What the pop papers say: NME at sixty and a half

With a multitude of covers to choose from, this week it's the NME's 60th birthday.

Only it isn't, is it? As the free facsimile of issue one inside shows, the magazine launched in March 1952. Were you looking for a metaphor for "slightly behind the curve", turning up six months late to your own party would be a pretty good one.

So, who do we get on these multicovers? There is a nice surprise - a Patti Smith variant, meaning that at least there's one woman given front page prominence. A fifty per cent drop in the number of women who appeared on the front of issue one, but - hey, who said progress would always be a straight line, eh?

Smith is a slightly risky choice for the anniversary - she's not been considered worthy of a cover for over thirty years and so, unlike some of the other cover stars is a bit less grateful, a bit less eager to please. She tells an anecdote about how, to punky New Yorkers, NME was too expensive, so they'd read the content but not buy the magazine. Ah, for the days when that was just a problem in overseas markets, eh, IPC?

Other covers- well, obviously there's not one but two Gallaghers.

Liam is reminded that the NME in the 1990s was "practically stalking" him every week - imagine that, eh? Asked why the NME is important (a leading question) he burbles out something almost incomprehensible that they transcribe anyway:

When I go and do my weekly shop I get NME and I read it while my misses is putting all the gear in."

Ah, the magazine of choice for boorish middle-aged men; such a quick read you can get through it while someone lobs a couple of foccacias and a bottle of merlot into the Bag For Life.

Noel, meanwhile, makes a more spirited attempt to justify the NME's existence:

I don't read about things in the Daily Mail, or a Sunday supplement, or the fucking Guardian. I read them in the NME.

Me, Liam, Noel. Is there anyone in the actual demographic that NME sells to its advertisers buying the thing?

Talkingnof demographics, there's an inadvertently revealing quote from Noel when he's talking about his brother's covers:

I'd go into the shop, and me two Asian mates, they'd be reading it under the counter.

"Me two Asian mates", Noel? Apart possibly from David Cameron, who mentions irrelevant ethnicity in the middle of an anecdote?

Paul Weller awkwardly tells a story about the Melody Maker (hey, how is that Meldoy Maker website coming along, IPC?) but does spark a wonderful admission from Gavin Haynes, that the Preston from The Ordinary Boys interviews his hero Weller piece was a bit of a sham:

[Preston] wasn't even a fan, despite claiming to be. [...] He only didn't because that was the feature that would get him in the NME.

Really? Preston pretending to like someone just to raise his profile? Hard to imagine, innit?

Weller helpfully announces that he, too, reads the NME rather than blogs. The advertising department must have been screaming "can you find someone who doesn't wear trousers with elasticised waistbands who reads the bloody thing?"

There are some teenaged readers in the Arctic Monkeys piece, but, erm, they were the teenaged Monkeys.

Nicky Wire actually has something interesting to say, recalling a time when NME spoke confidently about Roth and Amis and - wonderfully - singling out the Sing Me To Sleep Youth Suicide issue, which normally gets pointed to as an example of what the NME shouldn't have been doing, despite it coming from an era of more solid sales and a more creative product.

John Lydon out of the estate agency business gets a front, too - I think he's the only person to mention Sounds, and as far as I can see, there's not a single mention of the fourth power, Record Mirror, anywhere in the issue.

The sixth cover is The Killers, who use their platform to announce that Razorlight get a bad rap. Which is true; Razorlight are no worse than The Killers.

Perhaps what's more interesting than the people who turned up is the people who didn't - most notably, no Bowie, who was something of a God for the 40th and 50th anniversaries and used to hold the record for most covers back when you had to wait for a while between reappearances. I wonder who fell out of favour with whom.

And there's barely a whisper of Pete Doherty.

What else do we get? There's a collection of "crazy covers" which ignores Wire's genuine enthusiasm for a time when NME was interested in the culture that created music rather than just rerunning old Lennon interviews. An arch eyebrow is raised for the Karen Grant and Blind Date covers - imagine, eh, the NME putting TV on its front cover. What were they thinking? It'd be like, say, half the 2012 NME website being given over to film and telly, wouldn't it? That would be crazy.

There's a two-page history of the magazine, which runs thought the well-trod path: Accordian Times, singles chart, Beatles, swinging London, falling sales, Tony Parsons, indie pop, lion rock, The Arctic Monkeys.

Alright, it might not have mentioned Lion Rock. But the is a namecheck for shrromadelica.
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Rather awkwardly, the history starts with an error, suggesting it was a merger between the Musical Express and the Accoridan Times which created the NME - a "fact" which the Guardian repeated this week.

The reprint of issue one is lovely, although to be honest, I'm more curious to see what the final Musical Express & Accordian Times looked like. It's interesting to see a tension as to what the magazine might be known as back in March 1952 - there's a small lobby for The New ME, and NME appears only once. The page given over to Accordians mentions the first ever electric accoridan. Dropped from the masthead and electricity - it must have been a worrying week for accordianists everywhere.

Perhaps the most heartening thing in the issue, though, is a short bit by Matt Wilkinson setting out a manifesto for the next 60 years. Part a diagnostic on what's gone wrong in alt rock - no stars, no spirit - and part a pledge for the future:

Personally, I'm for smashing the whole fucker wide open

Next week's cover is Palma Violets. That's a start. But only time will tell if this really is a new rallying call, or merely the new music ed doodling in the corner while the churn of Gallagher - Beatles - Gallagher - Clash covers roll on.

Gordon in the morning: Oh, mother

The trouble with Gordon's apparent decision to allow Simon Cowell to write huge chunks of the Sun's gossip pages to promote JLS is, as we've seen, JLS simply aren't interesting enough to support a constant stream of stories.

Today, for instance, it's yet another reworking of the "they like to party" angle, as it's claimed their mothers are angry. And the overheated coverage is now starting to collapse in on itself:

THE lads from JLS have told me that they've been in hot water with their mums - for appearing in this column too many times.

Presumably their mothers buy the Sun to read about celebrities, rather than people who lost a talent show months and months ago.

I've been reporting on enthusiastic pair ASTON MERRYGOLD and MARVINHUMES almost every day because of to their partying lifestyles.

Yes, who can forget "man buys a burger", for example?

I'm loving their lust for life.

Ah, yes. I'm surprised there isn't a Duke Of Edinburgh badge in 'getting yourself photographed by your management in order to keep a weak profile in a newspaper column with apparently nothing else to write about'.

JLS managed to put away five treasure chests of booze, six bottles of vodka and five bottles of champagne.

Not, of course, that The Sun thinks binge drinking is a good thing.

Still, I wouldn't want you to give the impression that Smart is so desperate to fill his columns these days that he'll give space to any reality TV show flop who can muster the merest scrap of name recognition. Look here, for example:

PRESTON'S Biz Session marked a career first - the former ORDINARY BOYS star's debut performance WITHOUT his bandmates.

Oh.

Preston goes it alone

You know what's really heartbreaking about the announcement of the completion of the solo album from Preston who used to be in Chanelle And Preston? It's the timing, oh-so-coincidentally at the same time as Celebrity Big Brother is on. Because he was on that, you know. He was the one who had to pretend he was in a band that people had heard of, back in 2006.

Weller recants: Preston is a silly pop star

Paul Weller gave The Ordinary Boys a small boost early on in what I shan't call "their career" lest people think me sarcastic. Weller told people he loved the band.

Now, though, Weller is withdrawing his support. Why he's even bothering to mention this in 2008 is puzzling - it's a little bit like saying you no longer endorse John Kerry for president, isn't it?

What's even more bemusing is his reasoning:

"What happened to them, man? I thought he was a credible character, serious about what he was doing,” Weller told the Mirror newspaper.

“Then he's behaving like a silly pop star, a total about-face."

Weller is reacting to Preston going on Celebrity Big Brother. In 2006. Is he slowly working his way through back issues of Heat or something?

Just in time for the new Big Brother series

We might have thought that going on Celebrity Big Brother would be enough to torpedo The Ordinary Boy's career, but here we are, two years on, and they're still turning up in the newspapers. Admittedly, only because Preston is supposedly seeing someone else, and we think it's now sixteen full months since anyone played an Ordinary Boys song anywhere in the world, but, still, it's more than Ultrasound get, isn't it?

Preston and Chantelle: the end

The divorce of Preston and Chantelle, ending a kind-of-romance that bloomed on Celebrity Big Brother, has been ended.

Chantelle divorced Preston on grounds of Preston's "unreasonable behaviour", which - from press interviews she's recently given - seems to have consisted of reading the odd book and having conversations about politics. Why isn't someone building a refuge to save partners from this sort of intolerable behaviour?

Another heartbreaking story of celebrity loss

The uncoupling of Chantelle and Preston is proving tricksy, as Preston is now demanding his share of the kiss-and-tell cash:

A source close to her said: "Preston claims that without him and their marriage she wouldn't have had anything to talk about it.

"But she thinks that's ridiculous and he is being completely unreasonable. She can't believe how bitter he is being and is furious. Their marriage was miserable - now the divorce is going to be just as bad."

We reckon this story in the People will be worth another fifty quid to Preston's claims, then.

Hang on, though, Chantelle has found something to talk about that's nothing to do with Preston. Her breasts:

Before the op Celebrity Big Brother winner Chantelle, a natural 32B, said: "I'd love to be a cup...

That's what the People says - Chantelle wants to be a cup. Rather than a mug, we suppose. Still, at least her breasts give her something to talk about other than Pre... oh

"... Preston didn't want me to get them done. He said that fake boobs were grotesque but now I can do what I want."

Apparently, even her breasts are controlled by her relationship with Preston.

Still, she does have a life beyond him:

After splitting with Preston, whose biggest hit was Boys Will Be Boys, Chantelle dated Chris Neal who dumped Big Bruv madam Nikki Grahame for her.

But Chris, 26, a pal of Jade Goody's ex Jack Tweed, is now out of the picture.

Does everybody she know have some sort of Big Brother connection? Have these people actually been put on an island away from everyone else?

Chantelle "forgot" she wasn't the marrying kind

Chantelle off of Big Brother - who, surely with divorce must be nearing the end of her celebrity life cycle - has been explaining to the Daily Mail that she got confused when she married Preston:

"I don't know why I did it now. I just got caught up in the whole thing. He asked me to marry him and I went: 'Yes!' I'd forgotten that I didn't ever want to get married. I didn't want to have children. Now I've reminded myself of that again. I can be a bit indecisive, me."

The tragedy, of course, is that the whole wrong marriage could have been avoided had Chantelle put a post-it on the fridge with a reminder that she didn't want to get married; next to the one about needing more milk and not forgetting her mum's birthday.

Chantelle worries that people might think she's not very bright:

"Do you think I'm stupid?" she asks. "Maybe I am, but I don't think I am. I just don't see why you need to know what capital goes with what country. Why would you need to know that?

"Or politics. Boring. Who cares? Does it make me stupid if I don't want to have opinions about that? Does it?"

Um, yes, actually, Chantelle, and also dangerously disassociated from the realities of the world.

The Mail is equally worried:

Who knows? Who cares? Well, quite a lot of people actually. Thanks to our celebrity-obsessed age, everything Chantelle does, says and thinks is documented, and served up for our entertainment.

The Mail's fretting over this celebrity obsession might have been a little more convincing had it not come in the middle of a full-length interview with Houghton, of course.

Oh my god: Whoever could have seen this coming?

Chantelle - off the last CBB that wasn't embroiled in a racist bullying scandal - has been opening her heart to the News of the World about her marriage to Preston out the Ordinary Boys:

We were like from two different planets.

"He loved politics and wanted to talk about it. But I know nothing about politics, it doesn't interest me at all.

"I wanted to watch Hollyoaks on telly but he preferred a serious documentary. I'd go and buy Victoria Beckham's autobiography and he'd buy an educational book.

"I'd fancy buying a BMW and he'd want an old Jag. He loved Brighton and had all his friends there. I hated it and had all my family and friends in Essex. I loved trendy champagne bars in London. He loved ordinary local pubs.

It's like Paula Abdul and MC Skat Cat all over again. If only someone - like, you know, the entire veiwing public - had spotted that they were completely incompatible from the very start and attempted to warn them, or something.

It does make you wonder, though, what made them even think getting married - and so swiftly - was going to work in the first place? Could it have been, oooh, enormous cheques from the gossip magazines?

Still, they tried:

I'd dyed my hair brown because I thought it would make me appear more classy and intelligent. But it completely changed my personality. We'd both become a bit boring.

If only she'd gone with the "trying wearing glasses" attempt at intelligence instead of the "going chestnut" approach - she could have taken them off to turn her personality back swiftly.

Still, it's not ending bitterly:

"I certainly earned more than Preston during our marriage.

"But it's going to be an amicable divorce and we'll split everything 50-50."

Amicable. That's lovely - and the best way to ensure the split is amicable is by telling the News of the World that your soon-to-be-ex-husband is a weak, boring, under-earning, boozing, inattentive bloke who made you so unhappy you developed bulimia.

Stunted publicity?

The happy news that Chantelle and Preston are down in Brighton, shopping with their stupid little rat-dogs under their arms is tempered somewhat by the unsettling suspicion that surely they haven't used a divorce as a publicity tool?

This sort of behaviour will require Iain Duncan-Smith to produce tax-breaks plans so that people will take divorce seriously in future.

Not all married couple discuss percentages in bed

Chantelle Outtheordinaryboys, who was briefly married to Preston Outtheordinaryboys after they met on Family Fortunes, has denied that the whole thing was a publicity stunt:

"I did things in bed with Preston that you wouldn't do with someone if it was a publicity stunt."

It's not known if this includes just specific things - you know, fisting or whatever - or if she means that you'd have to be really, really committed to something to have sex with Preston at all.

Oh My God! The marriage is over

Can it really be true? Can Preston and Chantelle, off of Big Brother, really be splitting up?

We understand that she started to read him extracts from her book, and he just got up and walked out.