Musings on the byways of popular culture
by 75 Comments
Since it’s a wet weekend, here’s the latest in a series of tiny quizzes.
Here’s an extract from a review in the NME. No clues: no year, no journalist name… Which album do you think is being reviewed?
“The music here is like latter-period Brahms, with a luscious velvetiness and an erotic warmth about the melody that makes it almost too sweet and rich a fare”
by 40 Comments
As before, here’s an extract from a review in the NME. No clues: no year, no journalist name… Which album do you think is being reviewed? You can guess the band – but you can’t win unless you also get the album correct…
“With the rhythm section asleep, the music unadventurous and the overall mood devoid of any real lightness or spontaneity, the task of turning (album title) back from the brink is inevitably down to the lyrics and the singing thereof. Only very rarely do either impress.”
by 56 Comments
As before, here’s an extract from a review in the NME. No clues: no year, no journalist name… Which album do you think is being reviewed? I expect this to be a quick and easy one – if someone hasn’t got it right by afternoon tea, I’ll eat ma bunnet!
“…all quite without consequence – idiot blues, folk and the sweating labours of a rock music taken by an agonising bowel disorder. It isn’t ABBA who are the most pernicious influence to have blighted popular music – it may still, alas, be this terrible group.”
by 58 Comments
As before, here’s an extract from a review in the NME. Starts off sounding quite complimentary – but by the end of the sentence, it’s become a bit double-edged!
No clues: no year, no journalist name… Which album do you think is being reviewed?
“It seems (…) has learned to pierce the centre of a tune’s target with one shot, rather than dropping a cobalt bomb on it and annihilating everything for miles around”
by 34 Comments
Here’s an extract from a review in the NME. No clues: no year, no journalist name… Which album do you think is being reviewed? It’s a bit rococo/Pseud’s Corner – but great fun (the quote, that is…)
“It unfolds in arabesques and divaricating asymtotes, bespeaking an hermetic inspiration given only to those few for whom the head is in radiant and complete harmony with the heart and hips”
by 49 Comments
Here’s an extract from a review in the NME. No clues: no year, no journalist name… Which album do you think is being reviewed?
“This album worries me. It worries me because so much of the music here is so blatantly lacklustre compared with the exhilaratingly high standards already set by (…). By most other standards, this album would be almost brilliant, but for (…) it is easily (their) worst album to date.”
by 33 Comments
I wasn’t planning to post another of these so soon – but I came across this quote and, frankly, couldn’t resist. Since the previous quote was so short and open-ended, this verbose verbiage (sic) should be a piece of cake – so I’m expecting a winner this time around!
Here’s an extract from a review published in the NME. No clues: no year, no journalist name – and I’ve redacted some giveaway words.
Which album do you think is being reviewed?
“(…) have reduced themselves, or extended themselves, to selling bittersweet fantasies and seductive happy endings, making music where the nostalgic tendencies are impossibly correct, the modern moments ironically obvious and the moods delicately (remotely) controlled.”
by 74 Comments
Here’s an extract from a review published in the NME. No clues: no year, no journalist name – and I’ve redacted the title. I’ve deliberately moved away from corporate snark – when you know the album, you may or may not agree with the conclusion – but you can’t deny the positivity!
Which album do you think is being reviewed?
“(…) is the ONLY contemporary rock album.”
by 42 Comments
Here’s an extract from a review published in the NME. No clues: no year, no journalist name – and I’ve redacted three words which might give it away. Please note that the odd-looking “mediocrity” is transcribed exactly as it appeared. MOR – oho!
Which album do you think is being reviewed?
“Much as I’d like to drag (…) up from the depths of MediOcRity and say (…) has found the candy floss and bubblegum appeal of once sadly boring acts like Dollar, I’m afraid to say that (…) has missed the boat…”
by 13 Comments
Since it’s still the weekend, here’s another tiny, tiny quiz. Credit to @Kaisfatdad, who sent this quote to me – so he is, of course, banned from taking part (unless he chips in with a cryptic clue or two)…answer will appear tomorrow!
Here’s an extract from a review in the NME. No clues: no year, no journalist name… Which album do you think is being reviewed?
“Great music for people who’ve wasted their youth to sit around drinking beer and wasting the rest of their lives to”
by 79 Comments
Since it’s the weekend, here’s a tiny, tiny quiz.
Here’s an extract from a review in the NME. No clues: no year, no journalist name… Which album do you think is being reviewed?
“So effortless, they sound as though they could do it sleeping, blindfolded, one hand tied behind their backs…it’s very, very boring. Their accountants will be pleased.”
by 23 Comments
Pinched from somewhere else. If you need something to read in these dark times, knock yourself out with this extensive catalogue of magazines and weekly like the NME, Melody Maker, Disc etc, going back years.
by 35 Comments
I found the “Let it all out!” thread very interesting, and it clearly engaged others, too.
To generalise, those unhip but liked bits of music are all melodic and well-played, and rarely kick against The Man. So are we saying that received wisdom rock critic/ rock snob values (something is only good if it is obscure, unmelodic, ineptly played, and jolly cross) wrong? Are we post-NME and post-Peel? Do people now NOT say “I preferred their early stuff”?
by 2 Comments
I came across this article via The Browser website. I believe the guy thinks he’s writing an article for mid-80s NME. But, as there are a fair few people here who have an interest in Fairport / Sandy, I thought I should share it: A writer in something called The Paris Review on Sandy
Apropos nothing other than it is very irritating, my Mac spellchecker keeps changing Fairport to Airport.
by 50 Comments
From Friday the NME will no longer be available as a weekly magazine. The final edition will bring to an end 66 years as one of the UK’s most iconic music publications.
I didn’t even know it had been free for over two years, so it won’t make a whole lot of difference to the current me, but the 17 year old me will miss it – sort of.
*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 » Continue Reading.
by 275 Comments
“Bands and genres that were scorned and laughable by rock snobs and the hip cognoscenti then are not the bands that are scorned and laughable by rock snobs and the hip cognoscenti now.” Discuss. Use both sides of the exam paper, with worked examples. The most egregious examples are to be named and shamed.
I’ll start: not until Steven Wells in the NME did they stop being such jerks about metal and hard rock.
Sorting through a box of records recently, I came across a 1964 single by the Executives. It was a version of March Of The Mods, the corny, oft-covered instrumental popularised by the Joe Loss Orchestra.
I’d never heard of The Executives, but the B-Side Why, Why, Why was quite good however so I decided to investigate further. This is what I found.
Now read on.
Not that long ago I could still get a bit misty eyed about the dear old NME. I’m still subscribed to their email list and this evening the latest headlines dropped into my inbox.
– Selena Gomez (nope…me neither) overtakes Justin Bieber for most-liked Instagram photo ever
– Man Quits his job to go on a two-month Pokemon Go hunt
– Taylor Swift makes surprise visit to children’s hospital in Australia
In other words, the same vapid, clickbait that is plastered over every tabloid newspaper site, every inane showbiz Twitter feed and every other godforsaken ad-funded corner of the interweb. So what’s the point of the NME existing if it’s just going to indiscriminately peddle the same airhead fodder as everyone else? It still exists as a paper thing, it’s free and is left in massive piles in your local HMV or Fopp – inside you’ll find adverts for Trainers disguised as “interviews” with Catshit & the Bottlemen or Bastille or whatever faux-Indie band is currently in vogue and gig/album reviews shorter than the photo captions they used to print.
It’s a far cry from 10,000 word essays on The Joshua Tree, Thrills ‘Believe » Continue Reading.
An hour of chat encompassing Macca, life as a music journo, Bowie, Deaf School, Van Morrison, Elvis Costello and more.
Now read on…
Although it’s probably over 20 years since I’ve been a regular reader I couldn’t resist buying the final edition before it gets relaunched as a freesheet. I still have some affection for the thing and I wish them well with the revamp. However, one factoid on page 10 speaks volumes about the fact that the paper has probably been stuck in a bit of a rut since 1994, where it reveals who has graced the cover of NME the most in the past 63 years. Not Mozzer, not The Beatles, not even Bowie (who comes a close 2nd with 32 covers). It is in fact those wacky funsters from Burnage, the brothers Gallagher, who have ‘graced’ the cover a whopping 78 times. It suggets the NME never really shook off Britpop, and somewhere along the line lost the confidence in putting ‘New’ on the cover in favour of remaining well in the comfort zone. Perhaps without the pressure of having to sell the thing it can get back to what it used to do and stop being a paper version of Uncut/Mojo
by 11 Comments
Ver kids don’t need no paper no more. The New Musical Express will become a free 300,000 copies a week publication that currently sells less than 15,000. So Londoners expect to see copies of this strewn across yer tube stations from September next to the Metro etc
Bet the site gets a paywall
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/06/nme-to-go-free-with-larger-circulation?CMP=share_btn_tw
by 19 Comments
This was posted on the Vice website: http://www.vice.com/read/the-nme-is-going-free-the-music-magazine-will-charge-a-cover-price-for-the-last-time-this-week-552
I stopped reading the NME almost 30 years ago, and I don’t know any youngsters who do, but if it was to become a music-fans “Metro”, it might have a function. The US has lots of advertising-funded freesheets acting as independent media guides for their cities, along with specialist music freesheets. So it may not be a disaster.
http://buzz.bournemouth.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/NME-1972-213×300.jpg
