Directioners, why you so angry?

As much as I'm not fond of NME's review writing at the minute, the NME Awards are still my favourite music awards ceremony of the year.

It was a good night for a lot of my favourite musicians - Biffy Clyro won best British band, Johnny Marr won Godlike Genius, Palma Violets won best new band. Although the success of my music collection did put a smile on my face, I was ecstatic to see One Direction getting worst band and Harry Styles getting villain of the year but not everyone shared my view as you probably know.

Styles, respect to him, took his award with a pinch of salt and showed that he could be a grown up about the "tongue and cheek" award saying 'And thank you to NME for my award tonight. Gotta take the rough with the smooth eh?' - I'd like to say the fans showed as much respect for themselves when they found out about One Directions success at the ceremony...

Almost straight after Harry's tweet, his following sharpened their pitch forks for yet another rant at someone for daring like anything other than vaguely attractive young men singing, with the aid of autotune, other people's songs. The only good thing about the situation is now 11,274,851 know there is something beyond chart music as I'm sure that about 75% of that sum had never heard of NME before that. 

Fans wrote very angry letters, YES LETTERS, to NME as well as a number of very aggressive tweets saying "I'M GOING TO SHOOT YOU IN THE FUCKING HEAD" and "MY BAAABBBYYYYY HOW IGNORANT PEOPLE CAN BE !!!! PIECES OF SHITTTT!". But why are they so angry?

I understand they are hurt that their favourite people in the whole have been slagged off  (I would be) but to me, I'd take 1D's success at the NME awards as a complement. Firstly, NME have considered One Direction as a band which is a lot more than their readers would consider them and isn't it what Directioners have wanted for years? To have One Direction seen as a band? Secondly, lets face Harry Styles is an arse. How many women has he bedded in the last year? As a girl, I can honestly say this is one of the reasons he's so unattractive - HE HAS NO RESPECT FOR WOMEN, he just picks and chooses which women he wants when he wants and that to me is utterly repulsive! I mean it really is a low to be hated more than David Cameron but he deserves it. Cameron, as much as he is a posh twat, is a family man who loves his kids and his wife and as much as he's not doing a good job at running the country, I get the impression he's a pretty nice guy.

Styles' 19th birthday party photos are enough to put you off him - £3k bar tabs, cake fights, band member getting close to strippers - it's pathetic! He's a silly 19 year old who is too big for his boots and I hoped his award would give him a reality check but to be fair I think it has made his ego even bigger.

Of course not all Directioners are bad, I have Directioners as friends who were hurt but understood the fact that it's obviously other people's opinion and dealt with it. Harry too, he just took it as another award to add to his collection and was very civil. The problem these days is their is a fine line between loyally following musicians and being emotionally and mentally unstable.

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What has happened to NME?

Hello all, I haven't posted in a while because I've been extremely busy with coursework but I'm back to talk about what was my favourite music magazine NME. 

Now 2013 was meant to be a a year of great music and great artist and to me (even though we're only two months in) it has but apparently, NME doesn't think so. I don't know if others agree but I'd say a good review from NME is 8/10 but NME have been a bit picky with those and aren't handing them out very often this year. 

My first issue was review of Pure Love's album "Anthems" which they gave a measly 1/10. The writer of this particular review Tom Howard said the album "consisted of 11 tracks of unimaginative pub rock" which to me is a bit harsh because, all though Frank Carter was previously the singer of Gallows and Jim Carroll was once the guitarist of Hope Conspiracy, Pure Love are a new band and this is their debut album it's not going to be The White Album and also my understanding is that NME write about Indie music with ultimately is pub rock, no? Mr Howard then went on to say that "Ultimately it just proves that all Carter did in Gallows was sing." which may have been the case but I've listened to the album and the album may not be perfect but it's still very good for a new band's debut and if you ask me has some catchy songs. Reactions to the review weren't very good I must admit but the point is still the same, a 1/10 is basically saying that it isn't worthy of existence and I don't think any album deserves that and definitely not this one.

Secondly, there is Fionn Regan's "The Bunkhouse Vol 1: Anchor Black Tattoo" which Kevin EG Perry gave a 5/10 because he recorded it himself with a mic and four-track instead of a big studio. Is it just me asking whether or not NME have forgotten what kind of bands they write about? Regan has independently recorded and released his own album and by the looks of things is doing quite well in the great scheme of things, Spotify like it - it's all over there so how could it be bad? I think it's a lovely album which has a nice relaxed feel to it and I would just like to add "reciting his careful poetry while flicking at the strings as if trying to dislodge a piece of chewing gum." is called finger picking and is a well known guitar technique.

The last album I'm going to mention is one I'm annoyed by simply because I love the band so much. Dan Stubbs gave Biffy Clyro's album "Opposites" a 7/10, which to me is a shock straight away but then when you read what he didn't like about the album it goes beyond ridiculous. Stubbs writes "A pained atmosphere hangs over CD1, broken only by the bit in 'The Joke's On Us' when 'our souls' sounds like 'arseholes'" which is not only very immature but also quite offensive, it is like he's saying "Hahaha, their Scottish... Hilarious!". To me it's fairly obvious that Mr Stubbs here listened to the album once as I'll even admit that after my first listen I didn't really get what Biffy were getting at with the album after all, there are 20 tracks on the new album so it's a lot to take in at first but after a few listens you do start to get it and it becomes clear they have pulled off the double album.

If you ask me NMEs review writing has become a bit bitchy and desperate to cause controversy but it brings down the standard of the magazine completely. To be honest, if NME want to regain the respect of their readers they need to listen to the album more than once and write more than a paragraph on the album. This is meant to be a well established music magazine, they need to start acting like it again.

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