THE WORST NME COVER OF ALL TIME

but we might get a quality pun from nick b out of it!
xp

they have websites now. from a financial point of view it's hard to argue with.

xp oh i buggered that up there didn't i

it's all spoilt now!

I cant really imagine teenagers buying digital magazines for their phones/ipads

It's amazing that the NME website is still so poor, especially given that Pitchfork exists and, for all its faults, is still a pretty great example of how to structure an online publication.

former pitchfork uk person Laura Snapes is now NME's features ed iirc so hopefully that will lead to a perking up of the website. MOJO's website has recently had a relaunch, lots of ace stuff to read on there.

NickB, to make up for ballsing up the joke twice...

Kerrang was selling over 70,000 5 years ago, mainly to teenage girls according to a survey apparently. AND NOW ITS FALLING AND OH THE DESPAIR

I think I need to be the one saying it?

Kerrang was selling over 70,000 5 years ago, mainly to teenage girls according to a survey apparently. AND NOW ITS FALLING AND OH THE DESPAIR

Laura's good but she was editorial not technical; I can't see her exerting influence over interfaces and usability.

Kerrang was selling over 70,000 5 years ago, mainly to teenage girls according to a survey apparently. AND NOW ITS FALLING AND OH THE DESPAIR

ha too late i flounced off already!

I don't really get why Laura Snapes is seen as the barometer of quality these days, I mean she's better than most of them but her writing isn't exactly spectacular and she has the most boring taste in music imaginable.

otm.

I can imagine much more boring taste.

I can imagine much more exciting though.

But it probably wouldn't sell a weekly magazine to teenagers and students. Saying that, not much seems to.

ahh there's the thread I started
CLASSIC POP Magazine - ILM's Ideal Magazine for Old Farts?

i spent some money in fopp today and was given a free copy of the bowie nme. it is not to my tastes, but i was impressed by how PACKED, content-wise, it was. seemed p gd value for £2.40

Was there lots of reviews?

So this week NME is asserting its new brand by publishing (print only, can't find it online) its 500 greatest albums of all time list.

There are some interesting choices. They don't seem to like dance music at all. Or jazz. Or much hip hop beyond Kanye. They like The Strokes a lot. And The Smiths. These aren't surprises.

what's the top 5?

From memory: SMiths, Strokes, WhiteAlbum, Pulp, um...

I think it was collated by:

50 people listed their 50 top albums,
then the "top 50 albums of each year" got incorporated in.

Oh yeah, Stone Roses.

haha, fucking hell

Top 10:

10. Definitely Maybe
9. White Album
8. Doolittle
7. Stone Roses
6. Different Class
5. VU & Nico
4. Is This It?
3. Hunky Dory
2. Revolver
1. The Queen Is Dead.

Lots of 'alumni' of the paper submitted top 50s, plus every top 50 ever published, #1 gets 50 points, #2 49 etc etc.

I doubt very much that they'll have gerrymandered results, before anyone suggests that.

thanks nick, that's one grim list

I doubt very much that they'll have gerrymandered results, before anyone suggests that.

they fuckin' should have, out of embarrassment

20. OK Computer
19. Whatever People Say I Am etc etc
18. Loveless
17. It Takes A Nation Of Millions...
16. Closer
15. Let England Shake
14. Low
13. Funeral
12. Horses
11. Nevermind

30. Enter The Wu-Tang
29. Marquee Moon
28. Back to Black
27. Screamadelica
26. Pet Sounds
25. What's Going On
24. Exile On Main Street
23. Ziggy Stardust
22. Parklife
21. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

50. Dusty in Memphis
49. Sound of Silver
48. Hounds of Love
47. Strangeways, Here We Come
46. Debut (Bjork)
45. Parallel Lines
44. Holy Bible
43. Rubber Soul
42. Innervisions
41. Daydream Nation
40. Unknown Pleasures
39. London Calling
38. Never Mind The Bollocks
37. Forever Changes
36. Blood on the Tracks
35. In Utero
34. Abbey Road
33. Modern Life is Rubish
32. Paul's Boutique
31. Dog Man Star

Album Poll Connections!

14. Low
13. Funeral
12. Horses
11. Nevermind

John Mulvey's submitted list: http://www.uncut.co.uk/blog/wild-mercury-sound/my-top-50-albums-of-all-time-subject-to-change

I like John a lot but that's a very, very Uncut list.

Still think this list was awesome: http://stylusmagazine.com/articles/weekly_article/top-101-200-favourite-albums-ever-the-stylus-magazine-list.htm

Music mag that champions guitar bands lists loads of guitar bands in its best albums ever list … shock!

Still don't understand why this surprises people. I dread to think how I'd be crucified if I listed my 50 favourite ever albums.

Unless you're a teenager (ie in NME's target market) these things are only really interesting in a kind of stock exchange way (the stock of Bowie, Morrissey and the Pixies is way up, Beatles more or less as they were, Radiohead way down).

Nirvana down as well apparently.

xposts

Yes, obviously, and that's fine and to be expected, etc, and I know that 'rock' writers are absolutely petrified of jazz, but there's still 500 albums listed here, and there's only (rough count) maybe 9 or 10 records I'd count as electronic / dance (Chemical Brothers, DJ Shadow, Avalanches, The Orb, Daft Punk [x2], Aphex Twin [x2], Prodigy [x2], Fever Ray, MIA; didn't cunt Primal Scream or Kraftwerk), the highest of which (and only one in the top 100) is Discovery (at 76), and there's only two jazz albums that I've spotted (Love Supreme and Kind of Blue). I've probably missed some by scanning through at my desk while I eat a sandwich.

I know these lists are an arsehole to put together, and I know why they get put together, I guess I'm just always a bit boggled at them. I probably spend too log on here and not reading the mainstream music press so I've forgotten how rock-centric it is.

Matt's totally right re: the stock exchange fascination; The Smiths and Bowie are way, way up at the moment.

Amusing typo in there next to Primal Scream.

Music mag that champions guitar bands lists loads of guitar bands in its best albums ever list … shock!

I get that but even if you accept the predictable indie guitar bias, this list is so parochial, so heavy on middling Britpop albums and the most tepid American stuff. It's the lack of evolution that surprises me, like Matt says, this is the same bunch of soft-scoop choices as ten years ago but just shuffled around a bit.

I grew up in the era where guitar acts shared the revolving front-cover of NME with electronic artists and rappers and so on, so I always find it somehow sad that it's just accepted that the magazine "champions guitar bands" over all other music nowadays, even though it was probably true back when I read it (and was certainly mostly true when I wrote for it).

I much prefer lists that challenge canons rather than reinforce them, tbh.

OTM.

I think that's the thing for me; when I read NME every week cover-to-cover it felt like it was forcibly squeezing my mind wider to let in techno and dance and hip hop and experimental music and all sorts of other stuff, but maybe this is me rose-tinting things from a great distance (best part of 20 years). Same went for Select and Vox, too.

I bought these mags to have my ears and my mind opened, not to have my prejudices massaged. And I always felt like Melody Maker - with ET, Kulkarni, Sharon O'Connell, Cathi Unsworth, Chris Roberts, Simon Price, Taylor, Caitlin et al - did a much better job of this than NME back then.

OTM

I can't really complain about this list though, as I was invited to contribute my own Top 50 to it, but I really hate making those lists, and I'll be fucked if I'd do it without being paid to do so.

http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/nme-staff-pick-their-top-10-greatest-albums-of-all-time?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=top10albums&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=500method