Gregory2Smith1
J'les aurai!
Good too see the Stranglers well represented there
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[Music] RIP NME Weekly Print Edition
- Thread starter Tom Hark Preston Park
- Start date
Good too see the Stranglers well represented there
Thirty or forty years ago I would have missed it if it had gone under (even though I was more of a Melody Maker person myself), but now........? I didn't even know it was still going!
Still, another little peace of my childhood/adolescent days gone. RIP.
Still, another little peace of my childhood/adolescent days gone. RIP.
Monkey Man
Your support is not that great
My music press trajectory went Smash Hits > Record Mirror > Sounds > Melody Maker before I took a gap of many years and eventually resurfaced with (The) Word.
NME always seemed a bit too self-important in the years when I might have been a reader, too aware of its own reputation, too comfortable, too full of references to itself and its own writers (though let's face it that last accusation is probably true of most of them).
So it kind of passed me by. Not really sad to see it put out of its print misery – I last saw it when someone handed me a free copy outside Vauxhall station and it looked about as appealing a read as the Friday-Ad.
NME always seemed a bit too self-important in the years when I might have been a reader, too aware of its own reputation, too comfortable, too full of references to itself and its own writers (though let's face it that last accusation is probably true of most of them).
So it kind of passed me by. Not really sad to see it put out of its print misery – I last saw it when someone handed me a free copy outside Vauxhall station and it looked about as appealing a read as the Friday-Ad.
Is it PotG?
Thrifty non-licker
Bill Cassidy's tie up
New member
I was watching the UB40 documentary on the TV on Monday (iPlayer BBC 4 - worth a watch) and said to my girlfriend as we were reminiscing late 70s and early to mid 80s music anecdotes that there were 3 music newspapers in circulation in the 80s.
I was always NME, I thought MM was for actual musicians and was never quite sure where Sounds fitted in TBH.
I was always NME, I thought MM was for actual musicians and was never quite sure where Sounds fitted in TBH.
Cheshire Cat
The most curious thing..
Melody Maker was mostly dull
Sounds was mostly heavy metal and very tedious Oi
NME was mostly punk (or "new wave" if you really must)
Sounds was mostly heavy metal and very tedious Oi
NME was mostly punk (or "new wave" if you really must)
Pevenseagull
meh
- Jul 20, 2003
- 20,681
NME was always the more interesting publication, even before the days of punk - although it really took off in 1976. From the early 70s though it had writers like Charles Shaar Murray, Nick Kent and Ian McDonald who were a step up the usual hack.
It wasn't just the music. Among the authors that NME introduced to me were: Jean Genet, Arthur Machen, HP Lovecraft, Mervyn Peake, Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs, I can't say that I read any of them now but there were all part of my youth and NME was the impetus.
DavePage
Well-known member
70’s reader
The sweet spot went well into the 1980s for me - but otherwise I agree with everything you've written'NME magazine to end print edition after 66 years'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/nme-magazine-end-print-edition-66-years/
*sigh*
Required Thursday morning reading during our formative punk years. Or as a rare late-night treat on Wednesday nights from the newspaper shack outside Victoria station following a gig before catching the train back to BN1.
Melody Maker was for earnest students who wanted to read a thesis on empty pomp rock. Sounds was with honourable exceptions (Jane Suck, Dave McCullough) for dafter younger brothers. But NME hit that sweet spot between 1976 and 1979.
RIP NME
RIP NME
I feel lucky to have come of age in an era when music was considered worthy of intelligent discussion, and when there was so much creativity, change and energy
This sounds brilliant. Is it a new program?
Sadly I was still getting it downloaded to my iPad right up until about 6 months ago. Then the app stopped for some reason and I didn’t bother trying to fix it. I started off with Disco 45 and Flexipop in my childhood, progressed to Sounds and Kerrange when I was 14. When Sounds abruptly stopped I switched to NME which then carried on right up until 6 months ago. It really was shite towards the last 10 years and I guess it was purely habit and and clinging onto my youth which kept me buying it. I skim read it and checked the gig lists in about 30 seconds towards the end though.
attila
1997 Club
When my first album 'Ranting at The Nation' came out on Cherry Red Records in 1983, I was told by the record company there was going to be a review in the following week's NME.I had done a couple of articles for them and used to read it like a bible at the time (despite moving on to freelance for Sounds) and was most excited. I can still remember buying one on the morning it came out from the Ipswich station shop on my way back from a gig there and turning to the review page with bated breath. Sure, there was a big review with an equally large picture. The strapline said 'Stockbroker belt up' and the most memorable line in Don Watson's review stated that he would rather gnaw through his own arm than listen to my album again! An enjoyable feud ensued for a while.
I could say: 35 years later they've bitten the dust and I'm still earning my living as a poet, 1-0. But actually, NME in the 70s/80s was brilliant, I continued to read it avidly and I'm sad it became a corporate freesheet. One mystery solved by the OP though. THPP appears to have some strange visceral dislike for me, even though we've never met. Now I understand why: NME told him to. It was like that in those days......
I could say: 35 years later they've bitten the dust and I'm still earning my living as a poet, 1-0. But actually, NME in the 70s/80s was brilliant, I continued to read it avidly and I'm sad it became a corporate freesheet. One mystery solved by the OP though. THPP appears to have some strange visceral dislike for me, even though we've never met. Now I understand why: NME told him to. It was like that in those days......
Mr Banana
Tedious chump
I feel like a big part of what killed it, although maybe this is just my perception from first considering it competition and then just realising how much better the writing everyone else was producing was, might have been Nathan Barley. NME seemed constantly desperate to be zeitgeisty and say wannabe contrary things for the sake of it about ten years ago, which was exactly when it praps should have been doing something completely different rather than meekly lusting after whatever Kasabian, The Libertines and Noel Fielding were saying.
But the demise of printed music journalism generally is a bad thing. Wish they'd done it better for longer.
But the demise of printed music journalism generally is a bad thing. Wish they'd done it better for longer.
- Aug 7, 2003
- 8,087
A big part of my youth along with OZ
Nail on head.
It got good again in the late 80's and early 90's as bands like The Pixies , Husker Du, Meat Puppets etc emerged paving the way for Nirvana, Pearl Jam etc.
Shame it went sideways as the music did too.
Shame it went sideways as the music did too.
Tricky Dicky
New member
'NME magazine to end print edition after 66 years'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/news/nme-magazine-end-print-edition-66-years/
*sigh*
Required Thursday morning reading during our formative punk years. Or as a rare late-night treat on Wednesday nights from the newspaper shack outside Victoria station following a gig before catching the train back to BN1.
Melody Maker was for earnest students who wanted to read a thesis on empty pomp rock. Sounds was with honourable exceptions (Jane Suck, Dave McCullough) for dafter younger brothers. But NME hit that sweet spot between 1976 and 1979.
RIP NME
Yup, that was my era too. I used to love reading those rags, but those days are long gone for me. I really didn't know NME was still going.