Melody Maker to close? Dadrock mags to reign supreme?

I seem to remember it being a fairly confrontational feature - rather like the Levellers cover story around the same time. MC4, Senseless Things, etc were definitely not part of the prevailing early '90s MM aesthetic (they got +ve coverage in NME though and possibly Sounds before it folded) but this was a sort of state-your-case sop to a popular band. A sort of "we admire yr politics, why do you have make such a turgid racket"?

i interviewed a very elderly and quite senile spike milligan for the melody maker back in 1998, just when i started, and he said "i used to read the melody maker when it was a jazz magazine, but now its just full of monkey music"

Reminds me a little of when MM interviewed Bernard Manning sometime during the nineties. His opening gambit: "what do a jazz paper want to talk to me for?"

I think I remember that MC4 piece, they basically let the guy make a cock out of himself and gave him the cover for his trouble.
Here it is, and yeah I remember that sub-heading too:

http://www.rockofages.uk.com/stock/19987.jpg

Don't recall the girls on sex article tho.

http://tomewing.tumblr.com/post/342881741/1993

Funny thing about that issue and cover -- when Melody Maker sponsored the Rollercoaster USA tour in late 1992 (Jesus and Mary Chain/Curve/Spiritualized) they sent over a huge batch of copies of a particular issue for distribution at each venue. Guess which issue.

what date was that issue of MM?

31/10/92. A bit later than I thought.

18 years ago this month
http://www.prweek.com/article/94726/media-brief---sutherland-goes-melody-maker

Who knew what fresh mayhem lay ahead - be it regional Idlewild fans swarming letters pages or over euthusiastic coverage to Paisley Underground veterans and Sam Peckinpah

A Simon Price Melody Maker Spotify playlist here:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5pQG5E8BNE3CwTREjEJY3h?fbclid=IwAR0PVnYKFstrr9lSgwBwOwRVgmsk1w7oC_fwnwBj_NKro3ecvBx5gOB471U

Inspired me to compile my own ...

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0WNCUK2moLElB1CeOkMxVm

Some people need to get away from the idea that guitar based melodic music is only supposed to appeal to "boring old farts". It's timeless. It will always be here, and it will surive everything.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, April 16, 2009 12:16 PM (eleven years ago)

Free access to music and gigs is a wonderful privilege that bestowed self defined good taste on you. I had to spend 14 pounds to find out that Campag Velocet were shit and journalists lied for the fun of it.

— DefensiveJeans (@EmbarrassedBelt) November 25, 2020

Thought of MM the other day re: the 'Prolific bands/artists with one super special album' thread.

I used to visit relatives in the UK a lot in the mid-late 90's, like for months at a time sometimes, and really looked forward to the opportunity to read MM and NME on those trips. My main takeaway was a sense that a short run 7" by an unsigned band could be more valuable and important than entire discographies of 'legendary' artists who sold hundreds of thousands of records.

For better and worse, MM encouraged me to build up a record collection along these lines, searching out the most unique, priceless artifacts without bothering to fill in the cornerstones. Even though I could only afford a handful of albums a year at that age, I could buy several times as many singles.

It's true that the music they championed wasn't always the greatest and I outgrew some of those styles pretty quickly, but I probably attribute my whole aporoach to collecting music to MM.

tbf, one of the cover mount cds had Campag Velocet's title track from their album, so I shrugged and spent no money..

Xpost yeah, the 'cornerstones' you'd always be able to find later, but those 7" gems would often disappear and you'd as likely as not, never hear anywhere but in your own place.

Exactly!!