Sounds vs NME vs Melody Maker

Melody Maker obv., because it had Mr Agreeable, the Cretinous Useless No-good Tosser of the Week*, Enormous Pigs, Crap Things that Bands Do, the Adam Clayton Corner and Rebellious Jukebox and the others didn't!

do you see?

I've ripped off more ideas for the site from Melody Maker than from NME, so that.

(well OK maybe it was)

still haven't read any of ft 99 tom, but since i hear it is all abt you scorning yr parents i invoke the Patron St of Dad-Rock clause

And I also would like to put in a word for early 90s Select, it would be so wonderful to come across a print mag that was as witty and as interesting nowadays.

Melody Maker had a GRATE run from the late 80s to the mid 90s -- it really only started going wrong once they decided to take Oasis a bit too seriously. A protracted GAME OVER ensued.

Dunno bout that - Bushell was a necessary by-product of following D. McCullough. Being old fart and all that, I actually think that Sounds c 1980-82 was my fave music rag of all. There was something bonkers about their attempt to do breadth and depth (albeit with a guitar- focus) all at once. So you'd get a two-page Bushell article on an oi- band from Sidcup who'd released one single, followed by McCullough on Crispy Ambulance, followed by Mick Wall on April Wine, followed by Johnny Waller on The Au Pairs, followed by somebody or other on Gregory Isaacs (who WAS Snouds reggae writer?).

And, mark, I've spurned The Wire under ALL admiralships since Twickenham library stopped taking it. The only copy I've even handled in the last seven years was the one with Robin's Delia Derbyshire obit. That's not to say that I don't like The Wire - I DO, I just don't *get round* to it.

i stopped reading sounds when it gave The Raincoats 1st LP a bad review (and it was all downhill for them after that!! Hah!!) but actually yr right, tho the editor overseeing that breadth = alan lewis = architect of NME's total moral deliquescence in late 80s

I was semi-serious about RM upthread. Briefly (c.1980) it was the best of the 4 weeklies. Mailman was the prototype for Mr Abusing/Agreeable. Sounds had a far better reviews section, but an awful lot more metal in the features section (and the Readers Poll results) than you may remember. RM readers (and writers) were much more pop-orientated. Sadly, RM soon became redundant once Smash Hits took off.

My older sister bought "Variations". I thought it was GRATE at the time. Hey, it's that Rod Argent again, Dr.C! And Barbara Thompson! And Jon Hiseman!

I found this on the web s/where or other on a Nightingales fan page:

They were to grace their own Sounds cover, which its editor would come to rue as 'unquestionably the worst in the paper's history'. Sitting at his kitchen table and blinking out through National Health spectacles, Robert modelled a fetching, bright blue jumper, handknitted by his grandmother.

As I said, I f@ckin' LOVED Sounds!

edwin didn't review till later i don't think, except as savage pencil (i'll ask him if i remember)

they also had the metal writer who went on to found kerrang!! i remember angrily him "challenging the orthodoxy" of 'stairway to heaven' as best zep in a zep guide-to (geoff something: god my memory is so fukt)

and of course they had jane suck (real name jane jackman): i kind of measure sounds's decline from her expulsion, which was gutless and cowardly on the editor's part. she surfaces now and then as a review under various names (jane solanas) but as suck she was a god (eg review of Roxy Music grst hits all abt lead dildos and masturbating to the pix of models on previous covers, and how this was a bad compilation because it had no such pic so she couldn't)

Yus. Wish I had more 89-90 issues, but I've a reasonably complete 91-through-94 collection. If it wasn't for a Simon Price rave review of In Debt I wouldn't have gotten into Disco Inferno -- think on that and ponder.

99 FT rooled, Sir Tom. Hell, you let me write for it, of course I would say that! ;-)

Geoff BARTON!!! - total brit metal gonzo crackpot. The Tygers of Pan Tang! Preying Mantis! Quicksilver!

Sounds was really a rock-oriented paper, but we got runner-up single of the week once (Groove Farm) so I can't complain.

Nice somebody remembered the fantastic Johnny Waller though. Total diamond of a bloke.

(Other writers re McCullough where, Alexander? Here? I think he was good, and as I recall he was well thought of at the time. Where is he now?)

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

I never read Sounds. Was it really that good?

When I started reading the music press in 1991 I much preferred MM but still bought NME. Sounds must've folded not long after as I remember seeing it in the newsagent.
MM went shite in the aftermath of Britpop. Catatonia winning album of the year was the last straw for me.

Sounds was always patchy, but it definitely had great moments. Seemed to be written by real fans, for better and worse.

I - gulp - actually started reading the music press around 1979, and packed it in, I dunno, early nineties? When were PWEI on the cover of NME?

That's a question for DJ Martian to answer.

When were PWEI on the cover of NME?

Sometime was I was at Uni circa Autumn 1988 - 1991

1989? 1990?

Sounds magazine
http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/sounds.html

22 years ago this month, Cactus World News were on the front cover of Sounds

PWEI: That'd be about right, then.

Anyway: Sounds. Anyone remember (the other) Bettie Page, who covered industrial/synthpop stuff?

Always had good comic strips in the back: Savage Pencil, Alan Moore's "The Stars My Degradation", and something by Ewins and McCarthy, who went on to work at 2000 AD

Also at Sounds, Sandy Robertson = Kim Fowley + Blue Oyster Cult + Velvets + Throbbing Gristle. Also did the only interview with Florian Fricke of Popol Vuh I've ever read in any of those mags.

They went crazy for the Plasmatics, who the NME somehow missed out on. Motorhead seemed to be in it nearly every week.

Sounds had a Euro Rock chart! With all these names that used to baffle me, like Baffo Banfi and Heldon - still don't know who or what Baffo Banfi is/are

Now that you mention it, there was a lot of coverage of Kraut/electronic/euro stuff.

And, yeah, whatever happened to Dave McCullough? He was almost a genre in himself at the time.

Yes, John Gill (I think?) used to cover a lot of European/Electronic stuff

Which the NME generally didn't bother with

http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/sound100.html
Sounds 100 top albums of all time published 1985

http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/nme_writers.htm
NME top 100 albums of all time published 1985

http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/maker100.htm
The Melody Maker list is from 2000

Seems like I'm more of a Sounds reader after all.

Q or Mojo.

Nope. The Wire, and I still hate myself afterwards.

Is the NME so bad these days that Q is better?

Anyone?

Q has always been better than the NME. Other than the Britpop years, when Select was even better, Q has always been best.

Apart from geir.

There are now free magazines you can pick up on the street in London that feel more substantial than the NME.

And that's just the ones that are in Polish

As long as they don't cover britpop

There are now free magazines you can pick up on the street in London that feel more substantial than the NME.

not too mention one that even is about music.
hello Stool Pigeon.

Stool Pigeon is actually pretty damn good.

Stool Pigeon is beautifully designed but the content is shockingly poor.

cf little white lies.

Such a mag should cover all genres, but give most attention to song-oriented indie made by English lads, because that's the best music around.

i admire your stamina.

what about his insanity?