My Top Twenty NME Songs

It seems nobody will mourn the NME, and all those whose careers were ravaged in its pages will have the last laugh at what it became - a free supermarket ad-sheet they couldn't even give away. Two album reviews a week and they still had the nerve to call it the New Musical Express! Yes, it had its moments, and yes, it brought fame to bands that might otherwise never have crawled out of their parents' basements, but it also wallowed in the pathetic press culture of "build 'em up then knock 'em down" and groomed journalistic egos that were bigger than many rock stars'. As a magazine, it should have been put out of its misery years ago - long before far more worthy music papers breathed their last.

Its legacy? It'll always live on in these fine songs...

(Plus ones by Ed Sheeran and James Blunt... believe it or not!)


20. A - For Starters

Remember A? No, the NME probably don't either. But A remember the NME...

Hey, it's another day in 'A'

I'm proud to be myself

'Cause rock made me this way

I said hey, I've got plenty more to say

So let me clear my throat

'Cause I'm not cool Britannia,

Not getting any younger

They hate me at NME

I don't care where you've been,

I don't care for your scene

You make me feel like an amputee 

Yeah! I've got something for starters

Throw it up in the air, and we really don't care

We're getting louder!

19. Thunder - On The Radio

Great old school rock n roll... no wonder the NME weren't interested!

I know I never went to art school

I was never in the NME

I got no chance of sleeping with Kate Moss

What the hell is wrong with me?

18. Noise Addict - I Wish I Was Him

Ben Lee's original band. How did he get his NMEs in Australia? There's a clue in the song...

It may sound stupid when I say it out loud

Like I'm just jealous of his silver cloud

He looks real good he drinks diet Coke

He gets his NME's sent by air, not boat

I wish I was him

He gets the women at his feet

With all his cool friends

He gets his records for free

I wish I was him

He has no enemies

I wish I was him

17. Thee Headcoats - (We Hate The Fuckin') NME

With thanks to JC.

16. The Levellers - 100 Years of Solitude

The fact that the Levellers don't like the NME is about as surprising as the fact that the NME didn't like The Levellers.

No solutions built to last

Just petty scores to settle fast 

The N.M.E. was nothing to you

And the Maker, well the Maker of who?

15. Australian Crawl - Unpublished Critics

Another Aussie band with an axe to grind for the NME... from 1981!

The singer in the band, he sweat on a pose

And he's really such a jerk

Thinks he can call me stupid

Because he gets a lot of work

I'm standing in the background, got my arms on the fold

And every dog's gonna have it's day

The New Musical Express and my own 4-way P.A.

14. Butch Walker & The Black Widows - Synthesisers

Everybody's writing songs with synthesizers

But I don't have a synthesizer...

...is a pretty great opening couplet for any song. But this gets better...

I don't have friends at Pitchfork or NME

No sexy heroin addiction plaguing me

But I can still get down like

Frank Poncherello on a motor bike, that's right

Plus they've got Matthew McConaughey in their video. Somehow.

13. Pete Townshend - Jools & Jim

Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons, during their tenure at the NME, wrote a rather vicious little book about the music industry which Pete took offence to...

Anyone can have an opinion

Anyone can join in and jump

Anyone can pay or just stay away

Anyone can crash and thump

But did you read the stuff that Julie said?

Or little Jimmy with his hair died red?

They don't give a shit Keith Moon is dead

Is that exactly what I though I read?

Typewriter tappers

You're all just crappers

You listen to love with your intellect

A4 pushers

You're all just cushions

Morality ain't measured in a room

He wrecked.

12. Adam & The Ants - Press Darlings

When Nick Kent claimed Adam Ant was a Nazi, this was Adam's response...

And if evil be the food of genius

There aren't many demons around

If passion is in fashion

Nick Kent is the best dressed man in town

11. Joe Jackson - Out of Style

Joe Jackson never wanted to be cool...

All the world's so full of problems I just don't know what to do 

Should my jacket have three buttons? - am I out of style with two? 

Is my hair too long? - 'cause I think I feel a change 

I guess I should be ready for it, I look younger than my age 

And I think there's something stirring in the corner of the page 

Of the NME - and I let them lead the way 

10. Morrissey - Journalists Who Lie

Not Moz's finest hour... but then, neither was his various run-ins with the NME. Yes, they had it in for him... yet they also knew they wouldn't have kept going as long as they did without him. The greatest abusive relationship in the history of pop music?

Here's a tip, Morrissey... if you stick your hand into a crocodile's mouth and it bites off your finger, how about not sticking your hand back in there over and over again and getting upset when the same thing keeps happening to you?

Journalists who lie 

The truth is, it happens 

Praise, then crucify 

Just follow this pattern 

And see how:

They're only trying to make their name 

By spreading sickening lies 

About the ones who've made their name 

Mate, give us the knife 

Give us the knife

9. Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros - Gamma Ray

I'm sure Joe had something stronger to say about the NME than this... but if he did, he kept it to himself. Great tune though.

When Alan McGee went to Dundee

He caused all the rock groups to flee

Yeah, I read it in the N.M.E.

It was the gamma ray

8. Destroyer  - Kaputt

Not sure how Vancouver-born Dan Bejar, lead Destroyer, ended up singing about a bunch of British music papers... but he made a great tune out of them.

Sounds

Smash hits

Melody maker

NME

All sound like a dream to me

7. The Kinks - Top of the Pops

I really should do a Top Ten Top of the Pops Songs at some point...

Now my record's number 11 on the BBC

But number seven on the N.M.E

Now the Melody Maker want to interview me

And ask my view on politics and theories on religion

6. The Cure - Desperate Journalist

In which Robert Smith takes umbrage at Paul Morley's review of Three Imaginary Boys and rips into him in a BBC session... while quoting much of the very review that caused him so much ire.

Brilliant.

5. Shame - Lick

The last great song to be written about the NME while it was still in existence?

From Songs of Praise, the debut album from Shame. First great album of 2018?

Not sure. This is definitely the best track on there...

So why don't you sit in the corner of your room

Sit in the corner of your room

And download the next greatest track to your MP3 device

So sincerely recommended to you by the New Musical Express

You can pick it up

Plug it in

And have it ready for free-roaming material before you know it

Then you can stroll on round to your friend’s house and play it loud and proud

As you sit around in a circle and skip one minute and thirty seconds into the chorus

So we can all sing along and gaze and marvel at the four chord future

Cause that's what we want

That's what we need

Something we can touch

Something we can feel

Something that's relatable not debatable

Relatable not debatable

Relatable not debatable

Relatable not debatable

Salutations are in order

To welcome forth our sweet disorder

4. Half Man Half Biscuit - Used To Be In Evil Gazebo

I’m sitting in my Ladbroke Grove

Waiting for the NME

They’re coming down to interview me

But I haven’t told the others, ‘cos they’d mess around and burp, 

And tell the truth and laugh at me for drinking a classic red bottled by a medal-winning estate on the banks of the Garonne...

In which Nigel Blackwell plays the part of a pretentious arsehole musician getting interviewed by the NME...

So then Ben, it seems every track on the EP involves death, drunkenness, desperate poverty, diabolical dealings, incest, murder and abandonment. Does this reflect your current state of mind?

Well you know I have days.

Priceless... and now the chorus...

Oh, I’ve been in a mental hospital

I’ve been in a mental hospital

But I don’t like to talk about it – all the same.

3. George Harrison - Cockamamie Business

The best Beatle. No debate.

Bust my back on the Levy - broke my strings on the BBC

Found my chops on Eel Pie Island - paid my dues at the Marquee

Slagged off by the N.M.E. - lost my stash and my virginity

In this Cockamamie Business

2. Art Brut - Bad Weekend

Eddie Argos wrote my favourite song about the NME...

Haven't read the NME in so long

Don't know what genre we belong

Popular culture, no longer applies to me

How much do you feel that last line? I'm thinking of making that the strapline for this blog too.

Yes, that was my favourite NME song. But this had to be Number One...

1. Sex Pistols - Anarchy In The UK

How many ways to get what you want

I use the best, I use the rest

I use the N.M.E.

I use anarchy!

Or did the NME use them? Symbiosis defined.




Apologies if there were any typos in this post... I threw it together rather quickly before it fell out of fashion. And I'm sure I'll have missed loads of songs as a result... your suggestions welcome.