Rock media goes posthumous
Oct. 20th, 2004 01:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusHere's the cover of this week's New Musical Express (the last weekly rock magazine published in London):
I'd like to apologize to those with sensitive eyes, because it's probably the ugliest thing I've ever put up on Click Opera. It hasn't always been this way, though. Here's an NME cover from when I was a kid:
As you go back in time, the covers just seem to get better and better. This one is a work of art:
And here's a cover featuring reggae band Steel Pulse, 1978. The photo departs from the bland promo shot of 'band in studio' seen in today's NME. This has real artistic merit as a photo:
(Note the absence of 'look out, we're three black men standing in your path, staring at you menacingly'-type imagery.)
Here's Brian Eno on a 1976 NME cover:
(This magazine does still exist, it's just called The Wire now.)
Some questions:
1. When did the NME begin to feel that good graphic design was incompatible with its survival, and why?
2. Was NME's artyness in the late 70s and early 80s the result of New Wave etc being inherently more 'arty' than what's around now, or an attempt to differentiate itself from competitors Sounds and Melody Maker?
3. 'Good NME' seems to express divergent values -- 'let's expand the definitions of what music is, and who makes it, and what its values are' -- whereas 'bad NME' expresses a hysterical convergence on 'rock values' which nevertheless seem further away than ever: parodic, post-modern, Spinal-Tappish, Golden-Ageist. Does Britain as a society no longer believe in 'the future' and 'the other', but only 'the past' and 'us'?
'Your bigger, better NME starts inside', says this week's edition of the NME. Now this is a parody of cliched marketing-speak, right? And yet it is also cliched marketing speak. So is it ironic or sincere? A joke or a plug? Have the inverted commas around a moronic phrase sort of melted away, leaving a kind of sincerity?
The weird thing, to me, is that this sort of ironic-moronic marketing-speak is not even necessary for actual, effective marketing. Here in Berlin we have free mags which rely totally on marketing for their existence, like Intro. They look arty and their design is good. Likewise de:bug:
I can only assume that British people like stuff that looks cluttered and commercial. It's an aesthetic preference on a national level, not a commercial or demographic necessity. It's like those cafes which have commercial radio on, pumping advertising into the premises. It's not to sell things, or because anyone pays them to do it. It's because the choice is between a dead, sullen silence and the 'lively' sound of the advertising.
Here's the current Intro, with an attack on the Bush administration on its cover:
In Paris, the rock and culture weekly Les Inrockuptibles leads this issue with the death of Jacques Derrida:
The current Vice in New York is the Worst Ever Issue:
A parody of the worst apects of style mags, it drips with the kind of vitriol for stupid, lazy media habits not seen since... the 'Death of Media' issue of NME (plain black cover, with words 'Death of Media issue' in white) in 1984.
In Tokyo, the latest edition of Rockin' On shows it in Q and Mojo territory:
I think the message of all this is clear. Rock music is dead. Those involved in rock journalism in 2004 have a clear choice. Either
a) Become a sort of museum curator of the glories of the past.
or
b) Use rock journalism as a platform for political activism.
Actually, there is a c) which can fit with either a) or b), depending on how it's applied:
c) Snake eating own tail solution: use position as rock journalist to make media about media. This can either be self-congratulatory (as a lot of TV is) or self-critical (ie the current edition of Vice).
The NME is basically a pre-Q publication. In other words, it's got the attitude that rock is dead and finished, but it's using new bands to promote that ideology. It presents the new bands in terms that refer back always to the glorious past. There's no notion of progress, of expansion, of experiment or adventure. Readers constantly told that The Beatles and The Stones (or Bowie and Lou Reed, or whoever) can't be bettered in the old template, and that no new rock templates are coming along, will turn to retro 'classic rock' sooner or later, becoming Q and Mojo readers and shifting from buying the work of new bands to buying back catalogue of old artists.
In other words, if rock music is the British Museum, the NME is the gift shop at the entrance, where you can buy postcards and ingenious little plastic models of the antiquities on view inside.
I'd like to apologize to those with sensitive eyes, because it's probably the ugliest thing I've ever put up on Click Opera. It hasn't always been this way, though. Here's an NME cover from when I was a kid:
As you go back in time, the covers just seem to get better and better. This one is a work of art:
And here's a cover featuring reggae band Steel Pulse, 1978. The photo departs from the bland promo shot of 'band in studio' seen in today's NME. This has real artistic merit as a photo:
(Note the absence of 'look out, we're three black men standing in your path, staring at you menacingly'-type imagery.)
Here's Brian Eno on a 1976 NME cover:
(This magazine does still exist, it's just called The Wire now.)
Some questions:
1. When did the NME begin to feel that good graphic design was incompatible with its survival, and why?
2. Was NME's artyness in the late 70s and early 80s the result of New Wave etc being inherently more 'arty' than what's around now, or an attempt to differentiate itself from competitors Sounds and Melody Maker?
3. 'Good NME' seems to express divergent values -- 'let's expand the definitions of what music is, and who makes it, and what its values are' -- whereas 'bad NME' expresses a hysterical convergence on 'rock values' which nevertheless seem further away than ever: parodic, post-modern, Spinal-Tappish, Golden-Ageist. Does Britain as a society no longer believe in 'the future' and 'the other', but only 'the past' and 'us'?
'Your bigger, better NME starts inside', says this week's edition of the NME. Now this is a parody of cliched marketing-speak, right? And yet it is also cliched marketing speak. So is it ironic or sincere? A joke or a plug? Have the inverted commas around a moronic phrase sort of melted away, leaving a kind of sincerity?
The weird thing, to me, is that this sort of ironic-moronic marketing-speak is not even necessary for actual, effective marketing. Here in Berlin we have free mags which rely totally on marketing for their existence, like Intro. They look arty and their design is good. Likewise de:bug:
I can only assume that British people like stuff that looks cluttered and commercial. It's an aesthetic preference on a national level, not a commercial or demographic necessity. It's like those cafes which have commercial radio on, pumping advertising into the premises. It's not to sell things, or because anyone pays them to do it. It's because the choice is between a dead, sullen silence and the 'lively' sound of the advertising.
Here's the current Intro, with an attack on the Bush administration on its cover:
In Paris, the rock and culture weekly Les Inrockuptibles leads this issue with the death of Jacques Derrida:
The current Vice in New York is the Worst Ever Issue:
A parody of the worst apects of style mags, it drips with the kind of vitriol for stupid, lazy media habits not seen since... the 'Death of Media' issue of NME (plain black cover, with words 'Death of Media issue' in white) in 1984.
In Tokyo, the latest edition of Rockin' On shows it in Q and Mojo territory:
I think the message of all this is clear. Rock music is dead. Those involved in rock journalism in 2004 have a clear choice. Either
a) Become a sort of museum curator of the glories of the past.
or
b) Use rock journalism as a platform for political activism.
Actually, there is a c) which can fit with either a) or b), depending on how it's applied:
c) Snake eating own tail solution: use position as rock journalist to make media about media. This can either be self-congratulatory (as a lot of TV is) or self-critical (ie the current edition of Vice).
The NME is basically a pre-Q publication. In other words, it's got the attitude that rock is dead and finished, but it's using new bands to promote that ideology. It presents the new bands in terms that refer back always to the glorious past. There's no notion of progress, of expansion, of experiment or adventure. Readers constantly told that The Beatles and The Stones (or Bowie and Lou Reed, or whoever) can't be bettered in the old template, and that no new rock templates are coming along, will turn to retro 'classic rock' sooner or later, becoming Q and Mojo readers and shifting from buying the work of new bands to buying back catalogue of old artists.
In other words, if rock music is the British Museum, the NME is the gift shop at the entrance, where you can buy postcards and ingenious little plastic models of the antiquities on view inside.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 04:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 04:39 am (UTC)I totally agree with you that rock doesn't need to be dead. The trouble is, the experimental tradition that used to be central is now extremely marginal. And rock media, by failing to cover it, is contributing to an impression that the story is over.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 04:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 04:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 04:54 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 04:59 am (UTC)http://www.laserbeast.com/photos/atp/
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 05:14 am (UTC)Actually, on the subject, a timeline of NME covers against IPC's respective ownership might be very revealing. ie (I think) AOL/Time Waner (2001), Time Inc (1998), Reed-Elsevier (1993), Reed International (1970).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 05:15 am (UTC)I never even listen to the radio anymore; there seems little point! Neither do I buy any music magazines; remove the adverts and trivia, the in-house smug jokes, and there's next to nothing to actually read!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 05:16 am (UTC)What's depressing about music coverage in the UK is that it extends to the 'quality' newspapers. The standard of journalism is often so lazy and factually inaccurate that it makes me suspicious of their news stories as well (which might be a good thing).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 05:32 am (UTC)And yes, it occurred to me too that that was one of the ugliest things I'd seen on the shelf this morning. I flicked through Wired and couldn't find any stories, just ads. So I left the newsagent, clicking my tongue. What an old bugger I am.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 05:34 am (UTC)but then again, he's pretty much a throwback too.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 05:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 05:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 05:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 06:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 06:41 am (UTC)Was NME's artiness an attempt to differentiate itself from its competitors Smash Hits and Look In? In the early 80s, before the age of hyper-marketed boybands and whatnot, the people in NME were the same people who were on Top Of The Pops. Could that be the case - I dunno.
In my Communist utopia, all advertsing and marketing would, of course, be banned. While I like to kid myself on that this would lead to better music, as people would buy stuff they actually liked, rather than what was stuffed down their throats, I think we'd actually just see record sales dwindle away to nothing. Most people just aren't that bothered and have to have things hyped to death before they're interested.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 06:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 06:51 am (UTC)The recent death of Derrida made me think about the NME in that period, which was fairly incomprehensible if you were young and thought continental theory was something that might come up in a geography test. But, regardless of the music under discussion, the NME did introduce me to a number of writers, artists and similar who I wouldn't have encountered otherwise at that early age. I read a copy the other week for the first time in years. Nothing to threaten the advertising demographic within. Must preserve revenue stream...
I'm twenty five years older now and about the only music magazine (as opposed to the web) I read is MOJO. I find myself far more interested in discovering what I previously rejected in that past, say, English folk music.
The policemen are all looking very young these days too...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 07:06 am (UTC)The bands you, and everyone we know, loves, were, for the most part, never popular. They had an audience, but they weren't popular (Can, The Velvet Underground, Suicide, Vashti Bunyan, Pentangle, Kraftwerk, punk, death metal, etc.).
And I second seeing Lightning Bolt - they put on an amazing show. Every time I've ever seen them, they whip the crowd into a frothy frenzy. As far as hard driving forward looking guitar music, I also suggest Japanther. There's actually a lot of stuff around Williamsburg, NYC and Portland, Oregon that's pretty good.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 07:09 am (UTC)And doesn't NME follow the standard progress of The Successful? That is: Innovated Beginning -> Powerful Control While at the Top -> Long Decline into Irrelevance
BTW, I like TV on the Radio and Animal Collective. Both bands are amazing live (but still, as far as live shows, nothing compares to Lightning Bolt).
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 07:51 am (UTC)By the way, Nick, have you ever checked out Fursaxa? She's more on a Comus tip. Intriguing.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 07:54 am (UTC)There's so much to say about this... but thankfully I won't
Date: 2004-10-20 08:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-20 09:05 am (UTC)Re: There's so much to say about this... but thankfully I won't
Date: 2004-10-20 09:06 am (UTC)................
THERE ARE NO WORDS.