Is NME written in braille?

Ha ha! I was told, by someone in the know the other day that he has a make-up artist to make him look 'rough', as it is in keeping with his image. I am tempted to mock the love of young Mr Doherty, but I remember that I was, for about a year, obsessed with Richey Ewards from the Manic Street Preachers (when I was about sixteen) - I think it's a sort of eqivalent of boy-band-love but for girls who've had messed up backgrounds. I laugh whenever I see Kate Moss now because I know she's done unutterables with Pete - I'm an artist me, look, see how self-destructive I am - Doherty. Another person I know was in earshot of them at a party and heard him compare themselves to Byron and The Muse. Bless 'em.

Also, everyone knows the NME is written by balding, ageing men on masterbatory ego-trips. (I am not saying there is anythingwrong with balding, ageing men per se, obviously, just the type who try and convince themselves and others that they are 'where it's at'.')

Not true about the NME. These days, due to the fact that they won't pay regular staffers and most established journalists refused to sign contracts that meant that the NME or its parent company could use any articles written by them in any way with further payment and/or acknowledgement, the NME is now, possibly more than ever written by ver actual kids. Probably with a strong guiding hand from an editor, but I'm that the NME is certainly some young people's idea of 'where it's at' Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is a matter of opinion. To quote grandpa Simpson: "I used to be with 'It', back when I knew what 'It' was. Then they changed what 'It' was, now what I'm with isn't 'It' and what 'It' is is weird and scary to me' Cheers, Mark Brown, Editor (on leave), www.ABCtales.com

I'm sorry. I was just being silly. Also, it did use to be like that a bit, back in the day.

I point it out because, bizarrely, the NME may be giving a much clearer image of what ver kids actually want. It's escaped a stay of execution by intensively surveying and focus grouping, so has turned into a kind of indie Smash Hits with ringtones. I think it might show that, rather than the middle aged men who had heroic and life changing ideas about the possibilities of youth culture, fashion and music, the actual case is more following the crowd, downloading screensavers and buying hair products. What I mean is: Could it be that over intellectualising balding men made up all of the cool stuff about youth culture that we wanted to join in with and that the kids just want to fancy people and feel part of a crowd? Cheers, Mark Brown, Editor (on leave), www.ABCtales.com

Ooh, interesting point. I shall have to think about it. I am a big fan of intellectualising balding men, and used to read the NME avidly from about 14-19... but I realised one day that I used to regurgitate exactly what I read in it, without thinking, and I then hated myself a little for it. It has always had a judgement, self-aggrandising tone.. I have noticed it more as I have got older... I read a copy the other day and thought, 'I don't think this has changed much, but I have...' I reckon it's the same with the whole Pete Doherty thing. Once it's put out there that he is attractive, then people believe it. The power of suggestion. The idea that to have a teenage crush on him is somehow 'better' than having one on, I don't know, Shane Ward, is disingenuous. It is the same feelings channelled into a different person, who is just as much a made-up image (more so, maybe) than someone like Shane Ward... 'middle aged men who had heroic and life changing ideas about the possibilities of youth culture' Hmmmm. Nice thought, but I'm not sure about that either. Youth culture, and the possibilities of it, are probably something that have never appeared in a magazine. I dunno, really.

I fully agree about the power of suggestion, many of the so called sex symbols wouldn't be given a second glance in the street, back in the day for me all the girls seemed to fancy Shaun Ryder, whose probably a lovely bloke but Brad Pitt he aint. Harry Kerdean

Yes, I remember everyone fancying him, and me thinking, 'If I was ever in the position to be alone with him... I'd RUN.'

I wonder what those same girls think now when the look at him doing his Shane Mcgowan impersination. Harry Kerdean

'middle aged men who had heroic and life changing ideas about the possibilities of youth culture' I say with my tongue in my cheek a bit. I suppose I was thinking of the particular period in the eighties where stuff like The Face competed with the NME to make style. You know: Jazz is In! Now Africa's In! Now 1950's revival is IN! There was a particular discourse about some forms of music being more left wing than others. There was a discourse about some forms of music being more authentic than others. There was a discourse about which music supported Thatcherism and which didn't. Whether the kids in Woolworths or Virgin on a Saturday actually considered this is a different question. I suppose the music press have always been taste makers who then end up being taste followers. Look at the NME in the 50s. They had a go at staging a trad jazz revival to counter the first wave of rock 'n' roll with the slogan 'It's Trad, Dad'. They finally had to relent that that wasn't what the readers wanted. I suppose there's youth culture (lower case), which is the culture that young people have and Youth Culture (capitalised), which is the thing that people for want of a better term buy and sell. Academics study it, the NME sells it, the fashion press try to capture it, the Daily Mail is scared of it, the Government tries to tap into it. I suppose everyone loves a Doherty BECAUSE he's an amalgam of previous rock and pop stories. No-one needs to think of anything new, they can roll out the same old stories with a different face on them. I think, when you're a teenage there's a feeling of acquisition about who you fancy. You tend to choose people on the basis that you somehow want to co-opt or absorb some of the qualities that you recognise in them, or that, by reflection, the kind of person you fancy will reflect back and illuminate the kind of person you are. So as a teen I had crushes on kooky indie women (never girls) who did good sculptures, for example because they were what I wanted to be. Cheers, Mark Brown, Editor (on leave), www.ABCtales.com

"I suppose everyone loves a Doherty BECAUSE he's an amalgam of previous rock and pop stories." Not everyone, Mark. Nope. Not by a long shot. Why would anyone want to co-opt qualities of a talentless, smack-addicted arsehole? At least Keith Richards is interesting and can play guitar well.

'There was a particular discourse about some forms of music being more left wing than others. There was a discourse about some forms of music being more authentic than others. There was a discourse about which music supported Thatcherism and which didn't.' But wasn't lots of that discourse perpetrated by champagne socialists in the first place? (tongue firmly in cheek) 'Authenticity' in music is something that interests me. What the hell counts as 'authentic'. I suppose it's strange in today's world, where the leader of the Tory Pary has been 'seen' to get renewable energy, call his son Arthur 'Elwen' and talk about 'caring', the world is more confusing for 'the kids'.

fergal, "But wasn't lots of that discourse perpetrated by champagne socialists in the first place? (tongue firmly in cheek)" Yes, that's exactly my point, hence the definition between youth culture with a small YC and Youth Culture with a capital YC. There's what ver kids do, then what is written or otherwise produced about what ver kids do, which in turn influences what the ver kids do. Imagine it like a mobius strip between commentators and doers. The music press, to an extent, used to be a hang out for people with big ideas who chose to act them out through writing about and promoting music, probably the legacy of counter-cultural ideas extended from the fact that the Beatles, a band comprised of four men from Liverpool, certainly seemed to change the world. Philip Larkin got at this in 'Annus Mirabilis' "Sexual intercourse began In nineteen sixty-three (which was rather late for me) - Between the end of the Chatterley ban And the Beatles' first LP." The sense that it was culture, and specifically consumption of some things over others, that brought about change rather than politics, governments or collective action seemed to find a home in the music press. People who believed themselves to be taste-makers believed that you could change the world based on your following of one band over another, or one style or subculture over another, applying the tools of radical and critical political theory to popular music as if it was a series of political groupings. On the evidence of their lifetimes this was a reasonable assumption to make, but one that doesn't really hold true, at least not outside of certain specific conditions. I think it's different now. For a start the journalists that are active now didn't grow up with this kind of cultural change. In the war between pop and high culture, the victor 'pop' had already made itself at home by the time these people reached adulthood. it's like negative version of the world that the pop cultural theorists and music press people grew up in now. All art forms are measured against pop, rather than all pop being measured against high art. I think the NME just reflects that. You can't really complain if the dominant way of looking at something (popular appeal) is used to analyse popular music, I suppose. Cheers, Mark Brown, editor (on leave), www.ABCtales.com