Should we anticipate the NME Christmas special this year?

.. whichever year we are in..

It's 2008, and as I stated in another thread, I am off the NME, but I added a caveat that the Christmas double-issue would still be bought and saved for posterity.

But will it be worth the bother? I mean, who are the facing people who could 'dress up' and the peoeple go "oh look, that's .." like Damon Albarn did as Debbie Harry, and most recently the Arctic M's as santa's elves...

um, what else was the old NME christmas specials famed for?

Or are they like the Morecambe and Wise christmas specials, more fondly remembered than actually as good as, and at least M&W stopped before they died?

seasonal-careometer.jpg

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grout-thread.jpg: what's on your ipod?

In the old days I only really bought it for the EOY lists and year end critical summaries but there clearly hasn't been any point in doing that for some time.

I havent bought the xmas issues since they did the EOY lists early as that's all i wanted.

plus they get put on the internet the same day

i used to like the TV progs/moments of the year round-up

The top five albums will be some combination of MGMT, Glasvegas, the Last Shadow Puppets, Vampire Weekend and some other shit. Can see it coming a mile off.

NME EOY list is next week - Top 50 albums

The NME double issue in recent years has been complete bobbins: padded throwaway interviews with key NME indie-landfill bands.

It was 20 Years ago this month when Melody Maker was at it's peak, they set the benchmark on how to do an end of year issue correctly.

However in 1989 Melody Maker started on a slow downward spiral, by 1994 the britpop rot infected the paper and by 1997 Mark Sutherland turned Melody Maker into an utter joke leading to it's shutdown in December 2000.

The top five albums will be some combination of MGMT, Glasvegas, the Last Shadow Puppets, Vampire Weekend and some other shit. Can see it coming a mile off.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 4 December 2008 12:58 (54 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Plus Crystal Castles. Or was that last year?

Glasvegas - this band must be one of the most overhyped useless bands of the decade, nevermind this year

and some other shi

Late Of The Pier

but yeah all those bands have at least one or two decent tracks - except fucking Glasvegas wtf is their deal

of all time
x-post

Saw the lead singer of Glasvegas on NMTB, wearing dark glasses, trying to be cool. Probably off his face. I mean, WTF is wrong with that guy?

That MM end-of-88 issue was a good one. Rudi from AR Kane as Rudolph on the cover too.

Plus Crystal Castles. Or was that last year?

Crystal Castles are fucking lying hipster cocks. So they should fit right in on any NME list.

I like Vampire Weekend and haven't bothered to listen to the Last Shadow Puppets, but if I never hear one of those MGMT singles on the radio ever again, it will be too fucking soon.

I'd assumed Crystal Castles would fall under the 'band we pretend to like all year and then it emerges that we don't really' category. So in at #9 then, four places above Lil Wayne.

Crystal Castles are fucking lying hipster cocks.

bloody rockstars.

Cloth Eared Alan McGee reckons Glasvegas are the best British band since Oasis - i reckon his ears need to be syringed

Crystal Castles pretend to support Leyton Orient in interviews with American journalists.

(xpost - can you syringe cloth ears?)

They make up bullshit to make themselves sound impressive to other fucking lying hipster cocks. Just one example: Kath claimed that his keyboard uses the sound chip from an Atari games console and furthermore he built it himself. He was found to be lying on both counts.

Crystal Castles Laptop Theme Park shocker

http://cache.lifehacker.com/assets/resources/2007/07/Home-Alone.png

Blowing that shit wide open, like Watergate.

I actually approve of completely making shit up in interviews. Especially if annoys analog synth anoraks along the way.

The next Crystal Castles album should just be exactly the same noise you get when you put Horace Goes Skiing into a normal cassette player.

C64 Loading Screen Noise (Balearic Redub)

It's gone into proper detail on the Crystal Castles thread on here. It's not so much a case of making shit up in interviews as unacknowledged thieving of other people's music

xp

I'm not interested in what instruments a band uses to make it's music. But lying to your audience is contemptible, it shows that you think the audience are suckers who will accept anything.

Oh and as DJ Mencap says, their early stuff rips off other people's songs.

Some dudes I know used to have a noize label that released a tape comprised of nothing but Spectrum loading noises

Mr Angry at the Melody Maker would have some fun writing about the indie-hipster performance mentalist of the year - Alice Glass

it shows that you think the audience are suckers who will accept anything.

Occamsrazor.gif

Mr Angry at the Melody Maker would have some fun writing about the indie-hipster performance mentalist of the year - Alice Glass

― djmartian, Thursday, 4 December 2008 13:24 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol at the idea that David Stubbs has any idea of anything that happened in popular culture after 1994

David Stubbs was reviews editor at The Wire

stet

David Stubbs was reviews editor at The Wire

― djmartian, Thursday, 4 December 2008 13:27 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

omarlittle.jpg

Ha I think Stubbs is a great writer but that's a 40 foot wide open goal of a comeback, djmartian

a trip down memory lane:

Archived Music Press
http://archivedmusicpress.wordpress.com/
Scans from the N.M.E. and Melody Maker circa 1987-1996

WTF DJ Martian you should be BRUTALIST FUTURIST not MEMORY LANE SAQQARA DOGS GRANDAD!!!

The problem with sites like that is that ancient issues of the music press are best left to sepia-tinted memories, and ultimately they just reveal that most of the writing was actually crap.

Most of the writing, like most music writing, was for and of its time and was perfectly fine at the time.

The challenge, though, is to find print music writing of at least equal quality post-1996.

God, you lot and your 1988 MM nostalgia! (It's almost as bad as my 1981 NME nostalgia.)

It's been interesting to play 1988 MM catch-up on that Archived Music Press blog, much of which reads to me like dispatches from a parallel universe. (I was roughly halfway through my proto-Lex "electric guitars = BORING" phase at the time.)

crystal castles audience deserve to be lied to, esp. if they believe it

Melody Maker 1988 end of year list
http://tinyurl.com/5und6a

I dunno, we all know that most print music writing has been terrible for years, but those acid house pieces are pretty awful. Yeah I know, at least they were covering it, but it was a massive thing at the time.

acid smiley face on the front cover of The Sun and the NME - ha can you imagine Lindstrom on the front cover of the NME in 2008?

Christ, I've only ever listened to 7 of the 30 albums on that MM 1988 list...

crystal castles audience deserve to be lied to, esp. if they believe it

Well seeing as most of their audience are also hipster cocks, then probably yes. But it's the abstract principle of lying to your audience that I object to.

does that include in lyrics?

No - lyrics would be pretty boring if they all had to be true.

it really depends what you're lying about. lying about your equipment (lol) just doesn't seem a big deal.

http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/mmpage.html

http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/images/mm2000.jpg

what a hideous nightmare of an ending, fred durst in a baseball cap by a Christmas Tree - you just couldn't get any worse for the last ever issue of Melody Maker.

Father Douchebag delivering the presents there. x-post

Should have been a baseball cap with a Santa bobble. No wonder it closed.

It wasnt even the worst issue of latterday melody maker

What would the 2008 NME equivalent of this:

http://theskywascandy.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/tattlermag11.jpg

Alice Glass + 2 - name them

http://theskywascandy.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/tattlermag11.jpg

Which one is a rock babe?

is the middle one a puppini sister?

somebody photoshop Ned Raggett's head over Leah Wood's...

plz

rockbabes by parental proxy

Rod Stewart = Rod Stewart's daughter
Leah Wood = Ronnie Wood's Daughter
Peaches Geldof = Bob Boomtown Rats Geldof

Oh, that Bob Geldof.

Rod Stewart's daughter is called Rod?

lol

Rodetta?

Wait Peaches and Bob are the same person?

Kimberely Rodetta - ha

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a5/SomeGirls78.jpg/200px-SomeGirls78.jpg

I like how it says "ner" right cross Leah Wood's crotch

across

acid smiley face on the front cover of The Sun and the NME - ha can you imagine Lindstrom on the front cover of the NME in 2008?

― djmartian, Thursday, 4 December 2008 13:54 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Dude if you think Lindstrom is the most direct parallel for the big dogs of acid house two decades ago then I'm not sure you're the person who ought to be leading this crusade TBH

http://www.toplessrobot.com/starscream_and_megatron_small.jpg

NME The Cover 2023–2024 is a premium 300-page coffee-table book celebrating one year of NME's unrivalled support for emerging artists through its weekly flagship franchise, The Cover. The strikingly designed hardcover presents The Cover's first 50 artists, showcasing bespoke cover artwork, and every interview feature, alongside stunning imagery shot by photographers all over the world.

Shipping
Orders will start shipping the week of December 16th 2024.

Please note that due to an overwhelming number of pre-orders, there are now only a limited number of copies remaining that will be dispatched before Christmas, with the remainder shipping Q1 2025.

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