Hello, I am off the NME, \ --- / when did you get off the NMEBus?

Same age as you, and remember that Faces' flexi (selections from Ooh La La, right?) - stopped getting it in the late 80s though, although my then partner bough it for a while longer, so I had the luxury of scoffing into the 90s; now my Daughter buys it occasionally.

I think it's about four years ago, now? Maybe a bit longer. I picked up - maybe - two copies last year, possibly one. That (or them) was due to reading something about some article on ILM and wanting to check it out.

Last few times I've looked at it, it's just been...boring. Annoying I can put up with, I put up with plenty of annoying at NME in the '80's, and kept on reading. Boring is a killer though.

i got off the week my eldest son was born - 1st week of December 1996.
Louise Sleeper was on the cover, and it just felt right.
but yeah, i cant stop the weekly visit to WH Smiths for a 5 minute glimpse into what i'm missing out on.

Over 10 years ago, but I think I bought the Melody Maker in the early 90s anyway

... Mr. Agreeable and all that stuff

got off the NME bus in about 2002, when I was buying tons of records and going to several gigs a week, none of which were ever covered.

"hmmm...perhaps this magazine isn't for me."

then came the endless parade of strokes covers, repeatedly beating me around the head with the supposed greatness of this most drab of bands.

"this DEFINITELY isn't for me."

since then, I've occasionally glanced at it by the supermarket fag counter, and been astonished to discover the live reviews section covers two, maybe three gigs. wow. finger on the pulse there...

I still read it in WHSmith occasionally as late as about 2004 I guess. I don't think I've read one since then.

Cypress Hill issue with really creepy racist overtones, 2000 I think?

Early 2002, having read it just about every week since late 1973/early 1974. I think it was the weekly "what's on your ringtone?" vox-pop that finally pushed me over the edge, plus the ever-shrinking reviews, the narrowing of focus, and the easy availability on the web for news and gig listings. Also the sense that they were now aiming at a very tight demographic, and assuming a remarkable level of short-attention-span cluelessness from it. They had finally stopped even pretending to be "definitive", and were happy to fill a "Smash Hits for indie kids" brief. Oh, and I'd already seen how C.Mc.N had wrecked the once-essential Muzik using similar dumbing-down tactics, and I couldn't bear to see him do it again.

I bought my first copy in well over a year recently - the one with the Coldplay 7" (also unplayed!) - as there was supposed to be a re-design/re-think and I was curious. To be honest, it was a better read than I was expecting, but then my expectations were set at rock bottom.

The ringtone pushing is gone, or at least much reduced. The smaller reviews mean more albums get covered, and two or three get more extensive reviews, which is alright. The horribly chirpy "hey kids" style is still there though. "Wow, how fantastic, it sounds like early strokes". Because Oasis is year zero, because no-one can remember anything before then..

Commenced 1974 with free Python flexidisc.

Ended 1988 following the mark s/Rattle And Hum affair.

Melody Maker my dad used to get anyway because of the jazz and I carried on with that until Mark Sutherland took over and wrecked it.

Last one I bought was the albums of the year one. I've pretty much only bought that in the last 5 years apart from the one with the free white stripes 7".
Rarely read it in Smiths either.
I'll probably keep buying the albums of year issue til im marks age though :) if it's around in 2020

Melody Maker I bought til the end even though it was unbearably crap the last few years.

2001ish, I think, sometime before the Strokes album came out. This coincided with me graduating from university and, separately, finding ILM and I just realised I had no real use for it any more.

Never been a permanent NME reader, and I think they have improved again in later years. Their all-time-lows were during their Nu Metal hype around 2001 and around the late 80/early 90s "grebo" hype.

Oh, yeah, caveat: The Christmas double issue. Not that they're much cop, now they do them 'annuals' which are also not good...

Commenced 1974 with free Python flexidisc.

"... right next to Alf's Cafe in Russell Street..."

I can't remember the exact moment I jumped, but it was definitely the PWEI/Grebo hype era.

Never on the bus (Xmas double issues and a few dozen others in the 80s notwithstanding). I was faithful to Sounds/Record Mirror and later MM.

I used to covet the christmas double issues. Started in late 70s when my mum constantly frowned on my copy of Sounds (too much swearing). Didn't want to buy the NME because it was the one my dad used to buy therefore OLD. But after a couple of weeks of MM (and articles on Wishbone Ash probably) I swapped to NME. Gave up in the early 90s when I could afford magazines like The Wire and could actually read about the music I was buying much like m the g.

How I loved all the Penman/Morley/Derrida stuff though!

How I loved all the Penman/Morley/Derrida stuff though!

Yeah, ol' Jacques' review of Dumpy's Rusty Nuts at the 'undred club was a corker!

the last copy i bought would have been '03, but by that point i had six months' worth unread

Just passed one this lunchtime. The Ting's are number one. Are they celebrating? Um, sort of. With a large (admittedly nice) pic of Scarlett Johanssen. and a very large interview about her album.

(Just sayin'. This is not going to be a lol at NME ongoing thread now I'm "above it all" no.)

todays nme said on the cover "ting tings save the top ten"
I didnt even pick it up to read.
x-post

I used to have a subscription in the 90's, which was pretty expensive to America, but somewhere about '97-ish the music world seemed to have changed to the point that it didn't seem worth it anymore. The following year I moved across the country and never looked back, although when I saw an issue about 5 years ago I was shocked there were no longer any indie charts and there seemed to be a lot less pages in it than what I remembered. I felt really fucking old, then.

Too many adverts, not enough reviews. Reviews are too short. Hell theres lots of things you could list about why NME is crap before you even get to the actual bands it covers!

bought a copy once at heathrow airport (or was it waterloo station? can't quite remember) as i was desparate to either a) get rid of some pounds or b) find some reading fodder, however light and unsatisfying. think i ended up giving it to a friend in paris when i noticed the jet poster on his wall.

How is the "revamp". Not any different to before?

I followed them through the deification of The Strokes, who seemed to merit some of the hype and the rest could be written off as the usual case of "Oh silly NME, always overstating your case by several miles." But then a year or so down the road it was like "hold up, the Strokes were just a palate cleanser for the real saviors du jour, The Vines." And then I heard The Vines, and finally realized how far up its own ass the NME had ventured.

One interesting thing about that brief interstice when they were going all ga-ga for the "The" bands was, being from Ann Arbor, it seemed that every week or month the NME would be touting the local band from down my street as next on the roster for a White Stripes-style breakthrough. None of that actually panned out, of course -- minor exceptions being The Electric Six and The Von Bondies (who? exactly).

I read recently on one of the new band pages, forget who, where the closing remark from the band was "well, we're not breaking new ground musically, but..." and DID NOT GET IMMEDIATELY taken to task over their lameness.

well ok, but doesn't 99% of music nowadays fall into the non-groundbreaking category? there's just subtle little twists on existing genres. even newish genres like dubstep and "minimal" wouldn't have blown people away ten years ago. i like hearing futuristicy stuff, but if someone does something retro and does it well, where's the problem?

These days, groundbreaking music would be unlistenable, so it's better not to break any ground anymore at all.

shut up

Yeah re: that breaking ground comment, the only dumb thing there is that it made it into the piece as a quote at all. I've no idea what band is being talked about there but it's not exactly 'lame' to be inexperienced in the art of interviews and not make every single thing you say a pullquote-to-be

Quitting NME was my new millennium resolution! So my last issue was Dec 99, about 3 weeks after my 25th birthday.

If someone does retro and does it well, fine and good.

More the "not breaking new ground" was meant to represent "we sound not much different from anyone else going round right now"

It was more as you say: why did the quote make it into the piece? I don't blame the band at all, in fact I salute them in a way because if what they do sounds "ordinary" to them, but different to the rest of us, they are doing it right and not forcing it. It was more "Hey, this paper is celebrating their mediocrity" rather than what distinguishes them from the next bunch.

DJ Mencap: I agree that not all bands should be captain pullaquote, but where are the ones that can do this? Someone should be able to do this!

Why celebrate the bands that have the mission statement of "We make the music that the audience likes, and if we like it it's a bonus"...?

I think I last bought a copy of NME in 1987.

I buy it if a band I like is being covered in it. That works out about 4 a year.

Actually I think Geir is right re: groundbreaking. That Battles thing everyone was so nuts about last year is a good example.

I think the idea of "breaking new ground" (which in music press terms is a megacorny phrase) in relation to quality is sort of problematic anyway - a. it's a really vague notion and b. of all the hundreds of ppl who did their top 15 or whatever for the 07 polls on here I doubt there was a single one who entirely chose stuff that "broke new ground" or that they considered as such.

As for 'why celebrate the bands...?' - it's probably a mix of underestimating the intelligence of the readership, not being confident enough in current climate to be brave and go out on a limb, keeping PR co's sweet by featuring their smaller acts and a bit of honest backing of the wrong horses. I was always kind of bothered by the snarky 'lol they said the Von Bondies would be big and they weren't at all' thing that people do, because it's not a science and I tend to give writers the benefit of the doubt that when they express excitement about something in print, they mean it. Of course this is at least 50% down to the dickwaving thing of mags wanting to say WE WERE HERE FIRST about anything, just so they can crow about it

Actually I think Geir is right re: groundbreaking. That Battles thing everyone was so nuts about last year is a good example.

are you suggesting battles are unlistenable...?

Or, at least, the factors that might lead people to call them unlistenable are fairly distinct from the factors that might lead people to call them groundbreaking - argh this is it, it really quickly calls narcissisms of small differences into play and you hate yrself for even trying to think about it

Was my bible, along with MM and Sounds, from about 1977-1978 till the advent of Britpop. I fell off the wagon when it dawned on me Oasis wasn't all that. Looking back, Oasis look like fricking geniuses next to some of the drivel they cover now.

Oh, yeah, caveat: The Christmas double issue.

Last one I bought was, I think, the 2002 Christmas issue. But I hadn't bought another for two or three years before that, and it was out of faint hope that the old joys of the Chrimbo bumper would still be seen as an opportunity for the writers to have fun and take the piss more than in the by-then-neutered regular issues - I was unsurprisingly disappointed.

My first issue was in 1991 - the Kelly/Maconie/Collins/Swells/Quantick era is still a warm nostalgic glow for me, the "my Dr Who" of indie music press.

Have read (or flipped through, rather) looooots of issues between 2004 and 2007 thanks to the library at work having a subscription, so am familiar with Conor's appalling destruction. At many of the paper's peaks (Morley/Burchill, pre-Hip-Hop-Wars-fallout, Kelly), it didn't matter who or what was being covered, because it was substantial reading and above all entertaining writing. Even when I jumped off around '99, there were still multi-page features being written that gave you a sense of the band as a personality and musicians; these days there is perishingly close to no content at all in the rag. Every band is described in breathless terms of why you have to get into them right now, in the equivalent of one column's text from an old issue for the entire feature, and an enormous photo. And it's not like they have a Kevin Cummins or a Derek Ridgers taking the photos, you know?

^^ah fuck it, everyone knows all this already

yeah, but you have it in a nutshell.

I think I got it every week from 1994 or so (when I was 15) to 2001 or maybe 2002. I think I've bought it once since then.

it's actually a lot less bad these days than i remember it being

true, but.

The idea that the NME is solely deathless praise is way off as well, they still do the Shed Seven routine on a number of bands (The Wombats, most recently, and they're still a bit "lol emo" on certain acts as well).

It's all about the melodies. The Smiths' melodies were way too cyclic and obviously built around Morrissey's words. Gene's melodies had a more traditional build and worked better as actual songs with actual catchy choruses you could sing along to.

I must've missed that Gene. I don't remember anything of theirs that was catchy. Infact I don't think I can remember any of their songs at all.

I think he means Gene Hackman.

http://outsidetheboxuk.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/gene-hunt.jpg

Makes more sense.

Right, my final word(s) on this, from a personal perspective...

I'm not going to whine about "oh the NME is not as good as it was in my day" because my "day" was a very long time. Yep, I will signal that the greatness of times was between 1978 and 1999 or thereabouts, but that's how it is. As I say, I haven't stopped because it's now unredeemingly shite, it's not and right now it's better than it has been for a while.

The loss of faith can be centered on one "jumpshark" moment, when their reporter asked LAllen how she was going to celebrate her first number one, and she comically replied "lots of Gak". And the article appeared in the tabloids before the NME version was printed. Years before, the paper would rightly slag bands for taking the tabloid route (JStrummer was gently upbraided for having a Sun logo on his shirt when he did the London Marathon), and now their editor (presumably) is farming out their article for shock/horror misquote time. (this was before the Beth Ditto 'coolest artist' bump for Muse issue. Of course, history has rewritten itself to be "when she won Coolest article, she celebrated by appearing nude on the front cover)...

And as I say, in the end it was none of this. Just that basically it wasn't telling me anythin I needed to know anymore.

Thank you and Goodnight Vienna.

I have just spent a whole hour listening to stupid Schönberg - wonderful stuff, thanks to this thread and especially Geir for reminding me of it.

Whats on the cover this week?

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/images/highres_00014214%20copy.jpg

nah oasis were the kuntz on it last week i think

Next week: Rusty Goffe centrespread.

People still care about Oasis?

Massively so; bizarre, isn't it?

Next week: Rusty Goffe centrespread.

God, The Cure should really just give up

You mean they haven't?

unfortunately not

NME sales circulation at a low point of 56,284

http://tinyurl.com/5zgmwp

Kerrang! registered the biggest drop in the music magazine sector as its circulation fell 27.9% year on year, recording monthly figures of 60,290 for the first half for 2008, according to latest Audit Bureau of Circulation figures released today.

IPC's weekly music title NME also declined sharply, falling 17.4% year on year to 56,284.

How much money is the website making these days?

Now onder Kerrangs circulation drops as it has only been covering emo and no metal at all the past year or so.
Maybe this new issue will improve things lol
http://images.kerrang.com/content/ksite/spreads/1223_244x325.jpg

i expect both NME and Kerrang will remain as websites after the publications fold (6 months? 12 months? 2 years?)

Neither will fold, they need the magazines keep everything else (websites, radio, club nights, TV, whatever) orbiting around. I imagine the NME will just get cheaper and thinner - it's almost as flimsy as a Shortlist or a Sport these days, possibly more so.

I think Matt DC is right

the websites can become the new brand centres relatively easily surely

do magazines ever get cheaper?

http://www.nme.com/images/84_magalbumsspreadL120808.jpg

that '8' stays there every week - they just change everything around it

Now onder Kerrangs circulation drops as it has only been covering emo and no metal at all the past year or so.

Noted emo bands Trivium, Opeth, Nightwish, Machine Head, Slipknot, Dragonforce, Evanescence, Blink 182, Iron Maiden, Avenged Sevenfold, Cancer Bats, Blackstone Cherry, Clutch

the website has never looked better, they need their shitty interview/features on there tho (i want to lol at Noel)

It's a good website, not too sure about the font though.

do magazines ever get cheaper?

I meant cheaper as in cheaper to produce, shittier quality paper, less money spent on writers and other staff, etc.

And yeah the site *could* become the centre but it just doesn't encapsulate the brand like a magazine does.

BEHIND NME LINES
Once the best–selling music magazine in Britain, NME recently recorded its lowest ever sale, and the critic’s knives are out. OMM goes behind the scenes at NME’s offices to see what really goes on, and finds out how the world’s leading weekly music magazine is made.

Which critic are they talking about there?

Cameron Carr

Marcello Carlin, probably.

Must be plastic knives then

NME should never have let marcello and nick be joint editors

"the critic's knives are out"

And the sub-editors are out of a job.

Maybe they are already.

But then again, who actually "reads" the NME these days as opposed to just looking at the pictures?

People who read the guardian

haha

many people do, you just won't find them around here, mostly thankfully

Did anyone ever get back on the bus? Mark?

me ?

nope.

december 96 was the end of the road for me.

got the edition with the simian mobile disco nu-rave mix cd on the cover mount, but thats been it ..

no, Mr G who started the thread

I cant even remember when I stopped buying it regularly. Before Mark G did anyway. I still buy the one with AOY list though for old times sake. Same with Kerrang.

ahh I posted earlier in the thread

Last one I bought was the albums of the year one. I've pretty much only bought that in the last 5 years apart from the one with the free white stripes 7".
Rarely read it in Smiths either.
I'll probably keep buying the albums of year issue til im marks age though :) if it's around in 2020

Melody Maker I bought til the end even though it was unbearably crap the last few years.

― Herman G. Neuname,

so thats about 10 years since I bought it regularly. I still dont read it in smiths.

Oh, hai.

Occasionally, that first year, but not for about 4 yrs. I did get the one with the Vaccines demo cd tho.

Be Quiet.

Even the Christmas double issue thesedays is more "add ten pages and double the price'

i dont buy that one since they brought forward the eoy list to the beginning of the month.

do A&A not buy it and you read it?

nope.