Very little needs to be said about the corrupt, cocaine-riddled world of chart music, populated by tarts and pimps and absent of any understanding or appreciation of music. But, the alternative, that is, alternative both musically and as an attitude, is equally as depressing.

The two most popular perpetrators are NME and Drowned In Sound (DiS), popular meaning the quantity of readers. The stupidity of both is astonishing. Music journalism should attempt to both describe music and convey its affect on the writer; however, this should be done selfishly: The journalist should never think about pleasing his readers and trying to be popular. All criticism of art, whether positive or negative, should never take into account how the readers will react. The two-headed (at present) NME/DiS imbecile has no concept of music journalism as described. NME/DiS wants only to please its readers; it writes only what it thinks its readers want to read. This desperation to appeal is a weekly (NME) or daily (DiS) task for the editors; (recently one of the editors of DiS asked the contributors to the DiS discussion forum what are the forum's bands, a question put to a public forum with (almost) unrestricted access. Of course, he was only speaking to the gobby majority).

The desperation to appeal is displayed physically in public appearances by the editors and "writers" at gigs, whose purpose is only to celebrate the existence of the magazine, where they prance around like the worst kind of Z-list celebrities from reality TV extolling the virtues of drinking to excess and shouting.

The obvious question to ask is why should this desperation to appeal manifest itself as an appeal to the morons: The answer is simply that culturally it is assumed that the morons are the majority and so their assumed desires must be attended to. The culture of both a stupid population and the necessity to do what that population wants has grown in influence during the last ten years inspired by the British Government's policy initiatives that are always aimed at pleasing the majority and the government's assumption, or choice of assumption, that the majority are thick, uncaring tossers. The effect of this culture on journalism is not only an appeal to the morons but also a tolerance of and subsequent encouragement of right wing views that were considered abominable during Thatcher's tenure as Prime Minister: If our readers are right wing thugs then that's whom we appeal to.

The idiots dominate popular alternative music journalism indulging in self-congratulatory wankfests. The music is merely a tool to use to become popular, as popular as the winner of Big Brother, and all intellectual thought, discourse and debate is ridiculed and treated like a disease.

- John D Traynor.