As of today, Friday 9th March 2018, the NME (New Musical Express) Magazine is alas no longer!
Brighton music lovers who have been accustomed to grabbing a free copy of the NME Magazine from local outlets such as Richer Sounds, Resident Music, Dr Martens, Topman, Cult Hero, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons and Brighton Railway Station, will no longer be able to get their weekly music fix in this fashion.
I would suggest that the writing has been on the wall for the ailing magazine for quite some time now. This would be due to the fact that in modern day society, the behavioural habits and consumption by the general public has changed dramatically over the past years. NME had previously recognised this and made their paid-for magazine into a free pickup back in 2015.
The NME used to be a much longer read than it has been of late as the pagination was much higher and the dimensions of those more pages was around double the size that it finished at. The magazine has arguably severely lacked substance for quite a while and so you could easily read through it in just a few minutes as opposed to the 1970’s/1980’s/1990’s editions, which could very easily take you many hours to get through.
Having stated that, it has been quite a testament to the guys at NME to keep the magazine going for such a long time (66 years – from 7th March 1952 to be precise), I mean look at the also sadly missed Sounds Magazine (which ran out of steam in 1991), Melody Maker (which lasted until 2000) and Smash Hits (until 2006) to name but three – they are long gone.
There was a time when the NME in print was the be all and end all of everything music, I mean even the Sex Pistols ‘Anarchy In The UK’ uttered those immortal words “How many ways to get what you want, I use the best, I use the rest, I use the N.M.E.”.
I can recall with anticipation each year waiting to see what the ‘NME Album Of The Year’ and ‘NME Single Of The Year’ would be, in the same fashion as John Peel’s Festive 50 really. Their album choices were varied down the passage of time since their inaugural year in 1974. Standout choices for me personally would be: David Bowie – “Heroes” (1977), Joy Division – Closer (1980), Nirvana – Nevermind (1991), Björk – Debut (1993) and Grimes – Art Angels (2015).
On the singles front, which started in 1975, my highlights would include: Bob Marley & The Wailers – No Woman, No Cry (1975), Sex Pistols – Pretty Vacant (1977), The Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve) (1978), Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart (1980), Grandmaster Flash – The Message (1982), Jesus & Mary Chain- Never Understand (1985), Underworld – Born Slippy (1996) and The Verve – Bitter Sweet Symphony (1997).
NME.com was launched in 1996 and will obviously continue to fly the flag as well as the occasional NME Gold paid-for publications .
It’s sad, but imho the “music” industry has been in decline ever since real music was abandoned in favour of tuneless, repetitive noise with pointless, meaningless, poorly enunciated words that are difficult to make out.
Simon Cowell and others like him have a lot to answer for. If you shout loud enough, you’re a “winner”. No need for words or a tune. Just make a lot of noise.
It’s too late now though. The final nail in the coffin was the advent of downloads. Where once we had to go to a shop and buy a physical copy, now we have disposable MP3s that are so cheap, and so readily available, that no-one cares any more.
Hi Barney, maybe head out on Record Store Day and make some purchases to prove Simon Cowell wrong, sounds a good plan to me. Thanks for your interest.
I’ve been into music, and the high fidelity reproduction of it, for about 60 years and still prefer vinyl to CD for when I have time to sit down and listen rather than just having it playing in the background. What does surprise me is that a lot of people say they can’t tell any difference between the same piece of music played on vinyl, CD or download onto their mobile phone. Has the human ear evolved to only hear frequencies from about 800Hz to 2500Hz instead of about 50Hz to 15000Hz?
It’s likely that sitting down and physically just listening to music helps the mind and the ear concentrate more on the sounds in question, rather than trying to do two or three things on the go whilst listening to music. Thanks for your interest Chris.