Has The NME Got Good?

Pitchfork is about as generalist as a generalist music magazine can get btw

Pardon me while I laugh till I spit up a lung.

Mind you, UK indie was largely nonexistant in the late 80s/early 90s. OK, so it existed, but it was very much underground

I think you might be forgetting the Stone Roses, the Charlatans, Primal Scream, Ride, My Bloody Valentine...

xpost Geir, who knows where to start with that statement? First, indie really started hitting the charts properly from 1988/89, which was when the majors really started looking to sign previously indie bands, or band who sounded indie, on a widespread basis. Second, the NME wasn't a chart publication. It didn't matter if the bands it covered weren't in the charts. That what Smash Hits was for.

Yes, but they were still not as huge as the new wave bands were in the late 70s/early 80s or the Britpop bands would be in the mid 90s. Even Stone Roses or The Smiths never had anything close to a number one single. The Smiths didn't even hit top 10 with any of their singles.

Even Stone Roses or The Smiths never had anything close to a number one single

True, 'One Love' only got to number 2.

Whoops no, I'm thinking of 'Love Spreads'. 'One Love' got to number four.

Also the Smiths had two number one albums and five number two's in the UK.

Geir, you didn't say "Indie bands weren't reaching No 1 in the singles charts". You said "UK indie was largely nonexistent." And that's rubbish. The edition of Top of the Pops in November 1989 which featured the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays was one of the defining moments for UK indie - the point at which indie bands had finally seemed to make it among all the Michael Bolton and Richrd Marx.

thanks for the link Billy Dods - 16 hip-hop covers in 6 years really isn't a lot is it (especially considering those were peak years for NWA & Public Enemy)? They had 5 Jesus and Mary Chain covers in the same period.

Just did a ctrl-f "oasis" and got 55 hits on that page.

The Smiths didn't even hit top 10 with any of their singles.

Three top ten ten singles, toots:

10 Smiths Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now Jun 1984
10 Smiths Sheila Take A Bow Apr 1987
8 Smiths This Charming Man (re-issue) Aug 1992

70s/early 80s new wave number one's:
The Boomtown Rats: Rat Trap
Ian Dury: Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick
The Boomtown Rats: I Don't Like Mondays
The Police: Message In a Bottle
The Police: Walking On The Moon
The Specials: The Special AKA Live
The Jam: Going Underground/Dreams Of Children
The Jam: Start
The Police: Don't Stand So Close To Me
The Specials: Ghost Town
The Police: Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
The Jam: A Town Called Malice
Madness: House Of Fun
The Jam: Beat Surrender
The Police: Every Breath You Take

Then, unless you count Housemartins, The Beautiful South and a novelty one-off from Vic Reeves and The Wonderstuff (and even the last couple from The Police are arguable), it would take twelve years until the next number one that might pass as indie, starting another rush of indie #1s in the 90s and 00s:

Oasis: Some Might Say
Blur: Country House
Oasis: Don't Look Back In Anger
Blur: Beetlebum
Oasis: D'You Know What I Mean
The Verve: The Drugs Don't Work
Oasis: All Around The World
Manic Street Preachers: If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next
Manic Street Preachers: The Masses Against The Classes
Oasis: Go Let It Out

The point being: Indie type music was not close to as commercially huge in the UK in the late 80s/early 90s as it was in the new wave era or during the Britpop era.

The list of hip-hop covers is a bit misleading, cos it suggests every other cover was indie. Look instead at how few covers were indie during 1986, the year indie became associated with jangling guitars and the highwatermark year of the definitive NME indie band, the Smiths:

* 04/01/86 The Cramps
* 11/01/86 Andy Warhol and Debbie Harry
* 18/01/86 Billy Bragg and Junior (Red Wedge issue)
* 25/01/86 Easterhouse
* 01/02/86 Punk - Ten Years On
* 08/02/86 John Lydon
* 15/02/86 Big Audio Dynamite
* 22/02/86 Keith Richards
* 01/03/86 Comics
* 08/03/86 Sigue Sigue Sputnik
* 15/03/86 Mantronix
* 22/03/86 Absolute Beginners
* 29/03/86 The Shop Assistants
* 05/04/86 Hipsway
* 12/04/86 Samantha Fox
* 19/04/86 Test Dept
* 26/04/86 Prince (blurred image)
* 03/05/86 Sade
* 10/05/86 Barry McGuigan
* 17/05/86 Boy George
* 24/05/86 Janet Jackson
* 31/05/86 The Mighty Lemon Drops
* 07/06/86 Morrissey
* 14/06/86 Why British black music has no chance - polemical piece by Paolo Hewitt
* 21/06/86 Sonic Youth
* 28/06/86 George Michael
* 05/07/86 The Jesus and Mary Chain
* 12/07/86 Matt Johnson of The The
* 19/07/86 Run-D.M.C.
* 26/07/86 Zodiac Mindwarp
* 02/08/86 Jam and Lewis
* 09/08/86 Chicago house
* 16/08/86 Mick Hucknall of Simply Red
* 23/08/86 David Sylvian
* 30/08/86 Daley Thompson
* 06/09/86 Dwight Yoakam
* 13/09/86 The Yo Boys (article about hip hop by Paolo Hewitt)
* 20/09/86 Sex (themed issue), also a free EP - Phil Oakey of The Human League
* 27/09/86 Trouble Funk
* 04/10/86 Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P.
* 11/10/86 Big Audio Dynamite
* 18/10/86 Courtney Pine
* 25/10/86 Voting (themed issue)
* 01/11/86 Shinehead
* 08/11/86 Youth suicide (almost all-black cover, later voted the worst cover in its history by the NME itself)
* 15/11/86 Cilla Black
* 22/11/86 Swing Out Sister
* 29/11/86 Sly and Robbie
* 06/12/86 Elvis Presley (though the cover story in this issue, written by Stuart Cosgrove, was actually a criticism of the US military presence in Britain using Presley's image as symbolic, not an article about Presley himself)
* 13/12/86 Madonna
* 20/12/86 Pet Shop Boys

"One Love" is the biggest here, as re-released Smiths singles and Stone Roses' comeback singles from a time when indie was starting to become more commercially popular again doesn't really count. The Smiths didn't become really huge as a singles act until the bad had long since broken up and bands like Suede caused new generations to become interested in their influences.

X-Post: They certainly got a lot of shit from their readers after that Sam Fox cover though. :)

Geir. none of those "new wave" No 1s can be compared to the indie bands of the mid 80s. You've got a mod band, a pub rocker, some R&B chancers from Dublin who got on the back of punk, a ska band and a corporate behemoth of a band. It's like listing a load of apples and then saying orange trees didn't produce any apples like that.

Btw. upthread I am using a rather narrow definition of new wave. Using the US definition would mean most early 80s number ones were new wave, but it would also make it meaningless to see new wave as a forerunner of indie.

Those were all bands that became popular on the back of punk, which is surely where "indie" started.

Yes, cos the Police were definitely forerunners of the Mary Chain, eh?

And every Smiths single from This Charming Man went into the proper charts Geir, with repeated Top of the Pops appearances.

Early Police was definitely rather punky. It is disputable whether "Every Breath You Take" is, but that would just make the gap even larger.

And, yes, they went into the charts, but they never managed to compete with the likes of Wham!, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Pet Shop Boys.

The Jam, Oasis, Blur and even Arctic Monkeys were all among the most popular bands in the UK based upon singles charts dominance. The Smiths were never close to that.

I'm willing to bet that the Smiths have sold a shit-ton more singles than the Arctic Monkeys.

Geir, you weren't talking about charts you said this

Mind you, UK indie was largely nonexistant in the late 80s/early 90s. OK, so it existed, but it was very much underground

And because you were proved wrong you have tried to move the goalposts.

Geir will never ever admit he's wrong, surely you all know this by now?

The list of hip-hop covers is a bit misleading, cos it suggests every other cover was indie. Look instead at how few covers were indie during 1986, the year indie became associated with jangling guitars and the highwatermark year of the definitive NME indie band, the Smiths:

Also here's the NME's Top 20 albums from the same year, a fairly varied list:

1. Parade - Prince & The Revolution
2. Rapture - Anita Baker
3. Control - Janet Jackson
4. Evol - Sonic Youth
5. Word Up - Cameo
6. Graceland - Paul Simon
7. Bend Sinister - The Fall
8. Rasin' Hell - Run-DMC
9. The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths
10. The Album - Mantronix
11. Nelson Mandela - Youssou N'dour
12. Life's Rich Pageant - R.E.M.
13. Blood And Chocolate - Elvis Costello
14. King Of America - Elvis Costello
15. Your Funeral... My Trial - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
16. Schoolly D - Schoolly D
17. Rough & Rugged - Shinehead
18. Tutu - Miles Davis
19. Say What! - Trouble Funk
20. Liberty Belle & The Black Diamond Express - The Go-Betweens

I mean I only started reading the NME in 1995 when it was pretty much regarded as an indie magazine by everyone I knew but I realised this can't always have been the case (most obviously because it'd been around far longer than indie music had).

I think cover artists are important in identifying who they were trying to sell to (see 55 x Oasis and more than 20 x Stone Roses even years after they split).

That's true. But through the mid-80s they were trying to sell an awful lot more than just indie. That list of 86 covers has only five by acts of the kind codified as "indie music"- Easterhouse, Lemon Drops, Morrissey, Mary Chain, Shop Assistants. You could add to that Test Dept, Sonic Youth, the Cramps and Billy Bragg - but that's still less than a fifth of the year's covers, which is astounding by the standards of the past 20 years.

NME's top albums of the 80s pretty much ignores 1986 - much more of an indie/post-punk slant.

1. The Stone Roses - The Stone Roses ‘89
2. The Queen Is Dead - The Smiths ‘85
3. Three Feet High And Rising - De La Soul ‘89
4. Sign ‘O’ The Times - Prince ‘87
5. It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back - Public Enemy ‘88
6. Psychocandy - Jesus And Mary Chain ‘85
7. Hatful Of Hollow - The Smiths ‘84
8. Closer - Joy Division ‘80
9. Sound Affects - The Jam ‘80
10. Low-Life - New Order ‘85
11. Remain In Light - Talking Heads ‘80
12. Searching For The Young Soul Rebels - Dexy’s Midnight Runners ‘80
13. Bummed - Happy Mondays ‘89
14. Surfer Rosa - Pixies ‘88
15. The Lexicon Of Love - ABC ‘82
16. Swordfishtrombones - Tom Waits ‘83
17. Kilimanjaro - The Teardrop Explodes ‘80
18. Dare - The Human League ‘81
19. Parade - Prince ‘86
20. 16 Lovers Lane - The Go-Betweens ‘88
21. Rain Dogs - Tom Waits ‘85
22. This Nation’s Saving Grace - The Fall ‘85
23. Rum, Sodomy And The Lash - The Pogues ‘85
24. The Smiths - The Smiths ‘84
25. Blood & Chocolate - Elvis Costello ‘86
26. Don’t Stand Me Down - Dexy’s Midnight Runners ‘85
27. The Eight Legged Groove Machine - The Wonder Stuff ‘88
28. Crocodiles - Echo And The Bunnymen ‘80
29. Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen ‘82
30. The Nightfly - Donald Fagen ‘82
31. Talking With The Taxman About Poetry - Billy Bragg ‘86
32. Miss America - Mary Margaret O’Hara ‘88
33. Rattlesnakes - Lloyd Cole & The Commotions ‘84
34. George Best - The Wedding Present ‘87
35. Atomiser - Big Black ‘87
36. My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts - David Byrne & Brian Eno ‘81
37. Sister - Sonic Youth ‘87
38. Straight Out Of The Jungle - The Jungle Brothers ‘88
39. Heaven Up Here - Echo And The Bunnymen ‘81
40. Green - REM ‘88
41. Imperial Bedroom - Elvis Costello ‘82
42. You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever - Orange Juice ‘82
43. Midnight Love - Marvin Gaye ‘82
44. Like A Prayer - Madonna ‘89
45. Beautiful Vision - Van Morrison ‘82
46. Infected - The The ‘86
47. Meat Is Murder - The Smiths ‘85
48. New York - Lou Reed ‘89
49. Yo! Bum Rush The Show - Public Enemy ‘87
50. Warehouse: Songs And Stories - Husker Du ‘87

from http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/607080.html

I mean I only started reading the NME in 1995 when it was pretty much regarded as an indie magazine by everyone I knew but I realised this can't always have been the case (most obviously because it'd been around far longer than indie music had).

I'd argue it has had a "punk" edge to its general writing policy since, well, since punk. Which has also naturally caused it to be very pro-indie, since indie has basically the same roots as punk.

NME's top albums of the 80s pretty much ignores 1986

While I personally consider 1986 to have been a good music vintage (IMO it got much, much worse later in the decade), it can be argued that 1986 was sort of a no-man's-land between two phases in the 80s. The new romantics/synthpop age was pretty much coming to and end. Surely, you had Pet Shop Boys and Erasure and a-ha who were building on the heritage from that era but the arrival of sampling and FM synths meant that they still sounded very different from what the new romantic/synth bands in the early 80s had sounded like. And many of the biggest new romantic/synth names struggled commercially in 1986 compared to earlier (Human League did sort of a comeback, but with a single that was closer to R&B than synthpop).

On the other hand, hip-hop and hair metal, save for the occasional appearance in the charts (Run DMC, Europe, Bon Jovi) were still largely US phenomenons while house music had still to cross over from the Chicago club scene. So the dominant trends of the late 80s had yet to really settle.

So it is no wonder that 1986 may fall outside what is usually considered "representative" of the 80s, and as such, maybe no wonder it performs badly. Surprised not to see "Graceland" in there though.

("The Queen Is Dead" is 1986 not 1985 though)

20. 16 Lovers Lane - The Go-Betweens ‘88

interesting, i was wondering what kind of alltime lists go-betweens, felt & "the marble index" -- three acts singled out as not obscure upthread -- appeared on.

I want to see Geir interviewed by Paxman.

Tho even paxman would get fed up after 2 hours of geir refusing to admit what he said was wrong.

Anybody know what happened to these plans?
http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/pr/0,20812,1553295,00.html

much as I despise the brit-edition of the mag (incessant covers for oasis) I'd love for this to happen. Rolling Stone and Spin are the worst magazines in existence.

I'd assume pitchfork has made sure it wont happen.

Surprised NME haven't tried to develop their website into a UK equivalent tbh. I cant see the mag surviving more than another few years, but maybe it would be too late. Then again, outside of ilx, I'm not sure many in the UK care or even know about pitchfork at least compared to the NME.

I'd argue it has had a "punk" edge to its general writing policy since, well, since punk. Which has also naturally caused it to be very pro-indie, since indie has basically the same roots as punk.

Sure, that makes sense but there was that time in the mid '80s with a big indie/soul divide in the writers - no idea how big either faction was but I guess there was a chance the magazine could have gone the other way (I could be wrong but supposedly it was Steve Sutherland becoming editor that led to indie winning out)?

The mid 80s was around the time when soul music was finally starting to come out of the "disco" stigma that caused all indie fans (and rock fans in general) to hate it. In the early 80s there was very much this soul=disco thing, which meant that soul music wasn't taken seriously (which, of course, disco never was)

can you point out some examples of the punk edge in features from the last eight years?

Geir when did you first start reading NME?

Geir when did you first start reading NME?

I have never been a permanent reader (besides the now defunct Select, Q and Mojo have been my favourite mags), but have been reading some NME editions since the 80s.

can you point out some examples of the punk edge in features from the last eight years?

The punk edge is in preferring indie, which follows from punk.

Do you realise you're using your original assertion as your only citation of evidence, there?

I hope we've all learned something today

So, inverting the logic, you prefer punk because it presaged and pre-defined indie?

I prefer classic, melodic pop, which has more in common with indie than with most other genres that were really popular in the 90s. But I still prefer classic, melodic pop to indie.

The punk edge is in preferring indie, which follows from punk.

surely indie follows from earlier indie labels, like Motown, amirite

Indie in this case does not mean "independent". PWL was also independent. Indie is a musical genre, founded especially in the 80s as a protest against the synth dominated pop music of the time, but also rooted in punk.

Yeah, the protest was lead by Daniel Miller and Thomas Leer...

Indie was not formed as a protest against anything. It really did mean independent. It was only the rise of labels like PWL "contaminating" the indie chart that made people start writing "what does Indie mean?" articles and start to (re)define it as a genre that could ignore Kylie and all those other nasty manufactured pop acts.