Has The NME Got Good?

you'd have to be a beast not to like The Shaggs but I rilly don't think we need any more shmindie bands being influenced by them.

Anyway fuck polling this but I think the Black Rebel Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club made me laugh longest and hardest.

Don't think the list was really ranked- when I flicked through, it was presented as "Mark Ronson's hip hop 5", "MGMT are a bit psychedelic, so here's their 10" sort of idea.

Why should the NME readers need to check out some of the weakest albums by XTC, ABC and Queen?

"Odessey & Oracle" is the only classic in that list btw, with "The Flat Earth" probably the closest otherwise (Thomas Dolby's classic was his debut album though).

what don't you like about young marble giants?

Worst album by Simple Minds up there too. This is really pointless, really. Why couldn't they have recommended "The Lexicon Of Love" and "New Gold Dream Instead". Or "Alphabet City", for that matter, which is a much better album than "Beauty Stab" and yet not at all in the "canon"?

lexicon of love was given away as a free .flac download to suicidegirls subscribers so most nme readers have already heard it

Then, "Alphabet City" would be the one. Or "How To Be a Zillionaire". Both really good and underrated pop albums, unlike the horrible "Beaty Stab", on which "SOS" was the only decent song.

Geir, why do you care what NME does? It's not like it will influence anyone in Norway.

Actually a lot of Norwegians read NME. We hardly have music mags here at all (market for rock specialist mags just not big enough) so we are stuck with the English and American ones. And NME/Q/Mojo/Select sell considerably better here than Rolling Stone/Spin.

Was giving a lift in my car to a couple of 22-year-old students from Manchester over Christmas, both of whom were pretty cool, highly web-literate ect. One asked "is this the Smiths?" when Bigmouth came on the stereo and the other thought the intro to It's My Life heralded a Gwen Stefanu tune. I guess the romantic in me loves the potential effect this list could have on them, especially given that it can be accessed without needing to risk precious ££ as would have been the case when I was a nipper.

the intro to It's My Life heralded a Gwen Stefanu tune

i only realised the no doubt version of this wasn't the original a few months ago! (i have never heard the original.)

it's funny, in this thread, seeing how people are still holding a candle for the nme (or their idea of what the nme should be)

i think it ties into a need that some fans have for a canonical "paper of record", plus nostalgia for being 17? bollocks to it all tho.

yeah both that need and that nostalgia are basically super lol to me

Having the Prisoners on there almost redeems the rest of the list.

btw 17 year olds have seen 8 Mile, they know what fucking Shook Ones is.

these are like standard "100 best hip hop records ever" records btw

apart from all the 00s lost-in-the-landfill indie on there a majority of the list is pretty standard "100 best [genre] records ever" records - doesn't mean most of the world knows or cares about them

― Scilk Mahouthy (DJ Mencap), Monday, January 3, 2011 4:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

so why even fucking bother?

yeah, everyone who saw that movie from 2002 looked up the names of the songs

i think it ties into a need that some fans have for a canonical "paper of record", plus nostalgia for being 17? bollocks to it all tho.

― Shanty! Shanti! Shanté! (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, January 4, 2011 8:15 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

idk some people want to read informed opinion about pop music? that's the idea. same way that people still read newspapers when they could just read "citizen journalists". or when their boiler's broken they call in a plumber. otherwise you're left with, well, uninformed opinion.

and bought the soundtrack iirc

the intro to It's My Life heralded a Gwen Stefanu tune

It's not that 'lol', they are virtually identical.

think she meant "they thought the song was by gwen stefani"

Poor Dr Alban.

some people want to read informed opinion about pop music?

yeah sure but was talking more about why people care about the NME as a "we cover everything equally well" icon rather than letting a thousand specialist comics bloom. valuing the NME in 2010 is a bit like thinking it's still 1975 in terms of how pop works and is consumed? obv the Free Market is evil but if there was that much call for well-written analysis of all strands of contemporary pop in one digestible weekly then there'd be a paper full of brilliant professional journos supplying that need?

can't claim to know everything on that list, but these are impeccable:

04. leadbelly < last session> 1948
05. the shaggs < philosophy of the world > 1969
06. the wipers < is this real > 1980
07. young marble giants < colossal youth > 1980
08. shonen knife < burning farm > 1983
12. bad brains < bad brains (roir cassette) > 1982
17. the red crayola < the parable of arable land > 1967
18. love < da capo > 1967
23. the zombies < odessey and oracle > 1968
29. arthur russell < calling out of context > 2004
31. cluster < zuckerzeit > 1974
35. thomas dolby < the flat earth > 1984
40. john cale < fear > 1974
42. crass < the feeding of the 5000 > 1978
45. organisation < tone float > 1970
53. nico < the marble index > 1969
54. queen < queen > 1973
56. the germs < GI > 1979
58. the pretty things < sf sorrow > 1968
61. michael hurley < have moicy > 1976
63. curtis mayfield < curtis live! > 1971
64. lizzy mercier descloux < mambo nassau > 2003
65. XTC < white music > 1978
66. serge gainsbourg < you're under arrest > 1987
69. studio < west coast > 2007
71. this heat < deceit > 1981
75. mclusky < mclusky do dallas > 2002
76. suicide < suicide > 1977
79. moebius and plank < rastakraut pasta > 1980
80. fleetwood mac < mirage > 1982
81. howlin' wolf < this howling wolf's new album, he doesn't like it. he didn't like his electric guitar at first either. > 1969
86. mobb deep < the infamous > 1995
88. shit and shine < jealous of shit and shine > 2006
97. sun ra < the heliocentric worlds of sun ra > 1965

good list

i.e. in terms of "paper of record" I'm not playing the "bloggers can do everything paid journos can do" game but I am suggesting that somebody dropped the canon down the stairs and now it's all in bits and the NME in the Tweenties represents a slightly Quixotic effort at sellotaping all those bits back together.

better than nothing imo. sorry i mean 'better than pitchfork'.

It is a good list, and the fact that they would even approach this sort of thing means that the Conor Mc era is well over and thank god. (It's clearly an issue made up at their leisure to be produced during the office closure over christmas)

A couple years ago, they asked for 'readers' to make up a 'focus group', I couldn't go but I do have to say they've done all the things I would have suggested.

To be fair though, there was a long period where loads of Music mags closed, so even managing to keep the paper existing is something that gives credit to McNic, but if the product is lame it's not worth saving.

Now, the product is not lame. OK, I don't need a Pulp retrospective, but someone does. And they had better have a wonderful Beefheart tribute issue now, they've had plenty of time (due to the guy dying just after the christmas issue went to press)

apart from all the 00s lost-in-the-landfill indie on there a majority of the list is pretty standard "100 best [genre] records ever" records - doesn't mean most of the world knows or cares about them

― Scilk Mahouthy (DJ Mencap), Monday, January 3, 2011 4:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

so why even fucking bother?

― irish xmas caek, get that marzipan inta ya (a hoy hoy), Tuesday, 4 January 2011 09:40 (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

because most of the world doesn't know or care about them, but they should, because they are good. I'm not sure if I can break down the basic premise of this feature any more than that

i agree with that and i am enjoying flicking through new nme while bored on my work break. my problem was always with mark ronson than the nme btw. i remember him back when he'd go on about kool g rap records, now he seems to be almost shunning his hiphop background as if its beneath him. even his blurbs were just like 'couldn't you ask a black person, i cover smiths songs now fyi'.

Mark Ronson OTM on that last bit to be fair.

Oh, it's like anyone asked about "specialist" genres being cautious, ending up on a "you think XXXXX was Groundbreaking? YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT..." snob journo's lance.

lol. props on having diamond d tho, that record is my jam.

Actually I'd say that in many of the ways that matter (y'know, like, the writing) the NME is still pretty poor. The fact that they're now repping for the Red Krayola is neither here nor there really. In those terms, NME is usually "better" in fallow periods for guitar music, and we're certainly in one now.

On Conor McNicholas, I'd say he was a very very good brand-builder and a not very good magazine editor, and he was lucky that his tenure coincided with a huge commercial boom for guitar music. Now, no one seemingly knows what to rep for to keep the kids interested, and a result they're deserting the mag even more than they were in the past.

Most quibbling about the list misses the point that it's selected by musicians, not critics, and you have to give musicians a little leeway if you want them in your mag, hence not going back to Weller to ask him to choose something other than O&O, and not having a go at Ronson for including Mobb Deep. It doesn't even make sense to discuss this as a list when it's just a precis of a long feature, and there's no objective way of deciding which albums should or should not be on there, unless NME keeps a test-case 17-year-old in a broom cupboard and every now and again they pop their heads in and say, "Have you heard of Pete Rock & CL Smooth?"

Well, those kids do need to check out "Odessey & Oracle", but the rest of the list may be put to rest (unless they have the rest of Queen's catalogue and are Queen completists)

surely you've got time for McCarthy's jingly jangly melodicness G?

Geir in not liking BUCKTOWN shockah

Ugh, that typo coming back to haunt me in your quotes :(

lol i've never heard 'odessey & oracle', but then i've never a paul weller album either

(not really sure why he got the call tbqh)

revered by dudes revered by dudes who are current NME faves

yeah i was going to say, i doubt twenty-something musicians spend a lot of time on weller... unless the style council's house phase is 'in' again i suppose

lol i've never heard 'odessey & oracle', but then i've never a paul weller album either

Not that they have much in common, mind you. The former were an absolutely classy psych pop band, the latter is an old guy who used to be brilliant with his original 60s pop influenced band in the late 70s/early 80s, then discvoered R&B and has never quite managed to return to former glories.

always sad to see a successful act lose its way thru hackneyed repetition

Geir was successful?

Hey toots, Weller has always liked R&B. Isn't he like a mod or something? I mean, there's a cover of 'In the Midnight Hour' on This Is The Modern World from 1977 right?

Yes, he has liked R&B, but it didn't completely dominate his style until the Style Council years. There's a huge amount of Beatles/Kinks/Small Faces in The Jam that didn't follow him through to Style Council and his solo work.

And, I mean, basically the songwriting style and vocal style on his solo work is the same as on the Style Council work, even though there are less synths and the drums and bass are less funky. There was a certain Beatles-factor to his songwriting that was lost somewhere around "The Gift" and he has never really found it back.

okay, i think i finally need to killfile geir now