I miss Melody Maker

I'm moving to a new apt this Friday. I'm determined to shed some of the load that I've been carrying around for many years, in particular the bulging folders of clippings and printouts and all sorts of files. So I've been going through dusty boxes, figuring out what to keep and what to chuck. Keep: overly earnest Philip Larkin-influenced poems, a happy/sad reminder of my high school days. Chuck: New Media magazine article circa '95, enthusiastically reviewing a "behemoth" 3GB hard disk. And so on.

In my "Music" folder, I found several issues of Melody Maker. MM is a now-defunct '90s competitor to NME for the title of Best British Music Weekly. Both magazines were required reading during my undergrad visits to Newbury Comics: they no doubt helped shape my general approach to being critical about music. I preferred MM to NME, for two reasons. MM had a cleaner and more colorful design. MM was also early in reporting on the UK bedroom-techno scene around the time of Warp's Artificial Intelligence compilations, whereas NME was in the grip of grunge fever for much too long. Sadly, MM is gone.

One of the issues I own is from December 5, 1992. I must have kept it because of the article titled "Factory R.I.P.", which discusses the events portrayed in 24 Hour Party People. A side column declares "Factory: 10 Reasons to Mourn Its Demise", with a list in which New Order is mentioned frequently, of course.

The same issue also has a "Rebellious Jukebox" section where another one of my favorite bands, the Sundays, talks about the 12 records that "changed their lives". Here is the list by the leading couple:

David Gavurin
1. Joni Mitchell - Blue Motel Room
2. Rod Stewart - Maggie May
3. Joy Division - New Dawn Fades
4. Mahler - Fourth Movement
5. The Smiths - Reel Around the Fountain
6. Prince - Sign O' the Times

Harriet Wheeler
7. The Jackson Five - I Want You Back
8. John Martyn - Over the Hill
9. Cocteau Twins - Sugar Hiccup
10. Iggy Pop - Sweet Sixteen
11. The B-52's - Planet Claire
12. New Order - Lonesome Tonight

New Order! Joy Division! Cocteau Twins! The Smiths! The Jackson Five! It's nice whenever I find out my favorite artists have good taste - it serves to reassure me that I have good taste too. (Note to TypePad dev team: I could use a smiley icon here.)

In her text for Lonesome Tonight, Harriet nails the appeal of New Order and pulls off a fine imitation of the MM writing style:

There seems to be a human predisposition towards worshipping people who have an ability to describe - either in words or music - the feeling of suffering, and New Order do that for me, whether it's mild pissed-off-ness or extreme... pissed-off-ness. Existential despair - New Order have cornered the market in that. They're complete masters of blending rough, primary colour guitar and bass patterns with flawless sampled keyboard rhythms, and that's a brilliant formula for them - combining frailty with extreme grandeur and flashiness. Can I have that job at Melody Maker now?