*Actually no it doesn’t but whoever runs the advertising freesheet/website that claims to be NME – Please stop wasting paper, ink and bandwidth and stop trashing what little is left of the legacy of the NME. Stop it now!. Read the below which plopped into my inbox today – I’ve also removed myself from their mailing lists and feeds (which until relatively recently still provided interesting news) but this is the last straw:
“Loyle Carner – the man for millennials and Generation Y. Carner captures the essence of what this legendary brand is all about today – a modern twist on a classic. Like the evolution of the institution of YSL Beauty, he’s forward-thinking, bold, and exactly what Generation Y needs. “I’m representing. I’m a millennial I guess,” Carner told NME. “We’re in a good place. People have more to talk about – we have more of a political voice, it’s more positive, we look after each other. Really, I’m just trying to say that being 21 is difficult.”
But in Carner, you have the artist to tackle these difficulties head-on. He’s a rapper, but meets his subjects with the voice that today needs. He’s as sensitive and eloquent as he is fearless. Every bit the family man, while also streetwise and not afraid to tackle the big issues.
That’s why he’s struck a chord with a generation like no one else else. That’s why he’s barraged with plaudits. That’s why he’s the face of YSL Beauty’s new male fragrance, Y. He’s the voice for Generation Y – the age that will shape the century ahead at a time when boundaries are forever shifting and everything needs to be questioned.”
What insulting shite. You’re not shifting boundaries or questioning anything while you’re advertising perfume are you?
Oh dear. Dr. Volume has been huffing and a puffing again to no avail.
Merry Christmas Dr. Volume!
You’re the one doing the puffing it seems.
Reads more like a press release than music journalism.
Ugh.
Reminds me a bit of the advertorial in the Word for a posh car.
Ooh yes, that was awful. I did buy one though
* Not really
I picked up an issue in London last week and its demise is so humbling it just isn’t funny anymore.
I honestly haven’t a clue who would get anything out of it.
I picked one up in HMV in Sheffield, flicked through it and put it back. Wasn’t worth taking. At least if it had been in it’s old newspaper style it would have come in handy for lining the guinea pigs’ cage.
To be fair, the first word under the headline is ‘Promotional’ an the next three are ‘Advertorial feature with’ so it’s fairly clear it’s not the view of NME being expressed here.In fact you can kind of see the sub-editors’ distain as they omit the advertiser’s name twice in the first two lines.
http://www.nme.com/blogs/loyle-carner-the-man-for-millennials-and-generation-y-2159620
Carner also said elsewhere that he took the YSL role because “They offered me enough cash to pay off my mum’s mortgage”. So fair play to him.
It’s not a lot worse than when they used to try and flog (eg.) Birdland to us.
I remember an “Ask Birdland” feature where the band were supposed to answer any questions posed by readers. Political, geographical, literary etc. Pretty funny.
Actually one thing I do remember from the late 80s was a feature called ‘BOLLOCKS!’ which quoted choice morsels from the most egregious press releases they’d received that week…. followed by the word BOLLOCKS!
Apply such treatment to that YSL guff up there and lo! It is redeemed.
Whilst NME were pushing Birdland, the Melody Maker were putting Moz’s mates Raymonde on the cover. Nobody bought their records, either.
I investigated and then loved Patti Smith thanks to Birdland. So there’s that.
Because of their not-at-all-trying-to-be-controversial cover of Rock and Roll Person of Colour?
Fair enough. They also proved the point that sometimes if you put the right elements together the music press would get excited no matter what the actual records were like.
Well, no. Cos they were called Birdland.
The pity about all that is that Loyle Carner is great, and this’ll understandably put people off checking him out.
Every time I see his name it makes me think of Lyon’s Corner Houses. Which is weird because they were well before my time.
Genetic memory, Mini, genetic memory.
Surely young Mini is far too young to have been conceived or even have been a twinkle in her dad’s eye in a Lyons Corner House.
All ancestral memory is there for all of us.
That’s the theory.
A theory.
Possibly.
Not me – I was found under a cabbage leaf..
This reminds me of the notion that sound is (or can be) recorded into walls, like the grooves of a vinyl record.
There was a wall somewhere that “played” the sound of Roman soldiers when the wind was in the right direction because they were marching around and shouting while the mortar(?) was drying.
Really? If it hasn’t had one already, that story NEEDS a documentary.
I’m not sure I’d fancy sleeping out on the moors with the sound of marching Roman soldiers all around me.
A quick bit of googling delivers the source of the thing I was referring to. There was a TV programme that recreated the Roman soldiers described in the second example.
http://ukparanormalevents.blogspot.co.nz/2015/10/800×600-normal-0-false-false-false-en.html
And now it finally has https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/mar/07/nme-ceases-print-edition-weekly-music-magazine