Review - The Comic's New Format (that's The NME to you guv).
I've just read (!) the new format Comic, purely for the purposes of research you understand, in fact it's the first issue of The Comic I've read for about a year so just how different its content is I have no idea...but it certainly is a lot smaller (down to Fly size by the end of the year if this is anything to go by!). Anyhoo, let's give it a chance, and thumb through it page by page.
The Cover.
Exactly the same messy crap with a background cheesy photo of the ugliest fuckers they could find (The View - one of the shittiest bands in the UK - unquestionably the ugliest). They like ugly people at The Comic for some reason, from Gallagher to Borrell ( you KNOW they'll be photos of them somewhere in here!). Kate Nash (please!) and Karen O (she's American, she knows no better) are flashed up on the cover but don't fear, The Comic sticks to its oldies policy by also shouting about Courtney Love and New Order. Most hilarious thing (apart from the ugliness of The View) is 'Free Aerial Photo of T in The Park'. Free? Why is it free? It's a page in the mag for God's sake - how about 'Free Letters Page'? or free adverts? How very generous.
Contents Page.
Editor makes plea for subscribers, his days are numbered.
Pages 3,4 and 5
Full page photos of....yes, Borrell - without shirt, being ugly, making me nauseous as usual - a FREE photo of T in The Park and some hairy tosser, again without shirt (do we detect a theme here?)
Pages 8,9 and 10
The 20 Best Things at T in the Park and Oxegen
Think of the 20 biggest wankers in the world and lionise them - if these are the bands The Comic wants to be associated with I can see it reducing size again any minute now. And guess what? They're all ugly.
Pages 12 and 13
More full-page photos, more ugliness (Foo Fighters and Kasabian - and I thought they were dead - wishful thinking!)
Pages 14 and 15
The Alternative Guide to Live Earth
Is this meant to be funny? I'm not smiling. It was all over the telly and now it has 2 pages in The Comic - nothing else happening this week then?
Pages 16 to 22.
News. There is no news but there is an ugly guy from The Enemy and Courtney Love looking like my mum, 'So are Blur reuniting?' The Comic doesn't know (now that's what I call news!) New Order, the news is good, they've fucked off forever. Will the Reading Festival site be sold? The Comic doesn't know, Is Morrisey retiring? The Comic doesn't know. Obligatory photo of Pete Doherty looking more like my dad every day. Some bollocks about Hadouken which, in common with this entire news section is not news at all. What's on The Comic's Stereo? Utter shit, that's what! (Amy Winehouse? The Rumble Strips? Ohmygod!)
Page 23
The Week Ahead
Stay at home and read the Comic would appear to be the message. How very exciting.
Page 24 and 25
Letters. Might as well be the letters page I last read a year ago, no change in subject matter - Doherty, Borrell, Ugliness.
Page 26
(Definitely beginning to wish I hadn't started doing this, my brain is turning to mush) Your photos. Pics from kiddies, all ugly.
Page 27
Kate Nash Interview.Major record company knock off fools The Comic into thinking she has talent and matters in some way - only semi-ugly so that's an improvement of sorts.
Page 31
What the funk is baile funk? It's a very good way for minor league CSS knockoff Bonde De Role to waste a page. Needless to say coke makes everybody ugly.
Page 33
That Karen O nonsense, still no smell of journalism anywhere in The Comic.
Pages 43, 35, 36, 37.
Radar. The Wombats...cor blimey mate - new band? Newer than Oasis maybe. Inside the Portland scene. Is this a re-print form 1995 or something? Best new band - We Are The Physics. Better known to you and I as a band who've been 'new' for quite a while now. Maybe there's a new definition of new that means been in Artrocker (ages ago) and played Artrocker Club many times
Pages 38, 39,40, 41
Live. A massive five gigs reviewed - all shit.
Page 42
Club NME. A whole page dedicated to telling us that The Comic has absolutely no idea who to book for their club - Jyrojets anybody? Ithought not.
Pages 43 to 65.
Ads, 22 pages of them, fascinating.
Pages 66 to 69
Albums. NYPC (late) lead the way
Page 70
Tracks. Jesus, a wholepage dedicated to...tracks? they mean singles of course, you know, the format that actually matters. A massive 11 reviews and one review of a single's cover (no joke).
Page 71
Stuff We Love.
NIcked direct from Artrocker.
Page 73
Behind NME lines. Not sure what this is about, a thing about the Kate Nash photo-shoot nicked from Heat Magazine and 'Meet the Features Editor' who is, guess what, ugly.
Pages 74 to 77
Gig Guide. Get it on the net. Waste of carbon.
Page 78
Peter Robinson. Fuck knows - you tell me. Crossword. Some of the clues actually demand a knowledge of the subject - I suspect that this has been farmed out - I also suspect that none of The Comic staff could actually complete it.
Page 79
From The NME Vault. Did you think we'd had all the ugliness we could take? Think again, a photo of The Verve (my mum, and dad are big fans) from 1992, mouth like a pound of liver split.
The End.
I'm off for a shower, maybe two.
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U.G.L.Y. You ain't got no alibi...
Who gives a fuck if bands are ugly?!
So long as they're filling my ears with music so good it makes your cock wish it was yours ears and putting on gigs you can barely remember but deep down will never forget, I don't care if they make Quasimodo pissing blood look like Cheryl Cole's better looking younger sister.
Saying they're too ugly is like saying "I don't want those soldiers protecting us from war-obsessed countries - their diction is atrocious," or "Excuse me, Wrenchy, please can you refrain from fixing the brakes on my car? Your fingernails look like they haven't had a manicure since the days when people thought Bono was an "alright Irish bloke"."
Artrocker ain't about the X-Factor - and thank the Lord for that - so let's not lower ourselves to Cowell-esque bitching about Michael Angelakos' new haircut or a debate on who's uglier: The Enemy or the lovechild of Susan Boyle and Bill Bailey (you heard it here first...)
Don't get me wrong, I'm as keen on a bit of 'comic' bashing as the next man (provided the next man isn't NME bedfellow Ryan Jarman), but I'd prefer to highlight it's real deficiencies - the unending capriciousness of their front covers, for example. These run on a three-week rotation cycle:
Week 1 - [insert name of bland, heard-it-all-before band] are the new Oasis!!!
Week 2 - [insert name of collection of 12-year-olds making music on a Commodore 64] are THE band of 2010!!!
Week 3 - Special tribute Oasis cover! Because Oasis are Gods and can never be replaced!
Week 4 - please see Week 1.
Summary: NME is hopeless. Artrocker is better when it ignores it's existence. After all, I don't imagine Jimi Hendrix spent much time critiquing the Beach Boys' guitar skills.
Thank you, carry on.
x
Very well said Rob
Couldn't agree more actually, on pretty much everything you've just said.
Cheers Dave
Now, when are you going to run my entertaining AND informative piece on John Cusack?
plagiarism
You might have noticed they'd nicked a page from you, but the vast majority of the stylistics, features and whatever is nicked from various other places too.
BTW, Peter Robinson is what makes the NME worth looking at - he's editor of Popjustice, and more importantly a bloody good - and funny - writer. His post-mortem on the Mika single in the Guardian Guide was pretty damn spot on.
oh i forgot to tell you
i start writing for the enemy next month, they pay me double
ha ha ha ha haaaaa
I love this, it's hilarious - makes you grateful for artrocker, it really does. everyone in there is beautiful and you already know the photos are free.
Chortle
I appreciate the deconstruction, twas eerily wonderful.
What is a magazine doing, publishing "free" photographs, anyway?
C&CM
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