'Class swots' class war? NME writer hits out at OMM's 'fear and disgust of the working classes'

or possibly the full context of John McMahon's comments.

I might well agree with him depending on what exactly he means.

In any case it's nice to hear someone from the NME is writing passionately about music...

but this seems a bit like the pot calling the kettle black; don't the NME revel in pseudo-Dickensian, 'beauty-in-squalor', (most probably faux) working class tripe these days?

Seems to me this article was probably a reaction to mags like the NME glamourising 'working class' music, when really it should be a non-issue

does it matter. Its by no means a forefront music publication really, its reader ship cares about Fall Out Boy and the next big hyped band, not a critque of music tastes and what is perhaps good or bad about the state of indie today.
Theres a place for the mundane and the fantastical in msuic, thats the whole friggin point.
Its about self expression and what you personally feel, hopefully connecting you to other likeminded people, thus creating a fan base.
People are just so narrow minded sometimes to realise that all aspects of this supposed art form are valid and at best astounding.
As I write this I'm listening to a classical composition featuring a full orchestra, on the way home from university I was listening to the Mars Volta and yesterday night I was blissed out to Lightspeed Champion. Theres a place for everything.

I've posted below. There must be squllions of things for you to correct there

does that make sense?

that's far more explicitly prejudice than anything in OMM.

Imagine if a 14 year old boy from Eton who has just started a band hears 'death to Eton Rock'. It's not very nice or fair is it.

here:
http://tinyurl.com/yp7amz

I can't believe you sold Mr Jam out like this! I'm personally outraged you little scamp!

are total jokes to be honest

"For one thing it was seemingly written by an idiot whose politics and ideology have been formed by books rather than life experiences and emotional toil."

From a man who writes about music for a living

Its utterly pointless. In a few years time they will do a similar article about bands emerging who favour emotional intensity and simplistic music to stagnant, self-aware cerebral music, and the cycle will continue

I particularly liked how the OMM piece went on at length with Fred OELM about idealism and standing out from the crowd without once mentioning the Geldof-sized elephant in the room.

the Hadouken grindie thing isn't so far fetched. That was the NME that coined that phrase to refer to the fact that some bands sound a bit grime and a bit indie (OMM have just used the term). The NME also coined the term 'shoegaze' but that was about 15 years ago, but I will always love them for that! :)

James Smith of Hadouken, "It’s definitely important that if people want to find out what grime is don’t come to us. We just take a little bit of influence from it and do our own thing, and it works for us really. (The term grindie) is a conjunction between grime and indie and our music is a conjunction of grime and indie but it’s also got drum and bass and punk and metal in there but you don’t hear those mentioned because they’re white musics. We’re just an indie rock band there’s no doubt about it.”

http://www.gigwise.com/contents.asp?contentid=38381&p=2

Oh the self love :P

The guy who wrote the OMM article likes intelligent rock music. The NME chap doesn't. This is just a difference in opinion. The real issue here is how a guy who says "might of held" becomes the editor of anything, let alone a magazine title with the NME's stature and distribution.

Maybe he's against intelligence full stop, not just in rock music.

Over to OMM and These New Puritans;

OMM: What's your opinion of bands with a very retro sound, like the Courteeners or the Enemy?

George Barnett: I've never heard them, but they're too obsessed with reality.

Jack Barnett: And love songs.

GB: We live in a different world. There should be more magic.

It's a music journalism contest, but no-one knows whose hand is on their cock.

all of those bands are public school educated.
And I'm pretty sure the article was just an angle! It's nice to hear bands with something to say

article doesn't really seem to be about class. There are undertones but I suspect the NME has its own agenda. The OMM article is pretty awful to read, mind. And the NME are twats.

Proof positive that music can be literate, intelligent, passionate, have one foot in sophistication and one foot in getting utterly fucked up, be about the lives of real people and the small things in those lives without being either patronising or critical, ...
I could go on but I won't.
The NME has been irrelevant for a good 10 years now at least. At least you get the feeling that OMM has a breadth of enthusiasms about different musics.

it's the opinion of one guy... The NME's backed bands from 'both sides' - whichever they are...

Selling Ox. Eagle. Lion. Man. as 'eccentric' is an affront and an insult to anyone doing anything interesting or challenging in music at the moment.

They are a fuck-awful band with a lead singer who struts around the stage trying to look dark and interesting, clearly wanting to be an interesting, menacing and compelling frontman in the manner of Nick Cave or Mark E Smith but lacking any threat or charimsa whatsoever. Ox. Eagle. Lion. Man are neutered, edge-less and a diluted CD:UK version of something far better and interesting. The Birthday Party for people who find the Birthday Party too intense, David Cronenberg's Wife for someone who finds subversiveness too much to take and wants an imitation of subversiveness instead, The Fall for bland people.

The fact that anyone can rate is this band at all angers me more than anything else in the music scene at the moment. Even more than people buying Scouting for Girls records.

I'd say that was a pre-requisite ;)

rolo tomassi definitely aren't

Jarvis would probably describe himself as working class (from my understanding that would best describe his upbringing) but he was educated at St Martins and is most definitely an intelligent man. As a result the best Pulp songs deal with working class life in a sensitive, intelligent way. The same could be said of a smattering of Arctic Monkeys material (although this might be pushing it a bit).

The Enemy write songs about getting pissed, promote a 'small town' mentality and champion a tabloid-reading, living-for-the-weekend lifestyle. They do not, from my point of view, speak about 'working class' (read: crap job, little money) life; they merely glamourise mental stagnation and the obstacles such self inflicted retardation creates.

I don't like the assumption that one who reads cannot be working class, which seems to be the logic the NME is following these days. Since the Beatles, working class people have made intelligent pop music. If John and Paul had sung about working as a docker and getting lashed, I don't think we'd still be listening to them now.

End of rant.

Cripes. I sent that text to my address book last night in a fit of (gin fueled) fury. It was either that or stab someone. Hope that explains the woeful grammar. I know DiS boss Sean Adams is in my address book - I'm pleased this is the only text from me to him he's chosen to post online!

Anyway, my views aren't supposed to reflect the opinions of my employer, merely myself. While I'd like to explain my thoughts further, it'd take hours to respond to each and every thread on this board individually. Instead, this is my mobile number 07964245895. Or drop me a line at jamesjam3@gmail.com. If anyone wants to call for a natter tonight, I'll just be watching Eastenders. Give us a call after half eight or something, aye?

Oh, and my job title at NME is features editor. The new music editor is Alex Miller.

McMahon x

I'm going to compromise and stop listening to indie music - 'intelligent' or otherwise.

Now I am superior to everyone.

That was weird.

by this response.

I salute you Mr McMahon.

FEATURES editor.
x

That in itself impresses me!

Your phone bill is going to be huge!

I get lots of free texts.

McMahon x

(most notably the frequency with which it awards 5 stars to albums), but it does at least try and offer a broad range of coverage that goes beyond the best new haircuts.

I remember when the NME used to try and subvert what was expected, now it's just desperate - does anyone remember Conor saying he's never put Anthony & The Johnsons on the cover because he was "too weird"?

What a fuckwit.

I'm in a difficult, intelligent band and three of our members are from council estates. Our music's not about our 'life-experiences' in that it's not about how we like drinking beer and like girls, but it's informed by our emotions and what goes on in the world.

The only openly 'working class' music I like is hip-hop/grime/dubstep (and Pulp, I guess), but I recognise the value in bands like The Jam, Arctic Monkeys et al.

...Pulp show that 'being working class' doesn't have to equate to writing dull music. That puts one in the eye for people like McMahon (because Pulp's music is clever, educated, witty) and to any snobs who say working clas bands=bad.

At least one of Foals went to university. According to a friend who fucked him, he didn't own any CDs aged 20.

People are totally stoopid LOL.

as I was the one that made the ocmment about "seeing someone at the NME writing passionately at music", I should point out you misunderstood my point.

I don't doubt for a second everyone working at the NME is passionate about music. But it's rare I see them expressing that passion when I read the NME. I do not question the passion and enthusiasm of the people who work there but I do question what's demanded by the from the editorial team that seem to want to stamp a certain personality on the magazine which I think is detrimental to the writers' own individual expression.

Aside from that I actually agree with you. Although some other people made similar points so you're not the only one who's right in this thread...

I can see how other people could find a band difficult but I don't see how anyone could find their own music difficult.

i mean, who even buys CDs any more? The plebs download, and PROPER music fans like me only buy vinyl records (because they sound REEEEAL)

Its pretty terrible that it was published really

Is just how bad some bands come off in the OMM piece.

Foals and These New Puritans come across as fucking morons. The writter talks about intelegent indie and holds Pulp and The Smiths up as luminaries, then uses quotes from bands that make them look like a cross between self-righteous toffs cought mid-fox hunt and Motley Crue wannabe band morons. Great work.

"We make a lot of enemies, don't we?" Because you act like pricks perhaps?

Great press for all the bands involved, I suggest in the future they just resort to skinning like kittens outside play schools.

I think you've missed the point in suggesting he's disputing that. It's just disputing whether it is good music...

Seeing as he sent it to all his professional contacts at once. I'd class that as a broadcast.

is not the NME, he's a chap who writes for the NME and stands apart from the majority of NME writers in that at least his opinions are proudly and passionately his own.

As far as I can make out, he was espousing the joys of riot grrrrl via his own fanzine when he was quite literally still in nappies, and whether he's right or wrong (I'd say half and half in this case) he's still very much worth listening too.

Even if he is writing for entirely the wrong publication.

The NME, eh.

It's healthy to have dreams, especially the one that you're still relevant.

...Because my post appeared a gazillion miles from the one I thought it was going to appear behind.

I wasn't having a shot at James, but agreeing that it's nice to see some passion voiced from a staffer as some of their more vocal number really shouldn't speak so often, if ever.

And one he admits was composed whilst under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol.
I hope you don't suffer from vertigo because it must be a long way down from that high horse...

Me too.

, cos James Mcmahon is from the street, ya'll.

He has no right to talk about other people discriminating the working class, then letting his magazine publish ridiculously expensive clothes as 'cool'.

And turn good bands into their bitch, but that's neither here nor there.

and the lecturer was a biased cunt who did anything he could to have a sly dig at anything that wasn't drum and bass or david bowie.

I would laugh if it was sean's tho! :)

you know, if youre going to criticise something in such an over the top and generally insubstantial way you should perhaps have something better to offer, as it is he writes for the NME, one of the few places that might be considered worse than OMM...

maybe.

i was just livid he implied foals were rubbish. lolz

but i'd say it's the bands who are letting 'the working class' down, as much as the press.

having said that the OMM is insufferably bad. on sunday they compared laura marling to sylvia plath...shoot me.

in fact I don't see that much difference between bands on both sides of this so-called divide. For example both Foals and The Enemy market a aesthetic that IMO precedes their music. The Enemy market themselves to lager chavs, whilst Foals market themselves to be hipper-than-thou-while-till-musically-ignorant-walking-haircuts.

anywhere near a tape recorder and ply them with drink, they will inevitably talk bollocks that can be used for a contentious quote or a snappy headine.

The Observer just proved that this applies to bands that they interview just as much as the NME do when they treat us to the wit and wisdom of Kasabian.

James is the guy who I last saw in a Gallows pit.

probably point out that after further reading the article i retract my comments about the quality of NME's journalism, as i understand this represents the views of one man who happens to work for the NME. I would also like to say i do usually enjoy McMahon's work, someone who champions hardcore, in a publication that doesn't usually offer much content on this genre. However i'm troubled by the statement "reeked of inherent fear and disgust of the working classes", could this not be a case of the carrot and the stick? OMM the stick, while the carrot being McMahon's own fear of the working class, causing him to revel in working class stereotypes exemplified by the social commentary of the Enemy and Courteeners.

grow up

the stance of either McMahon or the OMM journalist, I do feel that the intelligent working class are under-represented in today's faltering music scene, and therefore a lack of musicians I feel I can identify with or fully connect with.

But I'm a nookie DiS commentator so therefore expect to be ripped to shit for one reason or another

Fair enough, his text was sent as a private individual rather than an NME writer but many of the criticims he makes of the OMM are evident in the publication he writes from. This doesn't excuse the OMM article for being terrible but does stink of hypocrisy

you've pointed that out.

The mere mention of NME has the usual knee jerk responses. Did everyone fail to read the bit about this being a text?

You all must be plumbers or something.

This is a reply I found online to a question about 'intelligent' rock artists....

"The Sting-meister is the most intelligent classic rock artist I can think of. Waters has written some good stuff.
As for John Lennon, who got several votes, if he were really smart he wouldn't have allowed the disparity of being labelled the Working Class Hero while he lived a Blue Blood life."

This is what we are up against people....

Jesus wept.....

as opposed to "plumber rock", but the purveyors of both come across just as twattish as the other! Sarah Boden makes silly points, calling the Pigeon Detectives "breast-ogling", but then printing a comment from one of the other bands about "playing gigs to steal people's girlfriends". Plus she needs to proof read her articles/get a better sub-editor - Dev Hynes is printed as talking about "six form"...

Notions of class have obviously changed a lot over the past 50 years and previous distinctions seem fairly inadequate. However, at times (particularly when I was at Newcastle University and constantly in the presence of people for whom the poverty and social problems of the north-east are obviously invisible) I've felt furiously working-class and attached to where I come from, even though I'm pretty well-travelled and read the guardian and I'm not embarrassed by being educated - there definitely ARE still distinctions, however nebulous.

I love James - I think he's an excellent person who cares deeply about music - a real humanist. And, even though, we disagree about practically everything, I don't think he would doubt my passion for music either. Music, at it's best, is a way to communicate something non-verbal (if it needed to be verbal, why not just say it?) - intelligence per-se doesn't have to get in the way of that - it would be dishonest to try and disassociate what you feel from what you think - there's a constant back and forth. AC/DC obviously, obviously refined their music until it achieved exactly what they wanted it to - they may not have done that in an overtly analytical way, but they did it. At their best, new ideas in maths and science and architecture are totally romantic - pure and magical - unfortunately, to see the beauty you often have to have extensive previous knowledge of the subject. Music doesn't have to be like that - it can be profoundly affecting to anyone who is open to it.

It bothers me that intelligence, romance, authenticity are referred to as if they're just genres, with no intrinsic meaning or value outside of ridiculous symbols which signify which genre you belong to - so if somebody has a particular kind of haircut and takes themselves too seriously they make 'intelligent' music, if someone says "it's all about the music, man" and has a different kind of haircut, they're automatically authentic. Todd Rundgren had a write-up in the guardian on saturday which made out that he was incapable of being 'authentic' (and I've seen similar things about Bowie) - but it seems pretty clear to me that he's being completely true to what he feels is important and how his brain works - that's probably why his recorded output is so inconsistent but that doesn't mean it's not authentic. The idea of an 'authentic' genre or an 'intelligent' genre seems pretty delusional to me - but we all play into it a little bit, because we're all desperate for there to be more great music out there - music which actually means something to us and makes us feel some weird non-verbal connection to the rest of humanity.

There was no real purpose to this post. Just a rant.

...but on here it can live forever anyway. It's probably better if no-one reads it - they'll just think I'm a bit la-di-dah. What can I say? I was bored on the train and they've got free wifi now. Nice to meet you last night by the way!

more people would have called up to whinge at you/agree with you/call you a cunt! Probably for the best. Maybe everyone else was watching Eastenders too?

...how they published the text message as Letter Of The Month in this month's OMM, and James McMachon won 'a six-month gift membership to The Album Club courtest of Rough Trade' for writing it. Slightly patronising, anyone?