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Robin PLEASE stop saying I called you a Blairite because I never di any such thing just like I never actually said people should stick to their "own class heritage", I was just having a bitch at Coldplay, ffs, I have not mentioned you, read your blog or even thought about you in months and STILL you drop my name as some sort of Citizen Smith type working-class idiot revolutionary at EVERY OPPORTUNITY. Please stop. I am sure Dom and Dave would liek you to also stop mentioning them too.
― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 16:28 (nineteen years ago) link
Think I've told this story before (sorry to those who've heard it). At NME in 1988, as a known non-fan, I was commissioned to review _Rattle and Hum_ and gave it 4/10, declaring it (from memory) "the worst release by a major rock band in ten years". Handed in copy, went off to Berlin, chasing some total non-story about indie trademarkets in Europe(!). Looked at NME when it came out: R&H reviewed by Stuart Baillie, 8/10 (or thereabouts) plus the usual hip-hoorah stuff. When I came back to London, I stormed into the office — everyone in a meeting — so left a note on Danny Kelly's desk denouncing EVERYONE and EVERYTHING, and stormed back out.
Spent the next coupla weeks getting enjoyable props from various foax in the London media, as being the Last Principled Man in Rock etc etc (not to mention Nick Coleman at Time Out's comment: that I am a "designer eccentric"). Point being: this was considered a watershed moment, a signic turning point, etc, when the Great NME caves to mere record company whatever (or actually, much more to the point, to some lame focus-group judgment of the tastes of the median NME reader, as insisted on by IPC).
OK: complicating factors here, to demonstrate that I am as much a Manipulative Snake as a Bold Lonely Hero. I got given the review by outgoing reviews editor Alan Jackson — dull writer, lamentable taste, but *extremely* nice bloke, honest, straight-up blah blah — because he was pissed off and wanted to fuck with the system, and knew I was ditto, felt ditto. I wrote the review in order to *get it pulled*, then (more or less) absented myself in order to be able to Yell Scandal!! to the Very Rooftops. Did me no harm whatever (as per my gamble): in two/three years I had my own mag to edit (courtesy another angry NME refugee, Richard Cook), and a Rep that played.
Of course, R&H ¡!sUxOr¡!, which helps. I still get a wee buzz off seeing a great barren reach of second-hand copies in a U2 bin, anywhere in the world.
-- mark s (mar...), June 5th, 2001.
― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 30 June 2004 16:42 (nineteen years ago) link
two months pass...
Andrew Collins on 6 Music just mentioned this U2/NME Sinker story
Trade Secrets..U2 review swapped to tie in with negotiations for a U2 NME cover feature
― DJ Martian (djmartian), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 14:15 (nineteen years ago) link