| New Musical Express going Free 09:44 - Jul 15 with 2940 views | Discodroids |
Its going to be free apparently, used to love reading it from the early 80's to mid eighties ..
Now only shifts 15000 copies a week, had to go digital it seems. Bet they ruin all the content though, probably end up like a cross between Kerrang and GQ
I think it's a bad idea, it'll close in a year or two. The only way it'll survive is to become a wider entertainment magazine and there are already two titles in that space, so they'd have to do a cracking job.
used to enjoy 'Time out ' as well, I cant get in or out of stratford these days without people from various backgrounds in brightly coloured waetrproof jackets thrusting free publications in my moeey
Sad times [Post edited 15 Jul 2015 9:46]
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| "...The monkey is never dead, Dealer. The monkey never dies. When you kick him off, he just hides in a corner, waiting his turn." |
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| New Musical Express going Free on 09:47 - Jul 15 with 2922 views | TheBlob |
Was always Melody Maker's idiot brother.
Not even for free thanks anyway mate. |  |
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| New Musical Express going Free on 09:52 - Jul 15 with 2915 views | Discodroids |
not even in the seventies blob?.
i admit i gave up on it years ago, and its not in the same league as 'rolling stone '.
i remember the nme turned into the 'Gallaghers Gazette'in the 90's then putting Justin Timberlake on the cover. Still not as bad as the weekly press-style reviews "Go back to your time machine, grandad!", all written mimicking Noel's "swag". They went from "Abbey Road" best record of all time to Definitely Maybe best British record ever. [Post edited 15 Jul 2015 10:38]
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| "...The monkey is never dead, Dealer. The monkey never dies. When you kick him off, he just hides in a corner, waiting his turn." |
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| New Musical Express going Free on 10:08 - Jul 15 with 2897 views | robith |
Melody Maker 4 lyf
Disco I dunno if you've read it recently, but that bird flew a long time ago. It's been a total rag for ages.
Niche music wise it can't compete with the likes of Pitchfork which can cater for a smallbig audience without print overheads and by being digital can be way more on the pulse - NME's site has long being dullard click bait like top 10 Oasis songs. The issue is that music is so much more mainstream these days, the gap between the mainstream and the underground, so narrow in the magazine's heyday, is bigger than ever. And to service an audience requiring a print title rather than a digital offering means they have to endorse massive acts like Ed Sheeran, which in turn makes them look thoroughly uncool. It's hard to be acerbic when you're part of the machine. Unlike Pitchfork for example, with my favourtie review of recent times - their 0.0 review of Jet's second album
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9464-shine-on/
Print wise they took the mag in some kind of teen lifestyle direction and has just absolutely shed readership - they lost 18% in the last year alone. Its reputation as a trail blazer long since shed as it endorses absolute luddite tripe - apart from Murison was in charge and they actually had some decent long form content. But she could only do so much to reduce the tide of shi!e Conor McNichols had unleashed. Funnily enough his job now is selling branded content into magazines, an art he perfected at NME.
Another total side point, James Jamm was responsible for some of the darkest days of NME recommendations such as The Twang in 2007 and went a long way to damaging their rep at one of the most exciting times in guitar based music in recent times. Strangely he went to become the editor of Kerrang! and has overseen a transformation of their fortunes.
Going free is the only way it can survive to be honest - it means they artificially bump the circulation and charge more for advertising (my job is planning and buying ad space - it's a trick Evening Standard do a lot to infuriate me when they put their prices up even when I'm sure actual readership hasn't increased). But as we've seen with Time Out, it means survival in name only. Time Out has gone from fiscal strength to strength since going free, but it's an absolute rag full of advertorial and no listings now. I feel a similar future beckons for NME. Their access routes to students in particular mean they'll be able to charge a premium, but the value of the NME brand will be gone. But then again, it hasn't really had any since they put Godspeed on the cover in 1998 |  | | |
| New Musical Express going Free on 10:29 - Jul 15 with 2878 views | Metallica_Hoop |
Always hated the NME back in 90/91/92 it hated anything heavier than the f'kin Lemonheads.
You're right about Kerrang that's been going downhill since it featured Alanis Morissette in '94.
Metal Hammer all the way.
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| Beer and Beef has made us what we are - The Prince Regent |
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| New Musical Express going Free on 10:32 - Jul 15 with 2872 views | ElHoop |
I was an NME reader back in the 1970s and used to really look forward to Thursdays when it dropped through the letterbox. I did a paper-round at the time and had a few Melody Makers to deliver but couldn't even face reading somebody else's - it was THAT boring. And heavy. I suppose it was OK for people in bands or musicians and that sort of thing.
I haven't bought the NME for decades but look at the website every day for tour news and stuff like that. Maybe it's finished as far as that's concerned now - where else would you look for tour news?
Back in the day there were a lot of music papers - I can remember NME and MM plus Record mirror, Sounds and something called Disc as well I think. Can't think of any others. Record Mirror wasn't too bad. Sounds was sort of halfway between NME and MM as I recall. All gone now. |  | | |
| New Musical Express going Free on 10:35 - Jul 15 with 2868 views | Discodroids |
| New Musical Express going Free on 10:08 - Jul 15 by robith |
Melody Maker 4 lyf
Disco I dunno if you've read it recently, but that bird flew a long time ago. It's been a total rag for ages.
Niche music wise it can't compete with the likes of Pitchfork which can cater for a smallbig audience without print overheads and by being digital can be way more on the pulse - NME's site has long being dullard click bait like top 10 Oasis songs. The issue is that music is so much more mainstream these days, the gap between the mainstream and the underground, so narrow in the magazine's heyday, is bigger than ever. And to service an audience requiring a print title rather than a digital offering means they have to endorse massive acts like Ed Sheeran, which in turn makes them look thoroughly uncool. It's hard to be acerbic when you're part of the machine. Unlike Pitchfork for example, with my favourtie review of recent times - their 0.0 review of Jet's second album
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9464-shine-on/
Print wise they took the mag in some kind of teen lifestyle direction and has just absolutely shed readership - they lost 18% in the last year alone. Its reputation as a trail blazer long since shed as it endorses absolute luddite tripe - apart from Murison was in charge and they actually had some decent long form content. But she could only do so much to reduce the tide of shi!e Conor McNichols had unleashed. Funnily enough his job now is selling branded content into magazines, an art he perfected at NME.
Another total side point, James Jamm was responsible for some of the darkest days of NME recommendations such as The Twang in 2007 and went a long way to damaging their rep at one of the most exciting times in guitar based music in recent times. Strangely he went to become the editor of Kerrang! and has overseen a transformation of their fortunes.
Going free is the only way it can survive to be honest - it means they artificially bump the circulation and charge more for advertising (my job is planning and buying ad space - it's a trick Evening Standard do a lot to infuriate me when they put their prices up even when I'm sure actual readership hasn't increased). But as we've seen with Time Out, it means survival in name only. Time Out has gone from fiscal strength to strength since going free, but it's an absolute rag full of advertorial and no listings now. I feel a similar future beckons for NME. Their access routes to students in particular mean they'll be able to charge a premium, but the value of the NME brand will be gone. But then again, it hasn't really had any since they put Godspeed on the cover in 1998 |
top post my old mate .agree with you 100%, will check out the link .
havent read it for years, just lamenting another part of my lost youth like a miserable old git.
I loved the the Steven Wells era - totally ruthless putdowns of anyone and anything they didn't like. i seem to remember a bloke called johnny Jonny Cigarettes used to be a right laugh. Lost a bit of interest with the arselicking of Oasis and their shoe-gazing stage seemed to last forever.
loved looking thru the indie charts for titles such as 'all i want for christmas is my dukla prague away kit', 'bum gravy', 'i search for adventure in my seven leaky boots' etc etc
 [Post edited 15 Jul 2015 10:37]
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| "...The monkey is never dead, Dealer. The monkey never dies. When you kick him off, he just hides in a corner, waiting his turn." |
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| New Musical Express going Free on 10:43 - Jul 15 with 2848 views | DWQPR |
Used to look forward to Thursday morning on the way to school buying both the NME and the Record Mirror and then reading it on the tube to Ealing Broadway. First lesson on a Thursday was English and I had an unwritten agreement with the English teacher that he didn't disturb me at the back of the class and I wouldn't disturb him, so that I could read the two further. Still got a B in O level.
Always a great kick reading the reviews of new releases of singles and albums and you would always get a heads up of what to look out for so that I could get down to Beggars Banquet in Ealing High Street to pre-order what I wanted ensuring that the picture cover was secured. Music was great then, meant a hell of a lot growing up and made you felt you belonged as a kid and you took great pride in your singles and album collections. |  |
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| New Musical Express going Free on 10:54 - Jul 15 with 2838 views | TheBlob |
Stopped reading the music papers by the eighties.
It was always pick up the MM and straight to the back pages to see what gigs were on.......every night something different and appealing all over London and The Burbs,from The Black Prince,Bexley through Half Moon Putney to the Marquee Wardour Street and beyonnnnndddddddd...... | |
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| New Musical Express going Free on 12:16 - Jul 15 with 2762 views | TheBlob |
Don't get me started on that rotten toothed w*nker Charles Shaar Murray.
Spent most of his formative years in ignorant slagging and then all of a sudden he's an expert on Jimi Hendrix and others.NME was full of these and Kent,new was everything - today's format is tomorrow's doormat.They were a joke then as well as now. | |
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| New Musical Express going Free on 12:25 - Jul 15 with 2737 views | ElHoop |
| New Musical Express going Free on 12:16 - Jul 15 by TheBlob |
Don't get me started on that rotten toothed w*nker Charles Shaar Murray.
Spent most of his formative years in ignorant slagging and then all of a sudden he's an expert on Jimi Hendrix and others.NME was full of these and Kent,new was everything - today's format is tomorrow's doormat.They were a joke then as well as now. |
You won't be picking up a free copy then by the sound of it Blob?
I think that punk pretty much blew away the ancien regime of musical journalism so in a way the NME destroyed itself. Punk meant do your own thing - write your own fanzine or form your own band or label or whatever you wanted to try. So people did and nothing was ever the same again. There were probably fanzines and self-started stuff before punk but it was everythere from about 1976 onwards. Football fanzines followed on from the music ones and that blew away the football magazines too. Eventually it all went online and here we are with LFW which is really a distant relative to Sniffin Glue and such like. | | | |
| New Musical Express going Free on 12:36 - Jul 15 with 2718 views | TheBlob |
| New Musical Express going Free on 12:25 - Jul 15 by ElHoop |
You won't be picking up a free copy then by the sound of it Blob?
I think that punk pretty much blew away the ancien regime of musical journalism so in a way the NME destroyed itself. Punk meant do your own thing - write your own fanzine or form your own band or label or whatever you wanted to try. So people did and nothing was ever the same again. There were probably fanzines and self-started stuff before punk but it was everythere from about 1976 onwards. Football fanzines followed on from the music ones and that blew away the football magazines too. Eventually it all went online and here we are with LFW which is really a distant relative to Sniffin Glue and such like. |
I much prefer the informed views on here that ever fell from a musical presstitute. | |
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| New Musical Express going Free on 12:51 - Jul 15 with 2697 views | Bluce_Ree |
I guess writing endless articles about Radiohead doesn't pay the bills anymore.
Kerrang is bullshit. I used to read it when metal was metal but now Kerrang is all about "pop punk" and "nu metal" and all that shit.
I hate EVERYTHING. |  |
| ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE THROUGH MARTI THE REDEEMER WHO STRENGTHENS ME. |
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| New Musical Express going Free on 13:24 - Jul 15 with 2648 views | enzian |
Ah,the "old days". 60's early 70's.MM was more biznezz,NME more fans.IMO NME was the better read.Especially liked "The Lone Groover",by Benyon."No woman no dose,me no take the risk me friend of me fist,no woman no dose". | | | |
| New Musical Express going Free on 13:34 - Jul 15 with 2624 views | CroydonCaptJack |
| New Musical Express going Free on 10:08 - Jul 15 by robith |
Melody Maker 4 lyf
Disco I dunno if you've read it recently, but that bird flew a long time ago. It's been a total rag for ages.
Niche music wise it can't compete with the likes of Pitchfork which can cater for a smallbig audience without print overheads and by being digital can be way more on the pulse - NME's site has long being dullard click bait like top 10 Oasis songs. The issue is that music is so much more mainstream these days, the gap between the mainstream and the underground, so narrow in the magazine's heyday, is bigger than ever. And to service an audience requiring a print title rather than a digital offering means they have to endorse massive acts like Ed Sheeran, which in turn makes them look thoroughly uncool. It's hard to be acerbic when you're part of the machine. Unlike Pitchfork for example, with my favourtie review of recent times - their 0.0 review of Jet's second album
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9464-shine-on/
Print wise they took the mag in some kind of teen lifestyle direction and has just absolutely shed readership - they lost 18% in the last year alone. Its reputation as a trail blazer long since shed as it endorses absolute luddite tripe - apart from Murison was in charge and they actually had some decent long form content. But she could only do so much to reduce the tide of shi!e Conor McNichols had unleashed. Funnily enough his job now is selling branded content into magazines, an art he perfected at NME.
Another total side point, James Jamm was responsible for some of the darkest days of NME recommendations such as The Twang in 2007 and went a long way to damaging their rep at one of the most exciting times in guitar based music in recent times. Strangely he went to become the editor of Kerrang! and has overseen a transformation of their fortunes.
Going free is the only way it can survive to be honest - it means they artificially bump the circulation and charge more for advertising (my job is planning and buying ad space - it's a trick Evening Standard do a lot to infuriate me when they put their prices up even when I'm sure actual readership hasn't increased). But as we've seen with Time Out, it means survival in name only. Time Out has gone from fiscal strength to strength since going free, but it's an absolute rag full of advertorial and no listings now. I feel a similar future beckons for NME. Their access routes to students in particular mean they'll be able to charge a premium, but the value of the NME brand will be gone. But then again, it hasn't really had any since they put Godspeed on the cover in 1998 |
Very interesting post mate and thread Disco.
I used to always prefer NME to Melody Maker and even kept getting it when my tastes started turning to everything Chicago, Detroit and New York and away from Rock as they covered that House scene adequately as well. |  | | |
| New Musical Express going Free on 13:44 - Jul 15 with 2611 views | LadbrokeR |
Always remember the NME but never really read it that much. I used to buy Touch, and Muzik (what a title) in early 90s. | | | |
| New Musical Express going Free on 20:51 - Jul 15 with 2501 views | MrSheen |
I used to read it in the late 70s - early 80s when Adrian Thrills/Danny Baker/Paul Morley ruled the roost. Two single s in the top 40 and you could take your favourite sycophants to Milan or Munich for a lost weekend. How things have changed. The back page gig ads were awesome in those days though...The specials and Aswad...nah, too skint this week. |  | | |
| New Musical Express going Free on 21:43 - Jul 15 with 2462 views | HantsR |
Read NME avidly in the early 1960s - starting late 1962 - also Melody Maker, which I felt was a bit staid and the Record Mirror - a reasonable read but bit of a poor relation to NME. At one stage I bought all of them at Blackfriars station to read on the journey home from school.
I considered the NME to have the definitive singles chart, especially as it had Please Please Me at No.1 (contrary to Guinness Book of Records). Those were exciting times, especially for me in my early teens. |  | | |
| New Musical Express going Free on 21:58 - Jul 15 with 2445 views | Monahoop |
Used to read both NME and MM in the 70's. NME was better for punk and and new wave stuff. MM was all stuffy and still drivelling on about prog rock, so I only read it really when I was bored. |  |
| There aint half been some clever bastards. |
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| New Musical Express going Free on 22:13 - Jul 15 with 2430 views | Jalfrezi_Rs |
It was Sounds paper for me, but regardless which music paper you went for the experience was the same. Out on a Thursday, the gig guide shaped what you were doing for the next 7 days, seeing who was playing where. No social media or Internet, it was how we rocked back then. |  | | |
| New Musical Express going Free on 23:01 - Jul 15 with 2402 views | ted_hendrix |
| New Musical Express going Free on 10:54 - Jul 15 by TheBlob |
Stopped reading the music papers by the eighties.
It was always pick up the MM and straight to the back pages to see what gigs were on.......every night something different and appealing all over London and The Burbs,from The Black Prince,Bexley through Half Moon Putney to the Marquee Wardour Street and beyonnnnndddddddd...... |
*It was always pick up the MM and straight to the back pages to see what gigs were on*
Exactly this. |  |
| My Father had a profound influence on me, he was a lunatic. |
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| New Musical Express going Free on 07:53 - Jul 16 with 2331 views | batmanhoop |
I started my working life as a compositor in the print trade. Job for life I thought. Three years after I served my 5 year apprenticeship I knew the game was up. Free newspapers, who would have thought of it  | | | |
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