At TMM we get a fair bit of stick for liking popular bands…but finally the sneering at anything that isn’t chosen by a limited class as being cool has gone too far. What brought us to this? Well JLS, 30 Seconds to Mars, Kings of Leon, Tokio Hotel and Jonas Brothers have all been nominated by NME for their “Worst Band” at the their ever so prestigious awards.
Tokio Hotel are quite a quirky pop offering we found…certainly there’s nobody quite like them about..and 30 Seconds to Mars seem to have some good crowd pleasers in the offing if their gigs in Mexico are anything to go by.
And are JLS really so offensive as to be singled out publicly as being awful? The thinking seems to go: “They make catchy pop songs for their fans…and their fans seem to love them…but their fans don’t have good taste…and that annoys us”. Well that’s it then, we should all just learn that NME is the ultimate arbiter of good taste.
Now we’re not in love with all these bands (never even heard the Jonas Brothers), but we don’t start maliciously judging them as bad musicians and by proxy their fans as having bad taste.
We might understand if NME was making a point about independent music…but it’s featured enough non independent bands and enough rich kids who can afford to buy their way into music (something which bands like JLS haven’t done) that we know this isn’t the case.
Besides, they are part of a huge publishing house themselves (IPC Media). They are cynically marketed as being the cool “independent” publication when nothing could be further from the truth….so their faux snobbery seems a little hypocritical.
Oh and may we remind readers they ran a special edition of their publication for Kings of Leon fans, and have continued to give them mass coverage – http://www.nme.com/news/kings-of-leon.
So why this fairly large U-turn? What’s the reason behind such a wide ranging sneer at musicians?
The truth of the matter is this. NME’s circulation declined 16.4% year on year in 2010. In order to increase their visibility, they decided to slag off the most high profile people they could find, from an even more diverse range of musical backgrounds than usual and try to throw in a crazy curve ball with Kings of Leon.
But when is an insult not a true insult…when it’s just done to get attention for the person giving it. Don’t believe us? Look at the way they are feverishly covering JLS’ response to their own award – http://www.nme.com/news/jls/55062
rose
February 23, 2011
“Well that’s it then, we should all just learn that NME is the ultimate arbiter of good taste.”
LOL! I confess, I’m a diehard Tokio Hotel fan so I won’t pass any judgment about taste, good or bad, only that I refuse to have it dictated to me by a bunch of juvenile posers. TH rock my world, screw you NME!
Terminal Evolution
March 10, 2011
Hells yeah, ROSE! I’m diehard too, Tokio Hotel rocks. Hey, here’s a blog link on one of their sites, someone else messing with them- claiming they are “Satan worshippers”… one of the lines in the articles says, (and this is, btw, religious fanaticism again) “Tokio Hotel’s fans jokingly say that one day Bill’s hair will cover the whole world… little do they know how close to the truth they are.” I swear, it’s so absurd I just sat there LAUGHING till I CRIED. ;D
http://www.tokiohotel.com/us/forum/showthread.php?t=12283