THE WORST NME COVER OF ALL TIME

graduated from debutsville

yeah, but the key is, 'sophomore album' is only two words, and thus infinitely preferable to "the follow-up to their debut" when dealing with the tyranny of the word count and making text fit on to the page. in fact, i prefer sophomore to "the follow-up to their debut", which is hella clunky.

I agree, it is clunky! But I wasn't saying use those exact words, more that referring to the album in relation to their debut could possibly be a way of getting around directly referring to it as a "second album". I had thought that word-count might be problematic, but I suppose it depends what you do with the rest of the words, right? What is the average word count for a printed album review? I mean, for both "event" releases and smaller releases?

Never understood why people give a shit about "sophomore album". No one is trying to be pretentious with it. It's not a cliché, it's purely functional

Word count is ALWAYS problematic

At MOJO, its 140 for a downpager, 450 for a boxout, 1000 or thereabouts for a lead. And especially at the lower-end of the spectrum, every single word counts.

xp agreed lex. i find people's issues with it to be more pretentious, tbh.

Cue those of my editors who read this thread going YES WE KNOW ;_;

Xp

Don't get me wrong folks, I'll be the first person to admit that I don't know how professional music journalism actually works, hence why I'm asking so many questions about it! All I really know is what I'd personally like to read and what I don't.

I appreciate being able to explain the process, tbh!

One of the best things I learned was that it's often better to use the simplest terms than naff synonyms, in the same way that in interviews "says" is often better than "ponders", "avers", etc. "Second album" is better than "sophomore album", "guitarist" is better than "axeman", "guitar-wrangler", "fretboard wizard", etc. Worry about making the rest of the writing interesting, not jazzing up functional phrases that work just fine.

It is not so terrible to say sophomore, in itself, but so many reviews I see are composed entirely from the kinds of phrases DL mentions that I suspect they've been written using music journalism fridge magnets.

xp "mused fretboard frotter Simmons"

xp When I have my subbing cap on, many's the time I've wanted to take a writer aside and say, 'Okay, what you've submitted looks like music criticism, but is actually a nonsensical jumble of cliches - what do you actually MEAN?'

I dont understand why you're having a discussion about music writing and journalism on an NME thread.

http://news.3yen.com/wp-content/images/WAKA-WAKA-FONZIE.jpg

Every article, whether about music or not, should contain the phrase "fretboard wizard" imo.

So the trick is not bombard the reader with garbage and keep the framework of the piece simple in order to draw attention to what you actually have to say, while keeping within the limits of the word count?

"One of the best things I learned was that it's often better to use the simplest terms than naff synonyms, in the same way that in interviews "says" is often better than "ponders", "avers", etc. "Second album" is better than "sophomore album", "guitarist" is better than "axeman", "guitar-wrangler", "fretboard wizard", etc. Worry about making the rest of the writing interesting, not jazzing up functional phrases that work just fine."

this.

Every article, whether about music or not, should contain the phrase "fretboard wizard" imo.

― pariah newsletter (seandalai), Thursday, February 6, 2014 5:40 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Haha... it's fair to say I laughed out loud when I read "fretboard wizard". It's as if The Who re-wrote one of their classic tracks to be about Steve Vai.

"That fretboard wizards got such a supple wrist!" *widdlywiddlywiddlywiddly*

See also: "sticksman" for drummer and "beatmeister" for dance producer.

So the trick is not bombard the reader with garbage and keep the framework of the piece simple in order to draw attention to what you actually have to say, while keeping within the limits of the word count?

and also to have some fun, obvs. i mean, i think those rules apply to all kinds of writing, to be honest.

it depends upon the title, of course. metal mags were traditionally a little more pulpy than yer broadsheet or NME, and could fling about 'sticksman' without embarrassment.

iirc Stuart Maconie had a good bit about the 70s cliche "keyboard merchant" (Rick Wakeman et al) making him think of someone with a market stall shouting "Get yer keyboards! Lovely keyboards!"

Given how often Wakeman's been bankrupt, I can actually imagine that being true.

I don't want to turn this into DL's writing seminar but one thing I'd tell any young writers is: don't fret about the language too much. Just have a theory and express it clearly. It amazes me how many write-ups about classic albums contain no ideas beyond received wisdom. I don't need to be told that The White Album is "sprawling" or Maxinquaye was a "seminal trip hop album". Listen again and find something new to say.

Important thread: tunesmithery

"Tunestrel" is unforgivable imo

Just have a theory and express it clearly. It amazes me how many write-ups about classic albums contain no ideas beyond received wisdom. I don't need to be told that The White Album is "sprawling" or Maxinquaye was a "seminal trip hop album". Listen again and find something new to say.

Absolutely! I guess this goes back to what I was saying earlier regarding what I enjoyed about Marcello's TPL articles, and how I'm not really expecting all that much from NME's retrospectives.

Anyhow, I've gleaned plenty of insightful tips from this thread today, so thanks everyone!

Use of the word 'seminal' just automatically equates to "I have no original opinion about this" to me.

"I jizzed listening to this"

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/13/nme-sales-falling-off-charts-music-magazine-circulation

http://fuckyouneilkulkarni.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/my-pompoms-are-too-droopy-some-thoughts.html?spref=tw

Williams, and everyone else at the NME, have to play a delicate balancing act between their own avowed poptimist eclecticism and the reactionary, snob nature of many of their indie-rock readership. Turner's speech, as Williams knew, was the ideal chance to shore up the NME's constituency, make sure they were in the tent pissing out. For all Williams' rather pointless ass-covering about Turner's speech not being about 'genre-elitism' a whole load of rights-for-whites-rocknrollers were in no doubt. In the FB thread we got pearls like "Without a doubt the most sensible thing Williams has written since taking over. Turners speech was inspired and necessary. Now the NME need to act. Stop writing about RnB and Hip Hop, it's dull and tedious. Indie/Alternative music is where the NME is strongest. Promote it, embrace it." Every NME thread has variants of this. The english-rock defence league.

That's true about certain readers and the NME's balancing act but the rest depends on assuming that Turner meant what the dim rockists think and not what Williams thinks. Judging anything by what the worst commenters think is disingenuous imo. (Although I do think Williams overstates his case too - "a call too arms"? Not really.)

But then this is a man whose end of year list was 14,000 words about all the singles he hates.

lol @ 'a call to arms' featuring the line 'and there's nothing you can do about it'. Yeah man, I'm wid it just give me a gun and point me at the enemy.

Afaik Alex Turner has never delivered a call to arms in his life so I doubt he's decided to start now. He has, however, delivered many sarcastic deadpan acceptance speeches.

"no i thought i'd just shit in my pyjamas instead"

oh wait, deadpan

Surely Mumford & Sons are "Britain's biggest band"? Arctic Monkeys haven't actually sold all that many records, right? They're nowhere near 96 Oasis, right?

Williams' piece feels like desperate brand-alignment by NME, to me, one last push to associate themselves with the spirit of rock n roll while the carcass isn't even steaming anymore.

Sales are broadly similar in UK terms - both hit 5 x platinum with first albums, but M&S sales in US are ten times higher than AM's.

Surely Little Mix are Britain's biggest band

sorry forgot 1D existed

good job Olly Murs isn't a band or that line wd be even ronger

god how many clowns bought that Pastille rekkid?

they might be irrelevant now but it's probably the rolling stones right?

or iron maiden

Nolans ftw

wait are they irish?

tbh, list of bands bigger than the Arctic Monkeys wd be a long list