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******The game of NME and its chosen bands: *******

1) NME takes an interest in band.
2) Band gives good copy, e.g. interviews in which they assert themselves to be the most important act in the world right now/ever. This is a path well-trodden, e.g. Suede, Manics, Oasis, and now by fools like Razorlight and The Ordinary Boys.
3) NME picks up this line and runs with it, lauding band as best new thing ever - if band can be pushed as part of a scene, so much the better.
4) NME begins to make fun of band via the odd sarcastic remark/picture caption/whatever.
5) NME launches full-frontal assault on band, calling them rubbish, irrelevant, boring, embarrassing.
6) Band tells anyone who will listen that the NME are all vicious guttersnipes, band doesn't need NME and never did.

******************End of game******************

The funniest thing about NME is the vitriol its writers pour upon bands that have succeeded without their patronage. Just fancy, 15 years down the line and still hurling peurile insults at The Levellers, a band who racked up one platinum and a couple of gold albums, numerous chart singles and headlined Glastonbury, all with an NME approval rating of zero.

NME: it's good for a laugh, ain't it?

*puts hand up*

I quite liked Terris. Not the best band ever as NME tried to claim but also not the worst. Without the incredible amount of hype they received I think they would have gone on to be quite successful.

Unfortunately its not in NMEs nature to give a band time to develop. It has to be great now or it gets dropped. They dont seem to appreciate that a bands best work tends to come at least 2 albums into a career.

NME killed Terris!!!! BASTARDS!!!!!

Ah, the old NME rant...I've done it on this board so many times now I won't repeat it, except to say again that I was a weekly NME reader for a long, long time. No matter how much I slate them, they were solely responsible for my discovery of some of my absolute favourite bands: Spiritualized, Joy Division, the White Stripes, the Manics, and (of course) Radiohead - as well as several others - were introduced to me by NME and NME alone.

Over the last few years it's decreased in size and diminished in thickness yet has still managed to become much more expensive. It's dominated by graphics now and their reviews are little more than caption-length. Last I checked they now only review 3 singles a week. And the quality of criticism is dreadful - for a long time I defended them on this front, even with The Strokes and so on, but I just can't physically bring myself to say a positive word about such junk any more.

I know it's always been a hype-machine to an extent, but at least it used to have a sense of humour, a wryly disguised eye for what was actually serious quality...please don't die on me, NME, come back...