Black Cat Bone

Sad but inevitable. The writing was on the wall as soon as it became a free rag.

It's a shame but there wasn't really any interesting content in the free printed version.

The Prof wrote:It's a shame but there wasn't really any interesting content in the free printed version.

There hadn't been much interesting content in the paid version before that for fifteen years either.

I think they could have survived as a monthly mag had they taken better editorial choices in the late 90s. They should have gone down the Quietus route of intelligent journalism, but IPC didn't have the vision.

Didn't even know it was still going.

Rolling Stone still going strong, too.
Looks like a couple of posters owe Matt Wilson an apology...

Yeah! And about so many things, too!

Matt Wilson has the last BCB laugh!

Good lord he will be insufferable now!!!!

I'm holding out for Rolling Stone to buy NME and put Bob Seger on the cover.

more likely to be PINK or Ariana Grande.

I was never that fussed about it anyway but then I came to it after the golden age. I picked up a couple of the few copies and they were just piffle.

Maybe there was a market for a smart magazine with a combination of new and old stuff with maybe more of a focus on the new. Sorta like a more hip Mojo, I dunno

I devoured it from around 1984 to around 1990. It was pretentious as fuck but it opened SO many doors. I loved the fact it came out weekly, too. I still miss that a bit.

It’s sad but the reality is the NME most people are nostalgic for had long gone, years before the free mag era. It’s decline mirrored the decline of British guitar music and related musical tribalism and the rise of the “everything is good” consensus. My era was mid to late 80s to mid to late 90s - good writers, exciting bands - and NME was a Wednesday morning must read, despite some cringey attempts at manufacturing scenes (New Wave Of New Wave, anyone?). When they started trying to convince you the Libertines were anything other than a cackhanded throwback, the game was up.

I read it throughout the 80s, really hanging on every word of my favourite critics, but felt it lost its way in the 90s, replacing critical analysis with facile Britpop cheerleading. I switched to Melody Maker in that decade, which was a much more intelligent read. I note that several Maker alumni, such as David Stubbs and David Bennun now write for The Quietus, which is usually a good read if sometimes a bit too hipster for my liking.

Ranking Ted wrote:It’s sad but the reality is the NME most people are nostalgic for had long gone, years before the free mag era. It’s decline mirrored the decline of British guitar music and related musical tribalism and the rise of the “everything is good” consensus. My era was mid to late 80s to mid to late 90s - good writers, exciting bands - and NME was a Wednesday morning must read, despite some cringey attempts at manufacturing scenes (New Wave Of New Wave, anyone?). When they started trying to convince you the Libertines were anything other than a cackhanded throwback, the game was up.

Aye. The Libertines deffo seemed like a nail in the coffin but even when I picked it up in the mid 90s I was never that impressed by it.

I always preferred magazines like Select or Vox.

It's sad but I have no desire to buy a music mag these days. Not even when I'm going on the train down to London

the masked man wrote:I read it throughout the 80s, really hanging on every word of my favourite critics, but felt it lost its way in the 90s, replacing critical analysis with facile Britpop cheerleading. I switched to Melody Maker in that decade, which was a much more intelligent read. I note that several Maker alumni, such as David Stubbs and David Bennon now write for The Quietus, which is usually a good read if sometimes a bit too hipster for my liking.

MM really took over from NME around the mid 90s, much more on it. The NME were suckered in by whole bunch of dismal fellow travellers and became cheerleaders rather than keeping their distance. Simon Price, Simon Reynolds, Taylor Parkes and so on at MM had much more bite and turn of phrase. I’d agree though that Select really led the way after a while, first time a monthly had done much more than look back or provide promo bumf for rock royalty.

Never read it once. Though I was never really into reading any music / journo mags much, to be honest.

I read it from the early to mid-90s. It was pretty shit then, had a really sneery attitude to anything that wasn't jangly guitar bands or Marvin Gaye.

The Modernist wrote:

The Prof wrote:It's a shame but there wasn't really any interesting content in the free printed version.

There hadn't been much interesting content in the paid version before that for fifteen years either.

I think they could have survived as a monthly mag had they taken better editorial choices in the late 90s. They should have gone down the Quietus route of intelligent journalism, but IPC didn't have the vision.

There was a decision to lose their older demographic and make a grab for a younger readership.
The clever move would have been to retain their older readership and attract younger ones - they had managed to do this in the past.

It was at that point in the late ''90s that I bailed.

Did they still have decent writers?