Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

I don't want this to be past-midnight re-run of a former post (this time with signing for the deaf), but a couple of incidents caught my attention today with regards to everybody's favourite style bible, the NME.

Exhibit A: perusing as is one's wont, I noticed that the NME awards are currently in the voting stage. Now, they're sponsored by a hair gel which says more than they probably would like, but lets have a look at the nominees.

Actually, lets not - you can guess them, I guarantee. Even the Brit awards will create more controversy than this lot. If I'd have realised beforehand that these awards were on, I could have predicted every single one. There is no point in a music paper existing to talk about what people already like, the NME should be there to propagate good music, to introduce new bands (New Musical Express, anyone?), to advise and discuss, like a real paper does. If I want to read something about Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand and Babyshambles (for such make up the 'best band' category), then I have plenty of options aside from a magazine that's supposed to be well-established and well-respected for it's journalism.

Actually no, if I wanted to read about these bands I'd stick my head in a mincer, because my life would cease to be worth living.

But anyway, this is all ground that has been covered before. Exhibit B is even more fun. Our beloved magazine has provided us with a nice new Top Twenty Records Ever Ever poll. To mark "Britain's musical renaissance", no less. I'll say no more, this will reverberate around Guardian-reading, sandal-wearing blogs for ages yet.
The Stone Roses are number one. Now, although a relatively new discovery for me, I can happily say this is a great album, and one that deserves a high entry, so I won't be disputing Numero Uno for now. Nor will I Numero Duo, Le Moz's high water mark, The Queen Is Dead.

Number 5: Arctic Monkeys

Interesting. The album was released on Monday. Not on a Monday, this Monday just gone. I reviewed it for another source. I gave it two stars from five, because it's tedious, derivative and ultimately completely vacuous. It appears above London Calling, four places above the first Beatles record in there, Revolver, The Specials... We could go on for a while about the great albums which aren't even included, but we won't. This has got to be the final death-knell for the NME, a shout out to those who still rush out each Wednesday to buy it that this is a magazine whose opinions are worthless and that should not be allowed the priveleged position it occupies as one of the biggest publications in the country.

Of course, I'm not helping. All publicity is good publicity (unless you're Mark Oaten), and I'm merely a small cog in a humungous engine of publicity for an organ that is so bloated that at present, it can do what it wills.

The call for a boycott starts here!