Loved this paper in the late 80s/early 90s. I remember it as fortnightly, but happy to be corrected. Hard for my kids to believe that I used to buy music before I'd heard it, based on a good review or interview.
Liked it but not as good as Melody Maker imo. The recent free version of NME was very poor.
Melody Maker was a bit too goth for me. All the Cure fans read it at school. I remember them saying that the NME was badly printed and that the colour basically came off on your fingers and they were right.
Loved it in the 70s. Charles Shaar Murray and Penny Smith...particularly remember the fantastic b&w photo covers for 75 Zeppelin Earls Court, Paul Kossoff and Ian Curtis deaths.
In my late teens used to look forward to it like my life depended on it! Sad times but I supposed the technology changes have done the inevitable. Never even buy a daily paper these days...
Essential reading in the days of Punk and sometime after for me...Nick Kent was my favourite, good that he came out the other side intact as he lived the life so to speak. Like someone said, it's demise was inevitable I'm afraid.
The sort of music the NME likes isn't in great shape either. ..
What did it champion in its later years?
It was primarily UK rock/indie music.
In its final years switched to a more mainstream pop/rap interviews and articles as a desperation move to get the young audience back.
Maybe it was because there was better music coming from those scenes? UK guitar indie has been fairly moribund for a while now
They would've changed about 8/9 years ago if it was really about the music.
They were 5 years at least behind the times.
That is very true. Their boosting of trash indie in 2005-2013 was a running joke tbh. Although I'm sure we have a few Hard-Fi fans knocking around here. Here to give UK guitar music a bloody great kick up the arse!!!
I was always a Record Mirror man myself, used to love the R&B Top 20 chart every week in the 60s.
First time I ever saw records like Ride Your Pony and Harlem Shuffle mentioned in the UK.
In that case you should have been buying Home of the Blues which became Blues & Soul a year later
Anyway shame about NME even though I was never a regular reader, another bit of our history disappearing.
I knew John E. Abbey when he ran things from an office in Hanway Street round the back of Oxford Street. Still have most of them including the first ever copy of Home of the Blues.
He later moved to the States and married Tamiko Jones.
Comments
The recent free version of NME was very poor.
NME was always a bit dated recently anyway, still trying to revive rock and publish anything the Gallaghers were doing.
The sort of music the NME likes isn't in great shape either. ..
In its final years switched to a more mainstream pop/rap interviews and articles as a desperation move to get the young audience back.
First time I ever saw records like Ride Your Pony and Harlem Shuffle mentioned in the UK.
They were 5 years at least behind the times.
Used to buy it regularly but haven’t for years, sad to see it’s no more.
Anyway shame about NME even though I was never a regular reader, another bit of our history disappearing.
He later moved to the States and married Tamiko Jones.