Most WTF NME cover - 1980's edition..

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Just to show that it wasn't all wine and roses in the NME's golden age, here's a selection of less than fragrant cover stars.

Poll Results

OptionVotes
Coronation Street (1981) 5
SPK (1983) 3
Motorcyle Boy (1987) 3
Cilla Black (1986) 2
Bros (1988) 2
Youth Suicide (1985) 2
ZZ Top's car (1984) 2
Sam Fox (1986) 1
Hipsway (1986) 1
Baby Amphetamine (1987) 1
Set The Tone (1982) 1
Craig Johnson and John Barnes (1988) 0
Birdland (1989) 0
Blue Rondo a La Turk (1981) 0
Jimmy White (1985) 0
Barry McGuigan (1985) 0
Neil Kinnock (1985 & 1987) 0
Charlie Nicholas (1983) 0
Animal testing (1983) 0
Joboxers and Frank Bruno (1983) 0
Eddie and Sunshine (1983) 0
Something else0


Billy Dods, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 16:15 (eighteen years ago)

hahaha Charlie Nicholas

Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 16:17 (eighteen years ago)

Please explain the occasion that merited putting Corrie on the cover.

Matt DC, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 16:17 (eighteen years ago)

They had ran out of Ian Curtis articles

Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 16:18 (eighteen years ago)

This was done (more or less) from memory so apologies if I've missed anyone. Some of these covers are actually pretty smart e.g ZZ Top and Sam Fox but and probably deserving of much less ordure than say, the 8 covers that The Wonderstuff had.

Billy Dods, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 16:18 (eighteen years ago)

xpost, Corrie was iirc a response to the post Toxteth/Southall riots and used as an example of strong, northern working class culture.

Billy Dods, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 16:20 (eighteen years ago)

Animal testing! ah the things they got up to in the 80s

this range seems really good now, ridiculous as some of them are. i'm glad they stopped putting sports people on the cover tho.

why did Anfield Rap get a cover but not Hoddle & Waddle?

blueski, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 16:20 (eighteen years ago)

Liverpool mafia.

Matt DC, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 16:21 (eighteen years ago)

Just remembered that I forgot to put Daley Thompson as one of the choices.

Billy Dods, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 16:21 (eighteen years ago)

You also missed Frank Bruno (1983).

Has to be Motorcycle Boy, though.

Dingbod Kesterson, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 16:25 (eighteen years ago)

Also: WAR ON POP (1984).

Dingbod Kesterson, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 16:25 (eighteen years ago)

I'm puzzled: wtf is so wtf about the NME putting Blue Rondo a La Turk (who were bloody great btw), Hipsway (who were OK) or Birdland (who not only weren't bad but were precisely the sort of band that I'd have expected the NME to champion) on their cover?

Stewart Osborne, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 16:32 (eighteen years ago)

The 12-inch of "Me & Mr Sanchez" is quite spectacularly brilliant.

Dingbod Kesterson, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 16:48 (eighteen years ago)

Baby Amphetamine

Remind me who these were again...

Matt #2, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 17:02 (eighteen years ago)

me and mr sanchez? who's that by?

pisces, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 17:13 (eighteen years ago)

BRalT

Mark G, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 17:14 (eighteen years ago)

Cannot be worse than Bros. Possibly.

Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 17:34 (eighteen years ago)

Big Frank's cover's up there.

My memory of Blue Rondo isn't as kind as yours, I always thought of them as dodgy ambulance chasing clothes horses, but quite happy to be proved wrong, will try to see if there's owt onloe. The Hipsway selection was as much for the 'Born To Be King' tagline as the choice of artist. Birdland were irredemably poor though a lot of the other selections from '89 were dull rather than wtf

Wikipedia has a more detailed but still incomplete list of covers.

Billy Dods, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 17:35 (eighteen years ago)

I liked the Birdland I heard and have been looking for mp3s of the album for ages.

Herman G. Neuname, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 17:37 (eighteen years ago)

Voted Hipsway, cos of the ones I've seen SPK was perfectly fine, Kinnock (one of 'em) made sense, Birdland were completely standard roll-the-dice-on-some-hopefuls-we've-got-another-fifty-this-year material and the animal testing was just awkward, not inexplicable. But the Hipsway premise and layout were entirely WTF.

ZZ Top's car is the LEAST wtf!

energy flash gordon, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 21:18 (eighteen years ago)

the foetus one was a bit of a shock too. i must have missed the corrie one so i'll vote for that. wtf indeed!

stirmonster, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 22:29 (eighteen years ago)

the zz top eliminator car rules and pwns in equal measure

M@tt He1ges0n, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 22:31 (eighteen years ago)

Coronation Street (1981)

Bodrick III, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 22:41 (eighteen years ago)

Blue Rondo a La Turk was a band named after the song, right?

Bodrick III, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 22:43 (eighteen years ago)

Pop in 1984 was not at all bad, so no point in a campaign against pop in 1983-84.

Pop in 1998 was really, really awful though.

Geir Hongro, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 23:09 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, I loved Hipsway in those days but that cover made me cringe. More hilarious: the year-later followup story trying to explain why Hipsway were not, in fact, dominating Planet Pop

Morley Timmons, Wednesday, 19 March 2008 23:30 (eighteen years ago)

Pop in 1984 was not at all bad, so no point in a campaign against pop in 1983-84.

Pop in 1998 was really, really awful though.

What in the thread do you think you're replying to, Geir?

energy flash gordon, Thursday, 20 March 2008 03:45 (eighteen years ago)

baby amphetamine, but i voted for spk anyway

electricsound, Thursday, 20 March 2008 03:48 (eighteen years ago)

I think the NME's interest in Coronation Street started in a Julian Cope interview where he was ranting on about "corrie" and the interviewer didn't know this was a reference to the TV show. Cope said something like 'you do call it corrie don't you' and the NME picked this up as shorthand for being northern and not a public schoolboy. References to it turned up in other reviews and interviews.

Early 80s Corrie was pretty great though, and most of the readership would be watching it.... it was like a transvestite version of 'a taste of honey'.

They were pretty keen on Brookie too.

Sandy Blair, Thursday, 20 March 2008 07:04 (eighteen years ago)

"Something like Baby Amphetamine will get front covers and something as genius as Momus won’t even get covered. That completely sums up 1987, and it’s sick..." - Alan McGee

everything, Thursday, 20 March 2008 07:46 (eighteen years ago)

"Chernobyl Baby" ahoy.

Dingbod Kesterson, Thursday, 20 March 2008 09:50 (eighteen years ago)

Corrie was iirc a response to the post Toxteth/Southall riots and used as an example of strong, northern working class culture.

-- Billy Dods, Wednesday, March 19, 2008 4:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

wtf!

banriquit, Thursday, 20 March 2008 09:52 (eighteen years ago)

I thought Baby Amphetamine was Alan McGee's idea? Or was Momus?

Tom D., Thursday, 20 March 2008 09:54 (eighteen years ago)

I thought Baby Amphetamine was Alan McGee's idea?

yup. well the one 12" that they released (??) is def. a Creation record.

mark e, Thursday, 20 March 2008 10:04 (eighteen years ago)

sounds like a primal scream album title too.

banriquit, Thursday, 20 March 2008 10:06 (eighteen years ago)

I imagine Alan was trying to make some sort of statement about the music industry or somesuch - ooh, subvoisive already

Tom D., Thursday, 20 March 2008 10:06 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.creation-records.com/html/baby.html

mark e, Thursday, 20 March 2008 10:12 (eighteen years ago)

"Something like Baby Amphetamine will get front covers and something as genius as Momus won’t even get covered. That completely sums up 1987, and it’s sick..."

banriquit, Thursday, 20 March 2008 10:16 (eighteen years ago)

;_;

banriquit, Thursday, 20 March 2008 10:16 (eighteen years ago)

Surely if BA are up to be included, then I'd have thought this gang of connected chancers would have been a suitable choice ?

mark e, Thursday, 20 March 2008 10:18 (eighteen years ago)

lol i thought that was going to link to the art of noise

banriquit, Thursday, 20 March 2008 10:21 (eighteen years ago)

not that far off truth be told.

mark e, Thursday, 20 March 2008 10:22 (eighteen years ago)

Age Of Chancers?

blueski, Thursday, 20 March 2008 10:48 (eighteen years ago)

ha. v.good.

mark e, Thursday, 20 March 2008 11:05 (eighteen years ago)

I voted for Youth Suicide, because it was (a) a dreadful dreadful cover and (b) kept Lawrence from Felt off the front cover at a time when he truly deserved it.

Rob M v2, Thursday, 20 March 2008 11:14 (eighteen years ago)

Publicity for Felt >>>>>> youth suicide in mid-eighties Britain.

Was this Thatcherism in action?

Dingbod Kesterson, Thursday, 20 March 2008 11:41 (eighteen years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

ILX System, Wednesday, 26 March 2008 00:01 (eighteen years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

ILX System, Thursday, 27 March 2008 00:01 (eighteen years ago)


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