THE WORST NME COVER OF ALL TIME

Stormzy is going ham on NME on Twitter right now with some justification.

@Stormzy1

You lot know I don't rant or open my mouth up for no reason but serious @NME magazine are the biggest bunch of sly, foul PAIGONS.

18m
#GSAP‏ @Stormzy1
@NME They've used me on their cover without my permission. Depression is a very very sensitive issue and it's something I've spoken about

16m
#GSAP‏ @Stormzy1
@NME it is a subject that isn't the easiest thing to speak about. And I've been careful in how I've dealt with it in the media

16m
#GSAP‏ @Stormzy1
@NME after I spoke on it I realised how widespread the issue is which made me think ok kool maybe that was the right thing to do at first

14m
#GSAP‏ @Stormzy1
@NME However using my face as a poster boy for it to sell your magazine is so foul and below the belt I will never respect you lot

Is anyone even reading it these days

How can it possibly have survived this far into 2017

@Stormzy1 49m49 minutes ago
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@NME You lot are a bunch of real life fucking pussyholes. Proper dickheads. We've had a good relationship before this, why do you think

@Stormzy1 48m48 minutes ago

@NME it is kool to use my me as a poster boy for such a sensitive issue without permission? You lot have been begging me to be on your cover

@Stormzy1 47m47 minutes ago

@NME and you go and do it in the biggest pussyhole, sly way possible. Bunch of fucking paigons

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=paigon
Top Definition

paigon

friend that lies betrays and isnt true to u

drini: u wana cum cinema
dina: na i woz feelin sik all week includin toai so am stayin home
drini: k den

- hour later drini is walkin to the cinemas-

drini see's dina in the near by shop wiv sum of her frenz drini thinks omg wot a PAIGON SHE LIED TO ME DAT BITCH

they're still printing over 300,000 issues a week - in fact, the latest abc figures show a rise in circulation from july to december last year

where is the money coming from?! i'm starting to wonder if the continued existence of the nme is some kind of the producers-style high-concept scam

lol! paigon is one of them funny words that make me irrationally giddy.

Paigon is clearly this generation's great insult for many many reasons. Just incredibly verbally satisfying.

The editor has been on Twitter trying to smooth this over and is both lying and taking him for a moron, arguing that because they're a freesheet they aren't trying to shift copies.

Do you pronounce it like Miss Paigon or like a paigon ritual?

i assumed it was derived from pagan but maybe not? it is an excellent word

sometimes spelled pagan fwiw

need to know the etymology too

nme remains trash obviously

Where the fuck are they putting these 300,000 copies? Cos I never see them around. Are they still distributing them via university campuses?

they are, according to their abc info

the rest get dumped in canals up and down the country i assume

never seen one in scotland

They give them out at London train stations. I think I even read one once.

i've seen a copy left on a bus now and then

i've seen some in fopp on byres rd i think, and i've seen them in glasgow uni and some shops in town too. mind you i'm always surprised whenever i do happen across a pile of copies

saw some in an eastbourne record shop last year, never on a campus though.

xpost
There are always huge piles of them in the Glasgow Fopps, and in dump bins outside River Island too.

piles and dump being les mots just

i've been writing all day abt the UK music papers of 35 years ago -- i made my peace with the changes like 25 years ago i'm not weeping for what's lost or anything, plus (a) changes unavoidable over such timespans and given the internet (b) i p much stopped reading ALL dead-treework 15 years ago unless i was actually subbing it or on-staff

but all the same it is odd to feel associated with what it now is (i think i still know one person who works there who was there when i was, not in editorial per se and in no way to blame for any of the bad stuff -- must be far stranger for her)

not that long ago i saw a bundle of hundreds of copies sitting in the rain outside king's cross station, which seemed a little on-the-nose as far as metaphors go

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Dh-9NNyBipk/maxresdefault.jpg

Does print-NME spend much time extolling vinyl? All creaky old formats together.

Stormzy is currently tucked away towards the bottom of the NME homepage which generally has a bland monochromatic anyweb approach design-wise (interesting disconnect with the printed mag). Several advantages to ditching print and concentrating on the site, brand etc. online - cover star controversies included.

Does print-NME spend much time extolling vinyl? All creaky old formats together.

point of order: people still care about vinyl

they even pay actual money to own it, which is another crucial difference between vinyl and the nme

NME has actually been a lot better at putting black artists on the cover since the switch to freesheet. But they're going for a different market now - and even their core demographic is going to me more interested in Stormzy or Wiley than Blossoms or whoever these days. What's inside the cover is woefully thin even by NME standards obviously.

Derived from the English pagan (a non-believer) and panga, a type of machete favoured by back-stabbers.

idk how plausible that is

point of order: people still care about vinyl

I wouldn't have brought it up otherwise! My obscurer point is on how much the print and site content and even agenda may differ.

given that their demographic also all own phones and probably tablets, the freesheet is presumably a kind of cross-subsidised physical reminder to access the site once a week, with a kind of legacy tangibility that gives it heft or brand aura (or something) that sites which never published a paper version don't have? (kind of like a 10-page flyer for a website)

(also have to say this cover, while clearly stupidly thoughtless in ten different directions, is by no means as bad as the anti-craig david cover of 2000, or whenever it was) (i don;t think depression is a topic they are wrong to consider covering, given their readership -- tho clearly this is a v bad start and i have not yet turned to the actual words involved)

that was MM though

MM asks: "Should UK Garage be outlawed?"

lol was it? you young people, wot next eh

did we ever work out whether uk garage should be banned btw

2000-era NME was reasonably pro-UKG fwiw. I mean not to the extent of covering more than Terris or whoever but they did put Craig David on the cover properly and at least some of their writers appreciated what was happening.

https://sites.create-cdn.net/siteimages/5/5/8/55872/66/5/3/6653512/248x318.jpg

GOMEZ AND ROBBIE - intrigued by this elusive 2 Step duo one can find no trace of today.

P sure NME did a cover feature on UKG that sent Louis Pattison to Aiya Napa too. Terris just got the one cover feature, during that week in January they always put long shits on the cover.

Long shits.

I liked that debut EP by Terris. Saw 'em live once and they were good. Better than Coldplay who they were co-headlining with.

Yeah, I liked the debut EP too, and enjoyed 'em when I did their first live review at Bedford Esquires. LP was p bad, though, and the singer guy was just a 24 carat dickhole.

Also he sounded like Cartman which should have been a huge signal that they were going to do absolutely nothing.

tbf Cartman is massive

also a lack of talent no barrier to success in the realms of indie rock

[I remember thinking they reminded me of Bad Brains the first time I saw them, which I totally cannot understand now]

lol waht

I mean not early Bad Brains, more I Against I-era Brains, but... That certainly never made it to the record.

that's my favourite bad brains era but yeah i never heard any of that in terris' output! maybe they'd have stuck around longer if it had

I honestly can't explain it. It was a dry old time, musically, and I think I was willing stuff to be better than it was, if only to deliver us from Feeder et al