I think August 2004 was the last time I bought the NME — this CD was on the cover, along with, I think, Pete Doherty. If I remember correctly, it was the 'cool list' issue, and Pete and Carl Barat were tied at #1.
I used to read the NME most weeks in the 1980s and early '90s, and started to become more sporadic in this habit around the time of Britpop. I'd almost completely stopped by the end of that decade. And I never got the habit of Q, Mojo or Uncut, all of which have always seemed patchy. That meant I only got them when Neil Young was on the cover, which from the geek-fan perspective was not often enough, but from a journalism point of view was too often. There you go, that's me being part of the problem, and encouraging the press to be too conservative.
As for the CD itself, NME gave it a 10/10 review — surprise! It's from Domino Records, and they seem to be the highest profile UK independent label of the last few years, from Franz Ferdinand to the Arctic Monkey (and they currently do The Magnetic Fields' back catalogue in Europe, too). I'm not a fan of the mainstream indie music of this decade, but I quite like James Yorkston and Adem, who are more folky and are on this CD. The Four Tet track is my favourite by some distance. We saw him last year with Steve Reid at the Green Man Festival. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, also on the CD, are on the bill for Green Man this year. I'll be there again, but I doubt I'll see Malkmus unless there's nothing else to do at that time.
Wikipedia's list of NME compilations of 2004 |
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