We came so far, to arrive Here? The NME TRIPLE CD COMPILATION!!!

OK, let's play "off the bus"

When do you say "OK, stop now"?

I'm off at the end of CD2 I think.

Haha Psycho Killer (Live) couldn't get the rights :-P

Foul. Slipping up tho, some of the bands on CD2 have black people in them.

Some of the best tracks are on CD3.

I'm assuming this compilation is ten years old?

NME's equivalent 1968 Triple CD Compilation if CDs had existed in 1968 would have encompassed everything from Gracie Fields to the Black and White Minstrels.

Psycho Killer (Live) couldn't get the rights :-P

Stop Making Sense version >>>>> studio version

That's only assuming it's the STS version. For all I know it might have been the Stoke Wheatsheaf on a wet Wednesday supporting Marshall Hain.

ok, that's true

POLL

No poll. Well, I mean I decided against, yucanifyerwant2.

There are fine tracks on CD3 yes, but as far as the skip factor is concerned I'd only skip that live PsychoKiller (prefer the studio version), but CD3 has that oh not again factor too often.

maybe poll the cds separately?

So they are blatantly ignoring the hiphop wars years in the mid to late 80s then? What a surprise. I seem to remember that in the mid 80s, their writers voted "What's going on" the best album ever. No sign of that viewpoint here, unsurprisingly.

I looked at this CD in HMV on Monday and thought it was boring and obvious, and I also looked at most of CD1 and thought "I bet the NME didn't really champion these bands at the time". It's the NME trying to rewrite history and make it look that it's always been into the cool stuff.

omg i just realised matt is wrong, the cd is brand new! which makes much of the third disc inexplicable

Wasn't every single band the half of the NME went to bat for during the Hip Hop Wars shit, though? Pretty sure I'd rather listen to Suede than Public Enemy, tbh

Well, exactly. It's like there's a fourth CD missing! xpost

Where is Funkapolitan band?

xpost Public enemy would belong on CD4 more than Suede though.

xpost and the time goes by..

Let's be honest, CD4 would start with Nirvana and go downhill from there.

It goes up to just about the point where the NME's circulation went through the basement. CD4 would have been Coldplay, Stripes, Strokes, QOTSA, Terris, Campag Velocet &c.

Actually that would have been a lot more interesting - a triple CD compilation of bands actually championed by the NME.

Set The Tone! Motorcycle Boy! Faith Brothers! Bring it ON!

I'd buy that. I had the misfortune to see the Faith Brothers live. OMG.

See, I'm surprised that there isn't the mythical 4th cd covering the bands from more recent years. Maybe the NME can't decide what's cool without ten years of hindsight?

Off the bus: spend first 3 tracks of CD3 with itchy stop-button-finger, throw self out of window to first notes of Inspiral Carpets (was gonna say the only Carpets I like is the one with Mark E Smith guesting, then realised there's no Fall, and there should be, like)

If they'd put 3 in chronological order I could've at least got to hear Chime before disembarking, dammit.

Was trying to find some patronising bright side like "don't worry guys, this is for the only people who a) read the NME any more and b) don't already have all of CDs 1 and 2, some Joe Lean and the Whatever fan is going to hear their first burst of [insert yr favourite and/or slightly less predictable than all the others track here]" but, uh, that demographic would surely rather download the tracks anyway, and would probably already have done so if they cared to, so... why? It's not even just before Christmas.

Easter holiday car music, perhaps? (I remember buying a compilation called Loaded in Easter 1992. I thought there'd be more overlap with this but it might just be Animal Nitrate)

This is worse

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
GOOD 07 STUFF, 18 Dec 2007
By MARTIE - See all my reviews
GOOD BASIC ALBUM, EASY ON THE EARS, NO NONSENSE,ESSENTIAL 07 COLLECTION.
A MUST HAVE DRIVING STUFF IN THE CAR.

Wait, maybe I'm target demographic. Or people my age. "Guys, we know you gave up on the NME in 2001 and then looked sheepishly at your collection of free CDs of Terris and JJ72 live on Jo Whiley's show amassed over the past 3 years and thought how it'd been shit since 1995 at the very latest anyway and pretended to have stopped reading it then... BUT, you're the last generation our marketing guys say might still buy tepid indie-schmindie compilations, so here's all that stuff you kind of disliked as a teenager of Britpop Era but now gives you the slight warm fuzzy glow of remembering when you were 3 stone lighter and yr mates had heard of any bands and you still thought you were too cool to work in an office, and all the classics you borrowed from the library and can't find your tape of, and the ones you haven't actually got but know you're supposed to, and..."

Uh, don't mind my nervous breakdown, will you?

But most of the stuff on the 3rd CD is too old even for those people (that'd be me as well, pretty much).

Oh, here's the product description:NME Classics spans three musical decades - 70s / 80s and 90s and brings together the most inspirational and most influential artists of their time, from the really defining moment of NME with punk singles from bands such as The Clash, Happy Mondays, Oasis and REM to name but a few. It also brilliantly encompasses the numerous musical genres of those times from the heady sounds of Punk in the 70s and New Wave in the early 80s, to Two Tone, Indie, Brit Pop and Rave.

Focussing on the classic rock biased tracks, NME Classics is the perfect nostalgia trip for lads and Dads (from the first time around) and Festival goers. It includes a special booklet which includes photographs from the magazine from those decades, together with sleeve notes from editors of the time.

'Festival goers' is a demographic?

I also looked at most of CD1 and thought "I bet the NME didn't really champion these bands at the time". It's the NME trying to rewrite history and make it look that it's always been into the cool stuff.

Precisely my thoughts - they would've been all over the boring beardy muso bands in the early-mid seventies, no?

No, prog rock was never popular at the NME

"Hi everyone! I'm Jarvis Cocker! Remember those golden days of Britpop when I could stick my backside out at Michael Jackson and the world stood up and took notice? Remember those warm summer nights of walking down Camden's famous Camden High Street arm in arm singing "OH SALLY CAN WAIT"? Remember the sweat on your brow as you queued up outside Tesco's at 8 am for your copy of Be Here Now? Well, you can relive these days now with the brand new NME Golden Treasury Of Britpop series of compilations! 188 tracks on eight CDs covering this great era of pop, taking you back to a time where we could tell John Major where to get off and Teflon Tony was still our buddy. We all remember Oasis, Blur, Menswear and Elastica but do you recall 18 Wheeler, Heavy Stereo, Jack, Octopus, the Charlatans? Well, they're all here...and more, including my own little band called Pulp that one or two of you might remember...bringing on back those days of TFI Friday, the Good Mixer and COOL BRITANNIA! These 188 great tracks can be yours for just £16.99, including postage and packing! Many of them are no longer available in any form, and if purchased individually these tracks would cost you many thousands of pounds! The NME Golden Treasury Of Britpop - it's time to feel 'Alright' again!"

I remember 'reading' my Dad's NME and MM as a six year old (that would be 1975) and not noticing much of the early bands on CD1 being mentioned. Mind you, I was more interested in the t-shirts being advertised, and even had one in small...

So, if prog wasn't mentioned in the NME in the 70s, what was?

Check out those NME Annuals from 1973-75 and it's all Lou Reed, Mott, Stones, Bowie, Roxy innit? And Sly Stone and Beefheart.

why can't it be 1997 forever :(

"Order now and you'll also receive a bonus three CD set featuring The Best Of Baggy! 88 great tracks to remind you of those great Spike Island days with all the greats - My Jealous God, Paris Angels, Candy Flip and more!"

"OMG! Charles Shaar Murray would never have listened to this!"

"I must point out that by not including Carter USM, I feel this is historically inaccurate."

Just catching up!

Set The Tone! Motorcycle Boy! Faith Brothers! Bring it ON!

-- Dingbod Kesterson, Thursday, 13 March 2008 12:28 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

Don't remember Bring it on! were they like a cred Wham type band?

my office 9 am tomorrow.

... as Nick Cave is wont to say to members of the Bad Seeds

See, I'm surprised that there isn't the mythical 4th cd covering the bands from more recent years. Maybe the NME can't decide what's cool without ten years of hindsight?

-- Rob M v2, Thursday, 13 March 2008 12:37 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

This is very OTM. Also, there is that "pretend we never thought they were great" statute of limitations so if someone digs up the CD4 version of this in fifteen years, they aren't going to say "wow, great first 2.5 cds but Joe Lean? Ting tang tong? Oh there's Standing in the way of control AGAINE!!"

1983 was a particularly fecund year for NME's trendspotters:

JoBoxers! Tools You Can Trust! Frank Chickens! Frank Bruno!

Wasn't every single band the half of the NME went to bat for during the Hip Hop Wars shit, though? Pretty sure I'd rather listen to Suede than Public Enemy, tbh

this is a despicable comment and worse than anything ever said by Geir

As always, the "either/or" factor is the Achilles heel.

i've got lexitis. fuck this racist compilation even tho many of the songs on it are ace.

Yeah, that CD4 of the past may well have had that Toploader track and a "keep an eye on these guys" review/comment...

Now you're just taking the piss.

NME always hated Toploader, even when they were some obscure fucks back in 98.

what year and month was the NME, top right with LL Cool J?

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/8784/eminme80mc7.jpg

It could have a place in the car for A&A to enjoy all this tracks in one place and time.

it's not like this is a bad batch of songs, but it feels pretty much like a virgin radio playlist. maybe people don't listen to albums sequentially these days but

The Jesus & Mary Chain - Just Like Honey
Prince - Sign ‘O’ The Times
Joy Division – Atmosphere

is pretty blerg. the third cd is basically in chronological order, the others not so much... overwhelming feeling of pointlessness.

i think only menks like us care about the hip hop wars -- but they haven't actually represented c86 either!!! or sonic youth, pixies, etc.

No, if it were a Virgin Radio playlist, "Rock The Casbah" would be on there. At least six times.

were any of these songs not a top 40 hit?

Only the first dozen on disc 1 weren't.

ah yes

The following failed to make the UK Top 40 singles chart:

The MC5 - Kick Out The Jams
Velvet Underground - I'm Waiting For The Man
The Stooges - No Fun
The Doors - L.A. Woman
The New York Dolls - Jet Boy
Patti Smith - Gloria
The Damned - Neat Neat Neat
X-Ray Spex - Oh Bondage Up Yours!
Richard Hell & The Voidoids - Blank Generation
Dead Boys - Sonic Reducer
The Only Ones - Another Girl, Another Planet
Blondie - One Way Or Another
Magazine - Shot By Both Sides
XTC - This Is Pop?
Stiff Little Fingers - Suspect Device
Generation X - Kiss Me Deadly
Talking Heads - Psycho Killer (Live)
Aztec Camera - Walk Out To Winter
Radiohead - Just

However, many of these were not released as singles in the UK.

Also, where is Sex Pistols band?

Can't have the word sex on the cover, Walmart might not want to sell it in the USA

Whereas "Oh Bondage Up Yours" is etc...

They don't want to remind anyone of the trying-to-get-Anarchy-in-the-UK-back-to-No1 failure of last year.

ooh, I'd already forgotten about that!

Wasn't it "God save the queen"? (As brilliantly quoted by Lucy Beale on Eastenders last night)

Radiohead's 'Just' did make the top 40 (#19) - helped by the arty video

xpost to myself.

Who would have thought that Ian Beale was an old punk rocker? Maybe he needs to buy this compilation?

god knows who'd buy this thing anyway. they could have at least chosen slightly less well-known songs by well-known artists. but 'common people', 'song 2', 'bitter sweet symphony', 'design for life', 'movin' on up' -- are there current nme readers who would be interested in buying a compilation of these artists, but who would be turned away by, say, 'motown junk' or some non-album primal scream mix? (or that awful manics cover of 'suicide is painless' which was actually on an nme-backed single iirc)

Current NME readers unlikely even to have been born when "Motown Junk" was out.

well yeah.

if they buy this comp, though, the selling points are:

- nme "brand"
- specific artists

i'm saying, including the absolute best-known tracks of these bands, ie the ones you hear on the radio, is going to be redundant. it's definitely unimaginative. you have to wonder what the nme brand is based on, or how long it can maintain being a brand. this compilation could have been done by anyone -- weakens the brand, if anything.

Maybe they should have got Russell Brand to do the compilation, i.e. stick his name and fizzog on the front and have the same tracklisting.

Wouldn't all of their target audiences have downloaded these tracks a thousand times over already?

or at least have them on another comp!

There's a list of NME cover stars on wikipedia, its not complete but it gives a good feel for the tone of the magazine.

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

So pre punk NME wasn't all that big on the stooges or MC5 and very fond of west coast laid back things that Bob Harris probably still plays a lot on his radio show. And Lad rock bands like The Faces.

That said I loved reading the NME in the early 70s, it was - well it was weird - the fonts were archaic, even for the time and were slightly victorian. There were a huge amount of words in it too. Stuck away in an obscure corner of the UK, it was a gateway to a different world, I kept each copy and read and re-read them.

Oh and this compilation is just a bit useless, you can get better ones for 1.99 in most garages. Fred Dellar would never have put such a badly selected and arranged comp.

Alfred Deller would though. He didn't have a clue about NME bands.

Current NME readers unlikely even to have been born when "Motown Junk" was out.

-- Dingbod Kesterson, Friday, 14 March 2008 13:55

Yup. You forget sometimes that to a teenager now, the 90s must seem like a zillion years ago. Not so much listening to The Verve in back in '98, more like The Teletubbies.

but two of the cds are of tracks *even older than 1991*. being nme readers they won't be that averse to hearing old records, or slightly less well-known ones. oasis and radiohead are still regularly on the cover -- think the manics and ver verve were, too, quite recently. i would guess the manics feel as distant to them as the smiths did to me -- or verve/stone roses as another comparison -- ie not that distant. the 80s didn't feel like a zillion years ago. i would have wanted more from a compilation than the absolute best-known british rock songs of the era anyways.

"80s didn't feel like a zillion years ago"

Well, I was born in '81 and by about '94 it already did to me. I remember kids in school "discovering" The Pixies and Smiths in about '97, lol.

"i would have wanted more from a compilation than the absolute best-known british rock songs of the era anyways."

Yeah, but it's aiming for the lowest common denominator, innit? Not the kind of person who spends time thinking and talking about music on sites like ILX.

"but two of the cds are of tracks *even older than 1991*."

Yeah but if you're in your twenties/thirties you're probably gonna have had more time to catch up on all the old stuff, learn a bit more of the history than a teenager.

I'd buy that. I had the misfortune to see the Faith Brothers live. OMG.

-- Rob M v2, Thursday, 13 March 2008 12:32 (2 days ago) Bookmark Link

Oh god yes. I saw them (the faith brothers) sandwiched between crazyhead and julian cope sometime in the mid '80's. They were goddamn awful, sub style council "committed" '80's "soul" with requisite bellowing singer, sax section and yamaha CP80 electric grand piano. I swear, when you saw one of those things getting set up on stage, you just knew the band was going to suck rat ass. And they did, they gave me a massive headache.

The compilation? Feh, who gives one (1) fuck.

Yeah, but it's aiming for the lowest common denominator, innit? Not the kind of person who spends time thinking and talking about music on sites like ILX.

well, presumably for people for whom the nme means something, like nme readers! not exactly the LCD then, if not, obviously, up to our standards.

i was born 1980 and i got into the pixies about 1997 -- they were never a chart band like the manics or the verve or pulp. but i knew who the smiths and morrissey were before i ever read the nme.

"well, presumably for people for whom the nme means something, like nme readers!"

I dunno, all the stuff you would have associated with the NME in the past: the rockism, the sense of purpose, whatever... it isn't really there anymore. It's just a mag for people who like pop music played on guitars.

Yeah, but it's aiming for the lowest common denominator, innit? Not the kind of person who spends time thinking and talking about music on sites like ILX.

Well this is some first-rate pompous bullshit. Apart from anything don't you think a big percentage of kids in their mid-teens "spend time thinking and talking about music" on all manner of other messageboards and chatrooms and whatever the fuck else? I think the use of this thing (as Mark alluded to) as a fairly cheap bunch of songs that'll serve you pretty well in the car or at a house party or something, is definitely being undervalued here.

I bought 'Holiday In Cambodia' when I was 15 or 16, that would be the first record I purchased that was older than me (by a month) I think. I'm only really mentioning this cos I went to the trouble of looking it up just now

that's a interesting thread concept maybe, first record you bought that was older than you. reckon mine was -- as a green nme reader lol -- either der clash or, hey, the sex pistols, aged 14, in 1995.

Yeah I thought it might be too, as it goes, and yeah I think the first Pistols, Clash and Crass albums would've been about the same time. Weird, I listened to a bunch of different stuff when I was a kind but pretty much the only 'old' music I bought was punk. No idea why

kind = kid, dur

I've never owned many albums that were older than me, cos I'm old lol. I think the first I bought must be The Doors, which made it by a year and a bit.

I had Beatles stuff on tape when I was 15 or 16 tho.

i didn't buy that much music-that-was-older than me in the 90s. apart from teh obvious punk stuff i got into post-punk via prml scrm c. 'vanishing point' but didn't go too deep. the 90s music press propagated the "1970s were shit up to 1977" line.

iirc the whole "designer funk/reggae compilation" thing only really took off at the end of the decade. i guess my parents owned a fair amount of 60s music so i didn't buy much of that. i don't think i ever liked 'never mind the bollocks' but i got it on lp and it looked pretty dece.

Was having one of those old guy conversations in the pub last night and really convinced myself that popular rock music hasn't made any real changes since about 1980. When I was a teenager, music that was 30 years old sounded prehistoric. A lot of 30 year old music now sounds like it could've been recorded this year, except it's too good.

We could argue the toss about whether avant-garde or niche music or whatever you want to call it has progressed much, or whether the regular micro-innovations in dance music count as new forms, or whether hip hop has radically altered in the last 15 years, but mainstream rock seems to have had a the longest period of stagnation, albeit maybe cyclically regurgitated stagnation, of any popular musical of the last 100 years.

Instead of flogging this stale rubbish the NME should re-issue their cassettes. It's sad how conservative and slavish to the bottom line they've become.

NME 001 C 81 (Rough Trade)(1981)
NME 002 Jive wire
NME 003 Hit the road (Stax)
NME 004 Mighty Reel (1982)
NME 005 Pocket jukebox (Charly)
NME 006 Racket Packet (1983)
NME 007 Stompin´at the Savoy
NME 008 Mad Mix II
NME 009 The Ace Case
NME 010 Smile Jamaica
NME 011 Department of enjoyment
NME 012 Checkmate (Chess)(1984)
NME 013 Night people (1984)
NME 014 Raging Spool
NME 015 Little Imp (1984)
NME 016 Neon West
NME 017 Tapeworm (1985)
NME 018 Straight No Chaser (Blue Note)
NME 019 All Africa Radio (1985)
NME 020 Feet Start Dancin´
NME 021 Pogo à Go Go
NME 022 C 86 (1986)
NME 023 Holiday Romance (Verve years) (1986)
NME 024 We have come for your children
NME 025 The Latin Kick (1986)
NME 026 low Light And Trick Mirrors
NME 027 What´s Happenin´Stateside (1986)
NME 028 Hi-voltage
NME 029 I dreamt i was Elvis (Charly/Ace) (1987)
NME 030 Blow-up UK (1987)
NME 031 Bush fire (Greensleves) (1987)
NME 032 Pocket Jukebox 2 (1987)
NME 033 Mixed Peel (Strange Fruit) (1987)
NME 034 The Tape With No Name (1987)
NME 035 The World At One
NME 036 Indie City 1 (1988)
NME 037 Indie City 2 (1988)

Yeah, but it's aiming for the lowest common denominator, innit? Not the kind of person who spends time thinking and talking about music on sites like ILX.

Well this is some first-rate pompous bullshit. Apart from anything don't you think a big percentage of kids in their mid-teens "spend time thinking and talking about music" on all manner of other messageboards and chatrooms and whatever the fuck else? I think the use of this thing (as Mark alluded to) as a fairly cheap bunch of songs that'll serve you pretty well in the car or at a house party or something, is definitely being undervalued here.

-- DJ Mencap, Saturday, 15 March 2008 13:31

Maybe I'm being a lil' bit snobby here, sure. But I don't associate the NME nowadays with people of any age who give music that much thought, because it doesn't seem to do that itself. If I was 14 and really into music I would probs be reading blogs or sites like I do now, not NME. And I would assume most music fiends are prolific compilation makers themselves in the mp3 age, so we don't need to buy CDs like this.

RE: First record bought older than me...

Probably Kraftwerk's "Man Machine" 'cuz I was into post acid house dance stuff mainly, so this is the few things that fascinated me pre-'87.

*so this is one of the few things...

like the 'first record you bought that was older than you' question. mine might actually be 'The Man Machine' also except it was released at almost exactly the same time i was born - if it was in the first two weeks of that month then that.

First record you bought that is older than you... good question... I would think it was probably "Forever changes". I was born in 1969, I bought it in 1986, actually no, I bought "Piper at the gates of dawn" a few months before that...

First record I got that was older than me was "The Man with the Golden Arm" OST, haha. LOL oldie etc etc.

I bought the Indie City tapes and listened to them incessantly - far more adventurous than the 'songs you know and love already yeah' idea. Why can't they do a survey of Canadian indie/alternative from the late 70s to present?

wagner bleeding chunks and sgt pepper at 12 (cassettes)

Happy Mondays - Step On
Inspiral Carpets - This Is How It Feels
Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence
Orbital - Chime

All these tracks appear on Now 17, and I think the first three appear in this order.

Why can't they do a survey of Canadian indie/alternative from the late 70s to present?

I know the answer to this one!

Can't remember the first music that was older than me I actually bought, but the first that was bought for me was "We're Only in it For the Money", an unexpected xmas gift from a Zappa obssessed uncle, for which I'll be forever grateful to him.

Looking at those NME tapes, the following has more details.

http://bazooka81.livejournal.com/

Says all you need to know about the NME in the 80s, really.

to be fair to them, 'suedehead' is the only listenable morrissey solo record <-------- real talk