What’s The NME up to nowadays?

“It would be a cruel irony if the NME were to disappear at precisely the time when it finally got its act together.” – Maggoty Lamb

The NME peaked in sales by 1972 at around 300,000 copies per week. McNicholas took to the helm in 2004 and by 2007 the paper’s circulation had reached a new nadir falling 12.6% on its previous year to an average of 64,033 – almost half of the 120,000 copies circulating weekly in 1990. By June 2009, the month before Murison was confirmed as McNicholas’ predecessor, weekly circulation had dropped a worrying 27% on the year previous to just 40,948 copies.

It’s been almost 6 months since Krissi Murison began her editorship at The NME. The news was treated with a combination of both relief and scepticism. With the departure of – the heavily criticised – former Editor Connor McNicholas here was an opportunity for The NME to change. The question is, has it acted on criticism or has it continued digging it’s own grave? Here’s the Bricolage Music review of issue dated 13 February 2010:

Cover: The Courteeners

BM: Keeping up McNicholas’ tradition of ‘Boy-love sells‘

Masthead: Jamie-T on tour

BM: popular and revered artist gets ‘free’ publicity for rescheduled tour

News (in order of column inches): NME Awards tour; Gangs of festival ticket touts; Strokes to record new album; Melissa Auf der Maur concept album; Glastonbury flag-ban latest; Futureheads go prog; Carl Barat is good kisser; Gorillaz on NME Radio…

BM: shameless self-promotion; human interest scaremongering; nostalgia; weird nostalgia; over publicised festival gets more endorsements; meh!; shocker; more self-publicity…

Vox pop interviews: Serj Tankian (System of a Down); Romy Madley Croft (The XX)

BM: still on the Kerrang aggressive; façonnable.

Letters: Person in Sheffield gets ‘mardy’ after Arctic Monkey’s are blacklisted for NME ‘Worst Album’ award.

BM: If NME is in transition, the readership is yet to catch up.

Radar: Yuck; Wild Palms; Nottee; Grave Babies; ‘Coventry folk scene’ under the microscope.

BM: 90’s US indie band sound-a-likes, nostalgic; post-punk revivalists, ditto; NME still reveres Kitsune Maison; heavy art-house band; didn’t the try this a few years ago when they thought the Enemy were the future of new music? This time round there’s a distinct lack of hyperbole.

Interviews: The Courteeners, Lonelady, Pin Me Down (Bloc Party side-project), Band of Skulls, Local Natives,

BM: ‘Liam Fray is about to silence the doubters’ etc. A friend saw the man in a Manchester club, rolling around the floor reeling on drugs – It’s going to take a lot more than a Barry Nicolson article; Lonelady is a fantastic choice, more of this please; less of this please; keep up Beaumont; good choice.

Comment: Gavin Haynes on JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye

BM:…just in case you haven’t read the book / we were all 14 once.

Another vox pop: Dinosaur Jr.

BM: Barlow and Mascis must be tripping out, ‘Guys, I’ve got NME on the line, they want to lick you sphincters?’

Album Reviews: Marina & The Diamonds 9/10, Field Music 8/10, Lightspeen Champion 7/10, Xiu Xiu 7/10

BM: It’s a quiet week on the album front for articles, the lead review reads like a PR email then progresses to a full on  ‘smoke up their arses’ music industry styled special; steady; scraping the barrel for support; hyperbole alert!

Album Archives: Urusei Yatsura rating N/A

BM: quite pleasant.

Live Reviews: Ellie Goulding/Daisy Dares You, Mike Snow/Theophilus London, Japanese Voyeurs, Wale/Chiddy Bang, Midlake.

BM: move on, nothing to see here; yawn; Hello; hipster; boys club.

Gig of the Week: Yeasayer

BM: Be sure to wear your Topshop necklace

One final vox pop: Akiko Matsura (Comanechi/The Big Pink)

BM: Akiko once gave me a Black Metal compilation so i like this, however getting Peter Robinson to do this interview rather than the other voxpops gives the impression that The NME is trying not to take itself too seriously. More nostalgia, in a way.

FIN

Afterthought: I will probably buy it next week. Even though Vampire Weekend will be the cover stars they are an improvement on The Courteeners and may such a trend continue. The Lonelady interview was an easy highlight, NME, welcome back to the table!