does Westlife even exist anymore?

highlights:

"...bands like westlife who can, quite frankly, go screw themselves with a rusty spoon and get tetanus"

"had nirvana not signed to sub pop... we would probably never have heard one of the most influential artists of our time and dave grohl may have never founded the foo fighters."

the pathos!

but the democratization of criticism basically leaves us with this sort of landscape (coughcoughP.E.W.cough).

democratization of criticism = people slagging this shit off just because they can rather than for any constructive cause. it's just easy target practice, who gives a shit? no-one/nothing is ever going to stop under-grads inheriting these absurd ideas about 'how things should be' in the music industry. surely we've all read this same article many times in the past.

i'm just more relieved than ever my music writing from college days was too soon for blog-era internet heh.

"had nirvana not signed to sub pop... we would probably never have heard of..." Sub Pop.

Was there ever a thread for people to post their own abysmal juvenile music writings from uni days?

Not that I'd post on it, my capsule reviews of Kinesis singles were all fuckin bang-on.

perhaps one day i will post my 8/10 track by track review of 'Be Here Now' from the time.

Yeah, you real writers are all jealous that you've lost the ability to write like that, aren't you?

I wrote a two-part article in my uni paper called "Rhythm & Sound", which basically stated that all rock music that's based on melody or lyrics is boring crap, and that beats and sound are the essential components of good music - hence electronic dance music (and fusion jazz) is the best music there is. I got some angry comments from the indie kids.

Kudos on sticking it to Westlife, tho, Jonny Garrett of Exeter University.

and kudos to you lot for bravely and relentlessly going after such a signifivcant target as jonny garrett. sure showed him!

ts being one of many thick students w/ bad music taste who can't write, vs being someone who actually gives a shit about what said student writes in some minor student rag

or, matt'n'steve otm, u r all losers

but the democratization of criticism basically leaves us with this sort of landscape (coughcoughP.E.W.cough).

student newspapers have nothing to do with the "democratization of criticism"

I can't copy and paste from the Exeter Expose, but if you Google you can find a review where our Jonny talks about "Indy music".

also why do nearly all student newspaper writers write in what feels like the same voice? there's certain syntax and word choices that only student newspapers ever seem to have.

paul please, please tell me you don't actually care about the answer to this

he liked to call it RED WODGE (powerful stuff i think you'll agree)

i remain fond of him as a ridiculous force of nature, he was maddening to work with but basically good-hearted, and more intellectually curious than he pretended to be…

My favourite Swells fuck up - and I was generally fond of him - was when he reviewed Straight Outta Compton and thought that when they used the word "wack" they were saying "white" and he was very enthused about NWA using "white" as a term of dismissal. Clown.

Anyway I've always been a bit bemused at the ILX indie police's disdain for "What's Going On" so y'know, whatever

Why do ILX indie police hate Marvin Gaye?

Just happy to be at an age where I routinely get the names of popular records wrong

We don't need to escalate

I have never understood the love for Teenage Fanclub so I appreciate the dismissive new name.

it's an OK jab - credit to Swells, i guess, whatever that is - but it's a dumb one to make at one of the best pop-rock bands ever

i was a college age music press consumer at the time and the Teenage Fanclub love by the press is only understandable in the context that all of Big Star’s records were out of print at the time

Teenage Fanclub is great and anyone who says otherwise is wrong

otm

mention of quantick and the 'putting down your/our indie beloveds because THIS-right-here-is-actual-pop' reminds me of this quickie editorial from a 2000 issue of select

though as this was the era of shitty melody maker craig-on-the-bog etc i can't fault its spirit (and also just 'fill me in' really is a hundred thousand times preferable to black box recorder in my world)

https://selectmagazinescans.monkeon.co.uk/?p=8549

I've never heard a note of Teenage Fanclub. Were their records even available in America?

yes and you know they were

They were but you could only get them if you returned a copy of Nevermind to the store.

I admit that I get a bit of what unperson is going for here with his hyperbole; every time I try to think of a Teenage Fanclub song, I end up going “oh wait, that was Inspiral Carpets/Ned’s Atomic Dustbin/Doves/any of a bunch of other British bands from that time period, half of which sound nothing like Teenage Fanclub”

It’s similar to how I have no recollection of Pavement, only I did listen to Teenage Fanclub on the radio at the time

The other day I said out loud, “oh, this is Pavement” to a song being played in a public place. It was “Spit on a Stranger.” That and “Box Elder,” which a friend put on a mix for me when I was 14, are the only Pavement songs I know, and the only ones I will ever know. Truly can’t understand what everyone was on about

Didn't he go to a public school though? Unlike most of those "middle class" indie mediocrities?

― Schlub 7 (Tom D.), Thursday, 26 February 2026 bookmarkflaglink

Loved the Clash too

But I liked Wells a lot. Weird he had a job at NME given he hated most of the indie stuff they were going for. Guess he was a bit of an institution there?

I was reading about The Kinks earlier on. Back in 1973 Reprise Records put out The Great Lost Kinks Album - it was a collection of songs from the archives released without the band's approval. It quickly went out of print although it was apparently a decent sampler of their work.

The liner notes were by John Mendelsohn, a writer who at the time was also signed to Reprise as a musician. As an example of both his writing and his humour, back in 2022 he released an album called I Have Nothing Against Homosexuality So Long as No Fellow Male Tries to Force Himself On Me, and at This Point, I Don't Think I'm in Much Danger.

The liner notes were apparently infamous at the time for shitting all over The Kinks's then-current lineup, so I looked them up, and they do nothing to alter my opinion of 1970s US rock writing:

"Wotta sight are the current Kinks! Groupies charlestoning frenziedly in the wings... an immensely motley horn section - one of whom looks like three of Black Sabbath's identical twin, another of whom looks like he just wandered off the bandstand of The Lulu Show - doubling up with laughter at the absurd Dixieland that's coming out of their horns... Pudgy John D. and D. Davies, much bewhiskered, cracking one another up with heavy English poses... The perpetually-ravaged-looking John Gosling balanced precariously at his keyboards in the center of a mountain of discarded beer cans... And this preposterous bow-tied bastard grandson of Oscar Wilde grinning the most lopsided grin anyone's ever seen while flouncing to and fro like a Ziegfreid choreographer's worst nightmare."

And so forth. Long, long sentences. But on the other hand this was around the time of the Preservation Society rock opera so perhaps he was spot-on. And The Kinks Kronikles, his biography of the band, has a good score on Goodreads. He then appears to have pivoted into writing a novel about a fan of Kate Bush, and then a biography of The Pixies that intersperses biographical details of the band with a short story about a fan of the band, before giving up.

Weird he had a job at NME given he hated most of the indie stuff they were going for.

NME in this era always had a good cadre of writers who weren't much interested in lumpenindie. But iirc Swells was just as likely to write about that stuff, even if only as an excuse to rattle thru his greatest hits

it was apparently a decent sampler of their work

a lot of kinks fans, this one included, consider it one of their greatest albums.

mendelsohn also curated and wrote the liner notes to the kink kronikles, which had come out a year earlier, and which sported a similar level of criticism and sass. he was never the world's greatest writer, but the kronikles notes, especially, were pretty damn groundbreaking for their honesty and their no-fucks-given attitude. they're *great* liner notes. the great lost notes are basically a sequel, and not as good, but i'm glad they exist.

NME in this era always had a good cadre of writers who weren't much interested in lumpenindie. But iirc Swells was just as likely to write about that stuff, even if only as an excuse to rattle thru his greatest hits

― podcast Diderot (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 28 February 2026 bookmarkflaglink

That late 90s/early 2000s period (when I read it) was a curiously pre-poptimist time where they'd put Destiny's Child on the cover. So Wells fit into that.

Even so, indie was their bread and butter..

Ah I was thinking of mid-80s to early 90s, I'd stopped reading it by the full indie ascendancy

maybe I was easily impressed in my youth, but I found Swells interviews piss funny at times. Like when he interviewed Phil Collins and the headline was FAT BALD BASTARD TALKS (then in tiny letters) to Phil Collins. yes, not really hilarious now but I was like 16 or something!

Swells actually started writing for the NME under the pseudonym Susan Williams; I can’t remember when, or how long it went on before he came clean.

yeah he was proto-trans performance artist in the punk era! I think also he went under the name Seething Wells

I don't remember what music he liked other than fellow middle class skinhead cosplayers, the http://i.imgur.com/QbYzHTH.jpg. I assumed it was similar social realist stuff. As I said, I'd stopped reading the NME by the 90s though.

... wtf http://i.imgur.com/QbYzHTH.jpg has turned into a huge "content not viewable in your region" image!

... and again! That should read R e d s k i n s.

i assume what's happening there Tom is that the R-word still has an auto-replace because of the former racist name of Washington's football team. and if the auto-replace image is hosted on imgur then it's blocked in the UK

imgur is banned in the UK so will show that default purple image to people in the uk

(xp) Yes I just realized that, I didn't know such a facility existed on ILX - is it there for other words too? Not that I'm going to test it.

DUMPLINGS!

there was one for "Cutler" too for reasons i can't remember

What's Ivor done now?

xp like on this thread...

Chas 'n' Dave vs. The Wurzels

I don't remember what music he liked other than fellow middle class skinhead cosplayers, the http://i.imgur.com/QbYzHTH.jpg. I assumed it was similar social realist stuff. As I said, I'd stopped reading the NME by the 90s though.

― Schlub 7 (Tom D.), Monday, 2 March 2026 bookmarkflaglink

He liked Napalm Death, Asian Dub Foundation, The Clash and Bon Jovi

he also liked The Beatles and Mozart iirc

Who doesn't though? Well me for one.

he approved in principle of the http://i.imgur.com/QbYzHTH.jpg (standard SWP solidarity) tho i dont really remember him ever enthusing, plus he and x moore intensely disliked one another (standard SWP social praxis)

probably more than anyone mentioned so far he loved ZODIAC MINDWARP lol

Oh I forgot the SWP angle, how unfortunate.

Those Swells pieces have aged badly, but he could be entertaining and he also helped challenge my middle class indie assumptions. I'd take him over any of the 80s/90s music press transphobes like Burchill, Sanai, Bennun et al.

Might be sacrilege for a Scot to say this, but while I still enjoy some early TFC, their stuff post-Gerry is absolutely feeble. It doesn't help that their current drummer is a TERF or that Norman is happy to hang out with the egregious reactionary centrist hobby band Fat Cops.

I know nothing about their drummer or who Norman hangs out with, but to be fair, their post-Gerry stuff is 30 years and 11 albums into their career. Expecting them to be anywhere close to what they were in the early days - or even expecting much more than feeble - is not really fair. (Granted, they should've just split at that point.)

Do what I did and just ignore the last two albums. (Or three.)

Plenty of people 30 years in who are doing good to great stuff, so it's really no excuse. With some honourable exceptions, much of the Glasgow indie world is just working over the same set of influences to diminishing returns. So boring.

Don't expect people to know all the Glasgow indie terf wars stuff - it's pretty grim, although I'm glad to say The Pastels are on the right side of it all.

just reading about/listening to Fat Cops who I'd never heard of before, grim stuff. their youtube account has 163 subs tho lmao

Quantick gave them a glowing review in The Sun, which tells you how the UK media works (and underlines Q’s consistently terrible taste).

1. Quantick
2. a glowing review for Fat Cops
3. in The Sun

Even without having read this I think we might have a contender for the worst piece of music writing ever.

Certainly the smuggest.

I started looking up Fat Cops and discovered it was also the name of an absolutely terrible-looking reality show from 2013

"absolutely terrible" being the common thread