NME - The Inevitable Has Happened!!

Well, can't say I never saw this one coming. Perhaps that's why IPC decided to kill off the Melody Maker after its disastrous venture into the Kerrang/Smash Hits glossy A4 magazine format. It barely lasted a year once the transformation was complete before succumbing to the inevitable and folding.....

....and now, to celebrate - or commiserate, as there's more wrong with it these days than right - 50 years of being the world's best selling title in weekly music journalism, the NME have proudly published their LAST EVER ISSUE, as a standard Tabloid Music publication, as from Next Wednesday it's to launch a resized glossy A4 magazine format of itself with an inflated cover price - not to mention own sense of self-importance bordering on the clearly insane....

Yippeee!! Oh my, I can't wait. So now the paper will presuambly sell for over £2 an issue with regular price hikes (like its other Monthly rivals like Q, Mojo and, worst of all, UNCUT - the latter three cover price hikes in one year!!!) every other month just to pay for the amount of pointless ad space and bloody useless crap like articles on top ten ringtones, txt mssgs, and top ten plug-lists, favourite student rituals, fashion gimmix, etc etc etc...not to mention Strokes and Oasis front covers ad-fooking-museum [sic]

Over the years the NME has become gradually less and less about music and more about lifestyle and fads and hype, preferring to leave the analytical side of its journalism to its roster of freelancers who write for the other monthly magazine titles and weekend Broadsheet Supplements anyway... I noticed the rot had set in several years back now when their news pages were 70% taken up with ads to begin with, leaving the remainder for about three or four (or five, if you were very lucky) major news stories, the rest shunted to the sidelines in brief. Compare this with the mid-80s to early 90s period where you could be guaranteed a respectable sprinkling of news on various bands activities, releases, etc... Nowadays their content seems all too accurate a reflection of the short attention spans of their readers (or their perceived readership) - soundbyte syntax, potted histories, charts, lists, etc... and not enough indepth stuff save for the customary sole token major feature per week (used to be at least SIX in the past) and the album of the week/gig of the week critique. No amount of redesigning or fancy typographic pyrotechnics can disguise the shameful fact that the NME has, by its own default, become the very thing it once fought against and boastfully criticised others for whilst comparing itself to other weeklies at the time (Sounds, MM, Record Mirror - all RIP) - "all style, no substance". Therefore, it should be interesting to see just what sort of reaction the new format launched next week will have on its older readers - as opposed to its Pavlovian, non-judgemental and easily-pleased younger ones. I for one, know pretty damn well what to expect, so I won't be holding my breath in overexcitement. In fact, when I read about their 50th anniversary makeover in this current issue (Doves on front cover - now tipped to be as big as Radiohead, apparently) I just yawned, and let out a muffled, barely contemptuous groan of "seen it all" boredom. Here's to the next 50 years then, you cocky, trendy, incontinent, shamelessly ageist, bandwagon-jumping hack-bastards........ :sleep2:

Originally posted by Oh Look! There Goes The Laughing Martian Again!! Well, can't say I never saw this one coming......

I'm glad it's not just me that thinks along these lines. The decline in the standard of this rag over the years has been alarming - I only ever read copies people leave on the tube now, so far has it fallen. I'm afraid I am far too cynical to believe any of their hype, I don't want a Nokia logo or bullshit ringtone, certainly don't want to see x number of adverts for said fad. I want to decide what gigs to see without having perspectives poisoned by some doped-up Camden groupie hack who knows a few big words and who thinks he's funny. I'll buy a CD because I like the band's earlier work, because I like the sleeve, because I'm curious. Not because they are supposed to be the greatest thing since the last fucking cover star.

I actually blame the NME for the demise of Factory as much as I do Wilson and Gretton. These c...s gave the big overexposure to Ryder and his bunch of trouble, hyped up all this Madchester bollocks and even managed to make people believe that some of it was quite good.

Spot on Marty! I remember the good old days from the late 70's when I first started reading the music press when they actually had something constructive to contribute to the 'music scene'. The reader was largely left with enough unbiased information to form an opinion of their own about what was hot and what was not. Personally I have'nt bought or read any 'music mag' since the early nineties, when this trend of 'fadism' first set in. In short the so called music press have long since moved from the edge of popular music culture to a point where they are so deeply 'mainstream' that they ain't ever coming back! I, like you, will think for myself and will NEVER buy a music mag again!

Personally, i think the NME is an improvement from the 'head up our own arse' days of Burchill/Parsons. Those two deserved each other & she, in particular, deserves a painful death. How in gods name she could ever described John Peel as racist is beyond me.

Dave

i did enjoy Ambition ( :sex: ) and Man and Boy so mabe they had something ??

Originally posted by Muffy Spot on Marty! I remember the good old days from the late 70's when I first started reading the music press when they actually had something constructive to contribute to the 'music scene'. The reader was largely left with enough unbiased information to form an opinion of their own about what was hot and what was not. Personally I have'nt bought or read any 'music mag' since the early nineties, when this trend of 'fadism' first set in. In short the so called music press have long since moved from the edge of popular music culture to a point where they are so deeply 'mainstream' that they ain't ever coming back! I, like you, will think for myself and will NEVER buy a music mag again!

I haven't bought a music mag for years Muffster......I tend to steal them instead if I genuinely think there's something worth reading in them. (well, that's an overexaggeration actually... ) MOJO are just about the only decent music publication going, preferring to stay true to its "nothing but the music counts" logic - but then admitting a partiality to this title just proves what an old banger I'm becoming then ( !!) - but, seriously, it's a better read than the other titles - including Q Magazine, which has belatedly seen fit to go "all NME" on its readers and become increasingly fad-obsessed to the detriment of its once pretty solid (if a little worthy and dull) credibility.

Now, returning to the point I made earlier about "short-attention-spans", perhaps we can safely say that the majority of music rags have now - in line with modern life/TV/culture in general - "dumbed down" to such a degree that if we choose to be a little more analytical or questioning on our assimilation of our "pop culture" instead of settling for the usual trendy two-word sound-byte, we're immediately labelled "sad old boring farts". To illustrate a classic - and worrying - example of this prevailing tendency, I recently logged in/registered into the NME's website's message board to see if I could convert a few more of their pig-ignorant nappy-wet readership into appreciating the fine legacy of New Order's output past and present, and posted a thread about why I felt NME to be ageist bastards hell bent on ramming the latest fads down reader's throats and ridiculing/ignoring anything over five years old...the response I got from the readers who post on that forum just about summed up my thoughts....pure apathy and derision even....so my next tactic was to post my usual volley of diatribes and rants slagging all the fookers off in as eloquent and patronising a manner as possible. Truly, one glance at the relentless turnaround of posts on that messageboard (about 500 topics A DAY!!!) is ample illustration of the point I am making about most younger NME readers' serious attention-span- deficiency. Needless to say, after telling some of the posters where to jack themselves off, I haven't returned to the forum since - they can just stick it as far as I'm concerned. I learnt my mistake the first time and I'm not going to do it again. Truly, their readership are becoming more cretinous beyond belief.....a Jamie Oliver residency surely awaits.....

sorry, I'm ranting again....but, you see what I'm getting at!.....

Originally posted by Dave Fox Personally, i think the NME is an improvement from the 'head up our own arse' days of Burchill/Parsons. Those two deserved each other & she, in particular, deserves a painful death.How in gods name she could ever described John Peel as racist is beyond me.Dave

Interesting argument Dave... but I'd say that in that 20-year time span the likes of the NME have gone from one extreme to the other. Dumbing down may well not be a new phenomenon, but I can't help noticing it happens much faster these days... (everything does - just look at the pop charts for example - recall the far-off days - even as late as the early 90s even! - when records would spend several weeks climbing UP the charts then falling gradually? Now it's all in with a bullet and out the next week - save for the odd handful of more durable examples - so what's that all about??).

The NME, along with Sounds and Melody Maker were always the more serious rivals to the Smash Hits and Record Mirrors of the late 70's/early-to-mid-80's. And their readership and type of journalism reflected that - you rightly cite Parsons/Burchill as shining examples of up-their-own-arse pretentiousness... Now the Record Mirror occupied a peculiar mid-way point between the NME's opaqueness at the time and Smash Hits instant pop-friendly formula. So much so that it became the first former "inkie" to change to A4 magazine format - as early as 1982. This lasted until 1990, after many stylistic overhauls which are usually an indication of a desperate desire to stay current and in vogue. The only other Inkie that suffered a similar fate was Melody Maker from 1999-2000, when it changed to a glossy mag like Smash Hits to appeal to its increasingly younger readership. That was a portent for impending disaster....and this time it took less than 12 months to disappear altogether. Sounds sadly died before it too could suffer the same ignominy, so perhaps we can be thankfull for small mercies in this case.

The point is - if music papers such as the NME were deemed too pretentious as they were often perceived to be in the "golden age" of the 70s/80s, then they kind of got the balance right around the late 1980s when a resurgence in the indie scene from both US and UK made the subjects of the journalists' pieces more entertaining to read. I think the best time for the three big inkies has to be 1986-1991, when all of them were pretty well sussed and had just the right mix of everything - plenty of news on the front pages, good reviews (if sometimes biased and padded out superfluously), and, above all, coverage of GREAT MUSIC. The same thing cannot be said of now, as it is, with just ONE weekly publication [attempting to] cater for everything, and failing in its pathetically blatant, small-minded and myopic way to cover a diverse gamut of musics...instead preferring to content itself with the old tried and tested formula of hype and sensationalism. Nowadays, tellingly, people like things fed to them in small bite sized easily-digestible chunks; not for them the massed existential ramblings of some self-obsessed music hack who relishes his position of getting paid by the syllable - let alone the word!! Of course, this means our blessed NME is - if anything - the literary equivalent of fast food: convenient, pre-packaged, vacuous, utterly forgettable, and, after the brief experience, leaving a nasty aftertaste in the mouth and a feeling of regret on the consumer's part as to why they ever bothered buying it in the first place. A sponsorship with Starbucks Coffee or Pret-a-Manger surely follows......

"I actually blame the NME for the demise of Factory as much as I do Wilson and Gretton. These c...s gave the big overexposure to Ryder and his bunch of trouble, hyped up all this Madchester bollocks and even managed to make people believe that some of it was quite good." - Zizou Zidane Whilst I've no inside knowledge or much outside-looking-in knowledge of Madchester and the collapse of Factory I suspect that there is an element of truth in what you say Zizou. The music press has killed plenty of geese that laid golden eggs by hyping bands up to a point at which the expectations of fans and critics became hopelessly unrealistic and bands either failed to live up to them or cracked under the pressure of trying to. In an attempt to prove this point I am going to tell you a story that is the closest thing I have to a celebrity anecdote. In the early 1990's I was at university where I dabbled in student radio. One evening myself and a housemate went to the students union to do our shows but had trouble getting into the building because an up-and-coming band were playing a gig there that night and there was a huge queue. The band was called Nirvana and their new single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the station's Single Of The Week. Before my housemate's show began someone from the students' union magazine came in, said that he was going to interview the band after the show and asked us if he could interview them in the radio studio rather than using his tape recorder and a microphone. We said yes and instead of broadcasting my show after midnight we put the late night satellite service on instead, collected all the microphones, set them up in the other studio and waited. And waited. And waited. After about an hour the guy from the magazine came in, told us the interview had been cancelled and told us to go home. We asked him what happened and this is what he told us. After the gig Kurt and the rest of the band still wanted to do the interview and set off for the studio. However when they emerged from the dressing-room the reporters and photographers from the music press (which at that time was in a very healthy state) converged on them and a scuffle ensued. The band's security advised them that they should leave immediately and head to their hotel and the band reluctantly agreed. So I didn't get to meet Kurt Cobain because he couldn't walk a few yards without becoming the centre of a ruck between music journalists and his bodyguards. If that was what it was like on a tour of small venues in November 1991 imagine what it would have been like after "Nevermind" had become a huge worldwide success and more music journalists and even general news journalists wanted a piece of him. No wonder he shot himself.

Some intelligent and really valid points made in this thread by all contributors.

Is the decline and reconstruction of these mags symptomatic of the post-band phase of popular culture?

All of the issues raised about the low-attention spans of the youngsters; the lightning turnover of fads; the rise and rise of the MTV-friendly 'puppet' stars; the commercialisation of the indie scene; the massive opening up of the channels of distribution and exposure facilitated by new technologies; the perpetual repackaging of retro; the decline of the 'live music' scene; the surge of faceless dance music, etc, etc, are contributing to the transformation of pop music. Can anyone ever foresee a return to the aforementioned 'golden years of bands' during the 70s- early 90s?

Who are the truly great bands today anyway? For us there's the Order but sadly, they probably will never get the recognition they deserve from today's 'yoof'. Radiohead? U2 and REM for the mainstream? There's always the few who so excite the NME hacks on debut- The Strokes, White Stripes, Linkin Park, etc, but will they be there for the long run? Will they still hold the kids' attention by album 3?

Are we too nostalgic for an era that's left us for good?

:\pimp2:

Depthcharge, you're right when you point to other factors which have contributed to the decline of the music press such as the music industry's obsession with instant success and the rise of new and superior sources of information about music. The growth of the internet is a particular problem for the music press because bands can cut out the middle man and communicate directly with their fans.

However, the British music press has been its own worst enemy. No wonder some bands prefer to talk directly to their fans (albeit only the ones with net access) via their own websites when the alternative is talking to Swells of the NME for hours knowing that only a few of the sentences that you utter will make it into the published article or having some hack follow you around pubs and clubs as you try to enjoy yourself on one of the evenings when you're not in the studio or playing live. Also the "build 'em up knock 'em down" mentality of the British music press and the belief that writing about music is just a stepping stone to writing the scripts for cheap Saturday evening nostalgia TV shows or churning out a thousand words of crap for a broadsheet once a week are now firmly entrenched that many former readers seem to have decided not to waste their money on publications that are written for the benefit of the journalists and not the readers.

I know I'm changing the subject but I think there are other similar changes taking place connected to the music industry. Just as some British music papers and mags have closed in recent years some music retailers have gone to the wall and others are struggling. In the town where I live two independent record shops have closed in recent years and a similar number have closed in other nearby towns. Whilst I know that some of the closures were the result of the inability of certain individuals to run anything more complex than a bath the decline followed the decision of some supermarkets to start selling records (albeit in some cases only chart records). Is the same thing happening where you live or is it only happening in Yorkshire? Also, what will this mean for people who like music that doesn't make the charts?

Also, in the last year or so the major record labels have been putting out "best of" albums (and particularly "best of" albums that are similar to previous "greatest hits" albums such as "The Very Best Of The Smiths" which followed "Singles" and two volumes of "Best Of") all year round. It seems every act who has had a few hits now has a "best of" (EMF, Echobelly, Betty Boo). Are the major record labels squeezing the last drop out of old-fashioned music buyers before trying to switch over to distributing music digitally direct to fans?

A lot of interesting and valid points made on this subject. I tend to agree that the NME does campaign overly for bands that they think are important i.e the strokes etc but they can only report on the current music scene. Is it their fault that we are being purged with shitty American nu-metal and one off glorified karaoke singers. At least the NME try to get passionate about guitar music. If the record companies had their way, that chart would be 100% full of commercialised music merceranies anfd the NME,Q etc would, like Melody Maker and Select before them cease to exist. I believe that as followers of 'alternative' music we have a duty to try and support the NME because before we know it the only magazine left to buy would be SMASH HITS!!. A terrifying thought, I feel.

Good riddence. The sooner it folds up completely the better. Honestly, how can anyone over the age of 14 stand to read the thing?

Lindsay, you asked if nu-metal and glorified karaoke singers are the NME's fault? The former partially is because the NME has put nu-metal bands on the cover and helped to hype them rather than dismiss them as the bastard offspring of grunge (which was brilliant because it was heavy metal with the crap bits, including the macho posturing, axe-hero worship and money-chasing found in nu-metal, taken out), something they did mainly in an attempt to tempt back readers who had switched to Kerrang. Whilst NME can't really be blamed for Popstars or Pop Idol they have covered pop acts such as Destiny's Child, Kylie and Britney Spears recently.

If the major record companies had their way the charts would be full of whatever acts on their labels that were available to promote their latest products, whether or not the acts were mercenaries (although if they can they avoid signing acts who at some point in the future may express a desire to do something for purely artistic reasons they usually do so). As a fan of "alternative" music I don't feel any duty to support the NME and by extension its owners IPC Ignite! just because they cover some "alternative" acts or because it's better than Smash Hits. Besides, it only covers "alternative" music because they think that they can make money by doing so rather than by trying to jump on another more crowded bandwagon (the NME started as a pop music paper and only became something resembling the modern NME in the 1970's). If the NME wants my support they could earn it by employing better journalists, stopping trying to turn everything and everyone into "the next big thing" and making album reviews longer than single reviews again.

P.S. NME's attempt to turn Andrew WK into a star was pathetic. Someone somewhere else suggested that the only people who liked him were music journalists and I think they were right.

Originally posted by Lindsay Morris I tend to agree that the NME does campaign overly for bands that they think are important i.e the strokes etc

This is going to sound amazing to some, but I had never heard of The Strokes when I first heard one of their tracks (on Music Plus radio channel when flicking through all the extra stuff on Satellite TV). I had no idea they were popular, that they were soon to put an album out, or that they had been the subject of one of the British music press's biggest sycophancy campaigns since the last one. I liked what I heard, made a note of the name, and then bought the album when it came out on the basis of that one track (can't even remember which one). Still haven't read any of the NME hype - I like them because of the sound they make, even if it (or maybe because) it has a pleasing familiarity to stuff I liked 20 years ago.

To be honest, if the NME build up a band, I'm more likely not to like them deliberately. I'd much rather discover something through word of mouth or literally what I hear on the alternative radio. Peel introduced me to Joy Division, Husker Du, The Smiths, Josef K, The Shop Assistants, The Fall etc. I think in all my years of buying the music papers (as I did sporadically from around 1982 to 1996 or thereabouts), the only band I decided to go out any buy a record of cos they said so was Kenickie, "In Your Car" and that then was more to do with them being Sunderland supporters with big tits than anything (though I did have a listen before I parted with the readies.

NME ? Not massively exciting

Good to see the debate is keeping healthy here - all of you, Lindsay, Fingers, ZZ, etc...have raised points that certainly get my acknowledgement likewise. Lindsay mentions the rise of Nu-Metal as an example of the NME's willingness to choose to latch on any commercial bandwagon that passes and I can certainly vouch for this pitiful and risible attempt at "tokenism" that the NME always seem to display by picking a certain band and appearing to "get in on the act" in a (cynical) attempt to be "at one with ver kids". The example here being SLIPKNOT - who, if you may recall, were championed by every other rock mag BEFORE the NME finally cottoned on, tellingly enough...!! Since then the 'Knot cannot put a foot wrong as far as the NME are concerned. Their policy appears to be "let's see which band in each musical genre we can champion and declare as "ours" and then once their peak has passed, we'll just drop them for the bunch of charlatans and fly-by-nights that they really are and move on and leech off the next sensation...." That's the key word again - sorry to keep repeating myself here: SENSATION. Believe me, it WILL happen - around 18 months from now, you will be hard pressed to see the NME still getting excited about bands like Slipknot. They'll just start creaming themselves over a band that will in, all probability, be even worse.

Now the other thing the NME are also notorious for is their predilection for championing complete artistic lost causes - Fingers correctly cites Andrew WK as the latest example. Andrew who? Is WK a txt mssg abbrvtn for WANKER by any chance? Consider their scams of previous years - FABULOUS in 1988-89, The POP TARTS the year before, and to fast forward to a more recent one, CAMPAG VELOCET in 1999. NONE of these bands made any impact at all despite the NME's desperate attempts to make everyone believe the hype. They all sank without a trace. The plan backfired deliciously. At least here we can content ourselves with the fact that its readers weren't gonna be fooled so easy. Perhaps most disturbing of all is that each of those abovenamed three acts featured [former] NME writers. There was one recent exception to this rule - GAY DAD, featuring the hack Cliff Jones, who managed to slip thru the proverbial net to score one hit single and one short-lived album before once again disappearing to well-deserved obscurity. As we know and suspect, ANDREW WK's sadly derivative rap-punk-metal schlock will have a shelf life of approximately 18 months if he's very lucky. This just confirms how inextricably linked the NME are with their quest for seeking out fast pop thrills that just occupy one's conscience with the minimum of time and fuss before they're all too readilly discarded for the next new fix. The irony is that pop fads - always a transient phenomenon anyway - will cancel themselves out to oblivion. So where next for the old sycophants then?? My point exactly!!

It seems as if the great American media-obessive music mags have taken ahold of our Brit neighbors and reduced them to the same tired old formula of 70 % hype, 20 % ads, and 10 % serious discussion (of course buried in the "oh, no one will read this!" sections). For my money, Rolling Stone here in the US is the main culprit. For the longest time they were the standards by which all other music mags judged their supposed relevance, what with Lester Bangs and other titans of the US journalism scene on their roster. Since Cobain died, however, there's been a gigantic shift from discussing music seriously to an almost blanket accpetance of whatever MTV force-feeds on us.

Q and the like are just picking up the slack from when they may have still been bastions of good taste and serious journalism. Have they sold out? Depending on your view of the mags before the top secret conference they must have had amongst the editors to bypass substance for the latest flash in the pan, you may or may not think so. I honestly feel, because Britain's music mags seem to reflect slightly more interest in established or reputable product, that they walk a fine line between respect for the elders of rock and acknowledgement of today's talent. The fact that most of Rollins Stone's covers concern the dating concerns of Britney or the cast of some "hot teen show" (aka "no one will remember 5 years from now") seals the deal for me in regards to RS. Nevermind the "50 Cool Albums" list (by the way, notice how list-obsessed the mags have become lately? makes you wonder why all this demand for rankings and such, if they're supposed to represent fair and impartial reviews of the latest and greatest), RS is good for one thing...toilet paper.

Mojo seems to be the last bastion of good music journalism that doesn't focus on one particular style of music or just on what's happening now. However, in this world of Gear/FHM/Maxim/whatever other fooking magazine you can add to that list, I don't see how they can remain so much longer. I just hope the music scene changes enough to allow more actual "artists" into the mix, not just flash-in-the-pan kiddie acts or "thug" millionaires still trading on whatever activities they actually left behind once they got the mansion in Bel-Air.

That being said, I will of course peruse with a passion through the pages of various magazines, if only for the satisfaction of seeing someone I respect given their due or for word of an imminent release by one of my faves.

Quite right Tabsy.... the market is more saturated than ever before with duplicate titles - as we know, a lot of these will stand or fall - and quite often fall after only a few issues. Some mags try to relaunch themselves and STILL fall at the first hurdle - the best example of this being ZIGZAG which tried to relaunch itself as a new improved version after its original incarnation closed shop in the mid 80s. The new late 80s incarnation lasted precisely ONE issue before it closed again! How humiliating is that?

For a music mag junkie like me (been reading & buying the things since 1979 aged 13 yrs old) I know just how many post-1980s titles have lasted the course over the ages, with Q being the sole stalwart remaining. (The Face I don't count as it's more fashion than music) The others: No 1 (a Smash Hits wannabe no less), The Hit! (first issue featured Kevin Rowland & Dexys Midnight Runners during the 1985 "Don't Stand Me Down" phase), Noise, FlexiPop, New Sounds New Styles, Noise of the 90s, IndieCator (an excellent early 90's mag actually for its extensively fanatical coverage of all things guitary), Lime Lizard, Rock of the 90s, Sessions, FlipSide, Select, Vox, etc...... all these eventually bit the dust -some after a credible run of a few years, others after only five or six constantly re-designed/re-formatted issues...

On our shelves now are a plethora of music mags - many from US and overseas, Ireland's HOT PRESS (related to the NME) is now widely available here, as is the usual American ones like Spin, Rolling Stone, and Trouser Press. A few regional independent ones have also made their appearance known - like GetRhythm - a Newcastle-based glossy monthly. My personal favourite that now no longer exists was the fantastic fanzine-based "SUN ZOOM SPARK" which - after a pretty good run spanning some five years - closed in 2000. Home-produced by a Scottish team of writers, photographers, artists, designers and musicians (some of whom had their own band DAWN OF THE REPLICANTS), this publication was excellent and covered all the indie stuff you'd expect and featured brilliant caricatures on the cover and elsewhere....

For a magazine to survive simply through its originality is now becoming more and more difficult precisely as a direct result of increased market pressures. Everything has to be labelled and categorized into neat and tidy bundles before it can be shipped en mass to the consumer, and, looking at how many once proud titles have succumbed through this kind of aggressive sales pitching, it's little wonder things don't have the same kind of durability they once had, with only the most powerful - and hence watered down and corporate - publications (yer NME's and Rolling Stones of course) having any chance of weathering the repeated storms and upheavals that lie ahead.....

Originally posted by Taboo # 7 by the way, notice how list-obsessed the mags have become lately? makes you wonder why all this demand for rankings and such, if they're supposed to represent fair and impartial reviews of the latest and greatest),

It's occurred to me that probably the reason everyone - and I DO mean EVERYONE - has become SO obsessed with lists these days (they're everywhere aren't they? - even on this forum!!!! :D ) is perhaps a feeling of increasing awareness of their own impending obsolescence....why else would they carry out all these endless surveys to find the best and most representative cross-section of popular culture that they feel would reflect people's tastes and changing attitudes over the decades? All this to me suggests only one main thing : fear of the future. So they keep looking to the past. This is so obviously reflected in all our pop stars (like the execrable Gareth Grates and Rik Weeble and Will Dung) having to make their impression doing cover versions as is so customary in the pap world these days......How about a perfect example to support my point here? Remember the "I LOVE THE 60s/70s/80s" nostalgia series on TV? Why have they alread done one called "I Love The 90's" then? (yup - they REALLY DID complete it up to 1999!!!!)

Know what I'm getting at???

Good to see that people are still getting passionate in their arguments about how they think the NME sucks now...include me into the party then. I stopped buying the rag some time back now, for one thing, their cover price was getting more of a rip-off by the month. For fooks sake - £1.40 an issue. The cheek of the bastards...And what d'ya get for yer money? Absolute bollocks...just acres and acres of space filled with nothing but ego-wank. Not my idea of a good time.

Marty's right when he says that their golden period was around the late 80s to mid 90s - they had agood coverage of stuff then - after the Madchester/Baggy stuff died down, when hardcore and grunge exploded, they kept a fair balance and avoided over-hyping this in favour of a lot of the other stuff that was happening (like shoegazing... ) and ambient stuff like the Orb for example. I think tthe NME started to lose its way the moment its other rivals Sounds and Melody Maker started to dwindle. Perhaps it was purporting to be definitive in its music coverage when if anything, it was becoming more narrow-minded and restricted in its choice of featured acts or genres of music (Just look at how they decide on their front page covers then - the same ten bands in rotation by the looks of it - with fooking Oarsis still taking priority even seven years on...!). "Sounds" for me will always be an ace paper simply because firstly, it was launched as a rock paper more than anything else and because secondly, they brought our attention to the happening hardcore scene from US (and then the UK's subsequent explosion too with bands like Head of David and Leatherface) well before the NME and MM latched on. Problem with the NME is that they always posessed this superiority complex over their rivals despite the fact that the Melody Maker had been in existence for far longer.... Here's proof of this - when Melody Maker folded a couple of years back, it was supposed to be incorporated into the NME with its musicians classified section taking up a couple of pages in each issue. For the first few months this was indeed the case, with the NME namechecking Melody Maker by including its logo on the relevant sections. Now they've all but dispensed with the MM logo entirely.... so that speaks volumes doesn't it?

NME's long-term future looks rather shaky to be honest....they can keep on revamping their covers for all I care, but no amount of flash re-styling will convince me of anything other than merely another case of "the emperor's new clothes" - there, cliched phrase namecheck present and correct! ;)

Marty, your point about the fashion for list-making being a by-product of "fear of the future" makes sense but there is a simpler explanation: it's the consequence of laziness. Modern technology has make tasks such as turning ideas into finished copy easier, quicker and cheaper so organisations such as music magazines should be becoming, for want of a better expression, faster-moving. However, this isn't actually happening: if anything, things are getting slower. Take for example the new Suede album - it's finished now but for some reason it won't be coming out until September (although if it's anything like the last one they shouldn't bother - someone sent a letter to one of the music pages on teletext saying something like "Is anyone looking forward to the next Suede album? I am even though in my heart I know it's not going to be any good").

Anyway, back to my theory. Improved technology gave the music weeklies (which can break news quicker) an advantage over the music monthlies (which can easily become out of date) but they almost all pissed it away. Meanwhile the monthlies performed slightly better because they realised what a lot of readers wanted from them (which was long interviews with the top artists, comprehensive reviews sections and biographies of artists - why buy a book about a band when you can buy a magazine with a 20-page article about them and other stuff in it as well?). However, when the monthlies or even the weeklies can't see any new releases or tours worth putting on the cover of a specific issue they either invent or hype up a new scene (someone tried to invent something called Romo a few years ago and something called electroclash is this year's over-hyped scene), hype an act they like (such as Andrew WK) or compile another list.

Over the years compiling and publishing lists has become a habit (end-of-year lists, best-hope-for-the-new-year lists, awards lists, best-ever lists) and Q is probably the worst offender (especially in the first few months of the year). I suspect that some publications conduct polls regularly, compile the results and then hold them back until the next time there is a gap of sufficient size in their publication. Yes, there is an element of fear of the future in there. Yes, there is a tendency to forget any previous statements about not wanting to become like the elders you hated and wallow in nostalgia like they did. However, the most important reason for the music press's obsession with lists is that it's easy (and the same goes for nostalgia TV shows, retro music compilations and most other cheap cash-ins) - it's about filling the maximum amount of lot of space with the minimum of effort and the lowest possible level of risk.

Commendable viewpoint there - of course laziness comes into it - not that I overlooked to mention it, merely my own cynicism matched that of what I perceived to be "a general fear of the future and a willingness to always look back".

I can't add anymore to what you've just said above, cos it quite pertinently explains a lot of what is wrong with our media and I don't need to second your comments there as I feel you've hit the nail on the head.

But would you agree with me when I'd say that - like it or not - we are indeed witnessing, more now than ever before in the past, the continued progress of a media phenomenon that I myself call The "LCD" effect. "LCD" standing in this case, for "Lowest Common Denominator" - which is reflected in the way everything is played safe and how everyone - be they record companies signing new bands, TV programmers in charge of what constitutes prime time viewing, or magazine editors, etc - seems to be flogging the same old product albeit in repackaged form to appeal to the masses? Taking each one in turn, I specifically mean:

1. Record companies - endless production line pap and Nu-Metal boy-bands to add to an already twice-oversaturated market.
2. Endless depressing barrel-scraping TV reality docu-soaps and programmes glorifying/addressing "issues" like crime, problem neighbours, hooligans, car-thieves, con-merchants, zzzzz, etc...
3. The same overhyped fashions and musics appearing week in week out in every issue of every magazine....

Put it this way, a classic example of this is the way all the press have unanimously praised the new OASIS single as if they've only just discovered the band rather than wise up to the fact that this bunch are now four-years-past-their-sell-by-date self-parodying hasbeens who STILL haven't got over their tedious Beatles obsessions yet. And, of course, OASIS will always sell records cos they'll always appeal to the laddish tabloid-reading scum majority anyway = ergo Lowest Common Denominator crap in excelsis. How depressing....

Originally posted by Hubert Mickle NME's long-term future looks rather shaky to be honest....they can keep on revamping their covers for all I care, but no amount of flash re-styling will convince me of anything other than merely another case of "the emperor's new clothes" - there, cliched phrase namecheck present and correct! ;)

Exactly!

Marty, your theory of the "LCD" (Lowest Common Denominator) effect is a very good explanation of what has been happening in the last few years. The argument that increased competition drives up standards and gives consumers greater choice is at best unproved and arguably has been disproved. Judging by the decline in voter turnout at elections, lower viewing and listening figures for TV and radio, lower circulation figures for magazines and newspapers and various other measures of public satisfaction I have come to the conclusion that many of the reforms designed to make us more satisfied that have been introduced in the last twenty-odd years have had the opposite effect. If anyone wants to dispute that, if people are generally satisfied why do so many people complain so much?

I have another theory which I could wander further off topic to explain but I'll try to bring it back to the NME and the music industry. Years ago the Conservative Party adopted the slogan "Back To Basics" to sum up its campaign for traditional values and what happened after that has been very well-documented. I think it's time for a different "Back To Basics" campaign - instead of trying to go back to the way things were done in the old days why don't people stop wasting time on things that aren't important, useful or desirable and concentrate on doing the most important things right? To put it another way, wouldn't things be better if people spent less time worrying about the packaging or the image or the target audiences and instead concentrated on, for want of a better expression, the quality of the product. To bring it back to the NME, I'm not really bothered what size it is, what shelf it's on, what sort of paper it's printed on, what the logo looks like, what typeface is used or whether or not I can buy a piss-poor version of my favourite track to use as a ringtone on my mobile phone (but maybe that's because I don't own a mobile phone). I'm more interested in boring things like the quality of the writing, the standard of interviewing and the usefulness of reviews.

Even in the days when I bought the NME or Melody Maker regularly (the early 90's) there were lots of things in them I didn't like. For example, I thought the Pretentious Music Journalist character on the Steve Wright show who droned about "sonic cathedrals of sound" was a spot-on piss-take on most NME and MM journalists. However, instead of trying to make its journalists less pretentious and self-important, the NME and MM tried to climb further up their own arses and as a result I bought them less often. If they had tried to make their journalists less pretentious or resisted the temptation to jump on every passing bandwagon (or to try start ones for their colleagues' bands as Marty explained earlier) or paid more attention to the various music scenes around the country rather than looking for the new Seattle perhaps they would still be selling more hundreds of thousands of copies between them each week and wouldn't have had to merge in a desperate attempt to stave off complete collapse. Perhaps if someone tried to launch a music weekly that gave people what they wanted and didn't fall into the same traps the NME and MM did that would sell a hundred thousand copies a week.

A thought has just occurred to me. I'd just remembered that this thread is called "NME - The Inevitable Has Happened" but it is a bit of a misnomer. The decline of the NME wasn't inevitable - it has only happened because various owners, editors and journalists have, to be blunt, fucked up. So bearing this mind if you were either appointed as the editor of the NME or appointed to set up, launch and edit a rival to the NME what would you do?

Since I've only just thought of this I haven't got a wish-list to hand but the first thing I would do is make sure that reviews of albums were of a decent length and therefore longer than reviews of singles. When the last new improved NME launched a few weeks ago I noticed that there were larger pictures of the reviewers on the top of the review pages and that most of the album reviews were about the same length as the single reviews - why? An album can cost six times what a single costs so reviewers should give readers a better idea of what's on the album and whether it's any good. Secondly given that singles now come in so many different formats reviewers should tell readers if any of the bonus tracks on the various formats, the CD-ROM elements or the DVD special features are particularly good or bad.

That's all I can think of right now. What does anyone else want from the NME or any potential rival? Be careful what you wish for, it might come true.

Originally posted by Fingers Marty, your theory of the "LCD" (Lowest Common Denominator) effect is a very good explanation of what has been happening in the last few years. The argument that increased competition drives up standards and gives consumers greater choice is at best unproved and arguably has been disproved. Judging by the decline in voter turnout at elections, lower viewing and listening figures for TV and radio, lower circulation figures for magazines and newspapers and various other measures of public satisfaction I have come to the conclusion that many of the reforms designed to make us more satisfied that have been introduced in the last twenty-odd years have had the opposite effect. If anyone wants to dispute that, if people are generally satisfied why do so many people complain so much?I have another theory which I could wander further off topic to explain but I'll try to bring it back to the NME and the music industry. Years ago the Conservative Party adopted the slogan "Back To Basics" to sum up its campaign for traditional values and what happened after that has been very well-documented. I think it's time for a different "Back To Basics" campaign - instead of trying to go back to the way things were done in the old days why don't people stop wasting time on things that aren't important, useful or desirable and concentrate on doing the most important things right? To put it another way, wouldn't things be better if people spent less time worrying about the packaging or the image or the target audiences and instead concentrated on, for want of a better expression, the quality of the product. To bring it back to the NME, I'm not really bothered what size it is, what shelf it's on, what sort of paper it's printed on, what the logo looks like, what typeface is used or whether or not I can buy a piss-poor version of my favourite track to use as a ringtone on my mobile phone (but maybe that's because I don't own a mobile phone). I'm more interested in boring things like the quality of the writing, the standard of interviewing and the usefulness of reviews.Even in the days when I bought the NME or Melody Maker regularly (the early 90's) there were lots of things in them I didn't like. For example, I thought the Pretentious Music Journalist character on the Steve Wright show who droned about "sonic cathedrals of sound" was a spot-on piss-take on most NME and MM journalists. However, instead of trying to make its journalists less pretentious and self-important, the NME and MM tried to climb further up their own arses and as a result I bought them less often. If they had tried to make their journalists less pretentious or resisted the temptation to jump on every passing bandwagon (or to try start ones for their colleagues' bands as Marty explained earlier) or paid more attention to the various music scenes around the country rather than looking for the new Seattle perhaps they would still be selling more hundreds of thousands of copies between them each week and wouldn't have had to merge in a desperate attempt to stave off complete collapse. Perhaps if someone tried to launch a music weekly that gave people what they wanted and didn't fall into the same traps the NME and MM did that would sell a hundred thousand copies a week.

On all counts in agreement with you! Hubert above mentioned that phrase "Emperor's New Clothes" which is the most succinct term one could apply to this whole re-packaging/re-branding lark. To likewise venture off-topic as you briefly did there, consider the following two complete and utter disasters: the privatisation of British Rail and the rebranding of the Post Office as "Consignia". What there then?? The bottom line is, with private competition the gates are thrown open for all manner of silly pointless exercises in the vain hope of "keeping up appearances". What the fuck is that all about then? Keeping up appearances? Why this obsession with all things "cosmetic"?? The need for all the railway companies to keep changing their fucking train paint schemes (livery overhauls they call it in the industry) every three months, at great expense to the farepaying passenger OF COURSE, new uniforms, stationery, leaflets, and all manner of other PURELY SUPERFICIAL BILGE that HAS ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT ON IMPROVING THE ISSUE THAT MATTERS MOST - i.e. SERVICE!!! How can a new lick of paint or a pretty tarted-up railway station make the fucking trains run on time? They haven't thought about that one have they? And STILL they're at it - changing their colour schemes ad fooking nauseum....Ditto the Post Office. Why do you think they've made such a loss lately? Considering the amount of money wasted on that completely fucking pointless rebranding exercise ( CUNT-SIGNIA more like!!), they're now admitting shortage of cash and are prepared to lay off thousands of staff and put the price of everything up again ina barely veiled attempt to recoup their losses from their previous galling act of misjudgement. Fuck me, that's what it seems to be all about these days - all frontage, all surface, and no content or substance. Everyone's so OBSESSED with it!.......I mean.....How often does your average High Street chain or supermarket undergo a refit or refurbishing these days? Exactly!!

Hence one could apply this to the revamping of the NME - they've conveniently used their 50th anniversary (hey- what a coincidence - Golden Jubilee and all that! How about getting the frigging Sex Pistols to reform for their cover story then??) to change their clothes again.... If that isn't what I perceive to be a secretly cynical exercise to simultaneously pat themselves on the back whilst swindling the average reader further with more re-heated overdressed bullshit then I'm the reincarnation of a bag of soggy pork scratchings.....

Originally posted by Fingers A thought has just occurred to me. I'd just remembered that this thread is called "NME - The Inevitable Has Happened" but it is a bit of a misnomer. The decline of the NME wasn't inevitable - it has only happened because various owners, editors and journalists have, to be blunt, fucked up. So bearing this mind if you were either appointed as the editor of the NME or appointed to set up, launch and edit a rival to the NME what would you do?Since I've only just thought of this I haven't got a wish-list to hand but the first thing I would do is make sure that reviews of albums were of a decent length and therefore longer than reviews of singles. When the last new improved NME launched a few weeks ago I noticed that there were larger pictures of the reviewers on the top of the review pages and that most of the album reviews were about the same length as the single reviews - why? An album can cost six times what a single costs so reviewers should give readers a better idea of what's on the album and whether it's any good. Secondly given that singles now come in so many different formats reviewers should tell readers if any of the bonus tracks on the various formats, the CD-ROM elements or the DVD special features are particularly good or bad.That's all I can think of right now. What does anyone else want from the NME or any potential rival? Be careful what you wish for, it might come true.

There was a time in the 90s when the Melody Maker reviewed every one of their week's albums with the following added info: formats/price/no. of tracks/length in minutes/recommendation stars. Which I thought was very good - and I was amazed they never did it before. I think Q magazine did something similar around the same time - or was it MOJO? Needless to say, the NME followed suit by stating the various formats the albums were available on but that was as far as IT was prepared to venture. Such details DO help and ADD to one's appreciation of an album review, so the fact that they all too soon were neglected in favour of this tiresome "sound-byte" speak is pretty sad to say the least.

hear! hear! just wish i could type then i could tell you what i really think. i seriously think this could be the begining of the end for the nme,i,ve bought it every week for over 20 years ,but theres less and less in it for me, i dont think its a case of me getting old either!!!! for me its just bought as a gig guide albeit a very poor one

Youre getting back to your old self then Martin...

Originally posted by Seb Briggs Youre getting back to your old self then Martin...

Whaddaya mean by that??? :D :D :D :D

some very good points have been raised by everyone contributing to this thread thus far. excellent reads, all!

i used to rather obsessively buy music mags in high school...both of US and UK origination (would save up lunch money for this little habit...was quite sad!). in the past 5 or 6 years or so, i still buy the occasional odd mag if it's got something that makes me want to buy it, but not nearly as much as i used to. and i know i'm certainly not less interested in the music than i was...it is definitely a direct effect of how much a lot of music journalism has gone down the toilet even in the relatively (well, to most of you) short time i've been alive and reading it. ;)

the one thing that is constantly pressed upon me by all of this is the idea that without new blood, without competition...indeed, without a reason for the wheels to keep turning, for something NEW to take place...things become stagnant. IIRC, Rolling Stone started out as a fanzine. and of course you had things in the US like Spin and Creem to compete against it...Creem is no more (though it was actually a decent rag at one time, too), and Spin is very nearly the same thing as RS now, so there's a massive sense of complacency (it seems) between the two of them, as perhaps they figure that if they cover the same ground, readers interested in whatever it is they have to say will just buy both, rather than choosing and voting with their wallets. NME at one point had been at least semi-useful and informative, but i really was appalled last time i picked up an issue...nothing really of any use or even much of vague amusement. pages and pages of endless ads and contrived, convenient soundbites, as you all have been saying. and as was mentioned above...do you think that this is a direct effect of the combination of the dwindling attention spans of their intended demographic and the gross lack of competition for the fickle attentions of that demographic? i think that's probably the best explanation. but i also am not completely hopeless...as long as there are *some* people who care about the quality of anything, be it journalism (music or otherwise), music, film...etc, etc, they will find outlets for those ventures. granted, most fanzines don't get very far...and sadly don't have the sort of access that NME and other "established" bastions of journalism do. but there's more heart in a well-thought-out fanzine (and always has been) then there ever will be in any of the mags we've mentioned above, ever again. while at one time, any of them might have had some redeeming qualities...all above are now seriously lacking. so perhaps NME dying out (should it happen) will be a good thing. ground will be cleared, and SOMETHING will have to spring up in its place...hopefully something sparking with life and personality rather than what NME has degenerated to in recent time. we need SOMETHING...Mojo and Magnet are usually worthwhile, but there's got to be more than this. i don't have the money or the time to do something like this, but someone else has got to. or several someones.

i really wish Bunnyhop came out more often. they did up their record reviews with haiku, and it worked surprisingly well! :D