THE WORST NME COVER OF ALL TIME

323. Miles Davis, 'Bitches Brew' (1970) Columbia. Rebelling against convention with loose, improvised rhythms, this is the jazz hero at his most punk.

Thank god Miles finally rebelled against jazz's adamant refusal to improvise, he's like the Green Day of bebop.

Looks like NME work slaves rediscovered the splitting of the infinitive there.

Really, does anyone at that paper seriously think that any of their readers are going to be tempted to listen to any of these records with writing this abysmal?

Why don't they just wave the white flag and say, we can't compete with the internet so let's not even bother?

Thinking about it they might have been better off rolling this out slowly, over a period of months, and going into each record in more than one sentence, rather than splurging it out in one. Would have sold more copies, almost certainly.

If they'd done just ten albums a week, for instance, they could have had this list run the whole year, with the top ten in the Christmas issue. The writing would almost certainly have been better and they absolutely would have sold way more copies in general.

and it would have given people a chance to listen along as it were

Bjork is wierd, but it's an insatiable wierd.

I don't know what's worse, that "lol nutty woman being nutty" was deemed adequate commentary or that apparently neither the writer nor the subeditor could spell "weird".

"Star" by Belly was arguably the first album I was obsessed with (certainly the first to be an entirely private obsession not shared by any of my friends), so it was nice to see it squeak in at #499 but now I'm a little scared to read the blurb.

(lol at stevie's all too accurate summary, I didn't mind the Copper Blue blurb despite the babelfishy ending but Third, World of Echo, YLT in proper "here's what someone down the student union bar told me about a band I've never heard" territory)

That would have been a great idea marcello

OK I was also pleased to see Stankonia in at 500 until I read the blurb, which starts:
"500. Outkast, 'Stankonia' (2000) LaFace Records. Canadian electro producer Grimes comments ''I really enjoyed Outkast as a kid, I don't know why."

So much for thinking that someone at the NME chose it, or that they could find a less "will this do?" quote.

Not sure I can bear to click through 500 ad-laden pages just to wince at the prose, so if anyone else can please continue to paste the worst bits here.

It does look like it was outsourced to a data mining company tasked with looking at other references to the artists on the website and compiling a semi-randomised blurb based on the results.

I thought they might be culled from reader reviews on the NME website (not sure if that's still a thing) but the readers in question shouldn't have got them so wrong. It's difficult to believe that a work experience kid would make so many odd mistakes.

Huh. That's actually quite plausible. Ugh.

(And the kind of thing which sounds like an interesting computational challenge until you remember that the only uses for it are to be an evil SEO pagerank-cheat or to make actual online content from publications who should know better that much shittier)

that outkast blurb is literal dogshit

a work experience kid working to a really tight deadline tho

and by kid i mean 14 year-old who only listens to music on video games

Googlism for: outkast stankonia

outkast stankonia is another type of 'classic' that is hard to appreciate when you have no idea what to expect

Googlism for: miles davis bitches brew

miles davis bitches brew is beautifully produced and a reminder of the furore that greeted it on its release
miles davis bitches brew is back
miles davis bitches brew is now here · comments
miles davis bitches brew is amazing

Googlism for: the smiths the queen is dead

Googlism for: ilx

ilx is traded on the american stock exchange
ilx is not read back
ilx is taken except ilx
ilx is moving
ilx is the preferred system of the most demanding professionals on wall street
ilx is not responsible for
ilx is to determine the best such translation given the overall goals of ilx
ilx is an experimental implementation of a set of extensions to ms
ilx is to determine the "best" such translation given the overall goals of ilx
ilx is preparing a big move into las vegas
ilx is on the move
ilx is the collective name for ilm and ile
ilx is not far away
ilx is approximately $2
ilx is a mailing list
ilx is a gated community from which i have wilfully locked myself out
ilx is almost never available
ilx is in a good position to take advantage of the increasingly desperate demand for high
ilx is a provider of real

ilx is a gated community from which i have wilfully locked myself out

Wave!

lol I just googled it to find out who said it

ilx is a provider of real

damn right it is

"(I'm sure if I knew the minutiae of the relationship that scarred her so deeply on 'Rid Of Me', it wouldn't have brandished me in quite the same way)"

'Brandish' means 'wave or flourish', right?

Not at the NME it doesn't

That's from this, btw - http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/after-morrissey-the-rock-autobiographies-that-would-be-amazing

I think she meant to say "branded."

Lucy Jones is possibly the worst music writer in the history of music writing, except for everybody else on that page.

A good judgement of the quality of a music writer is what they say about "Revolution 9." On the NME list it was "Lennon went TOO FAR." Lord amucks! Send for Mary Whitehouse! Give him a good spanking! That Lennon - he was very SAUCY

Revolution 9 = Amelodics

yeah, they're confusing it with the "Two Virgins" album...

(nr, obv)

Next bunch of blurbs (200-300) is a lot better in as much as they're written in English and there aren't too many obvious factual clangers. Bit disheartening though to see the Bluetones album one place above Younger Than Yesterday.

lol amazing

nah i can understand young people not liking the jaded old-fashioned trad rock stylings of the Byrds as much as the ahhh forget it

216. New Order, 'Power, Corruption And Lies' (1983) Factory. In the wake of 'Blue Monday', New Order cranked up the synths and lit up the nervous system of the monster we call 'dance'.

I think I'd probably argue with that if I knew what it meant.

the monster we call 'dance'

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01484/PF-dance_1484184c.jpg

LOL

That's pretty much what they said about "Low Life", i.e. the first 'dance' album..

Rock critics' desperate need to credit New Order for inventing dance music is almost as annoying as referring to everything in terms of punk to bestow importance.

yes.

(I did mean "Their first dance album", but what you said still stands true)

I'm waiting for the big canonical piece putting Blue Monday in the rich lineage of the Euro Summer Novelty hit.

That sounds like an awesome April 1st commission right there.

Do you know, I'm really very sorely tempted to get something done on it.

synth tone v. similar to "The Birdie Song" now i think about it

Other big Euro hit of summer '83 was "Dolce Vita" by Ryan Paris. The 12" break is anticipatory of House music.

I've never bought this shitsheet in my life so excuse my ignorance but I am actually a bit surprised that nu-nme is riding for like the national killers of Leon &c, not that I'd expect them to be putting the knife on the cover or anything but I guess I assumed eg disclosure et al would be where they're at now?

think the audience for reading about what music is the best ever probably skews classic rock, whatever people are listening to at any one time

Dolce Vita is a FUCKING BANGER!!!!!!!!!

Just reading through the list on the NME site. Think they really nailed this one.

224. Echo And The Bunnymen, 'Heaven Up Here' (1981) Korova. Like Joy Division's 'Closer' if the drugs worked, the Bunnymen's second album was steeped in doomy grandeur but kept one cheek in the sunlight.

Also really like how much effort they put into this one, some detailed research here.

226. The Doors, 'The Doors' (1967) Elektra. 'Light My Fire'. 'The End'. 'Break On Through (To The Other Side)'. Psychedelic blues got no better.

Chillwave? Daft Punk?

214. Air, 'Moon Safari' (1998) Virgin. Chillwave? Daft Punk? 21st Century robo disco? The source is here, in 'Sexy Boy' and 'Kelly Watch The Stars' from the fresh princes of Versailles' celebrated debut.

xp the question is, which arsecheek remained in sunlight?

xpost Yes, Dolce Vita 12" was on one of the Disco Discharge comps, and I was staggered by how great it was.

On reflection, I probably agree with about 10% of what DJ Martian has to say on this thread.