i am sparticus: Zen Out

Zen Out

Zen Out: To go beyond any emotions or feelings about something, esp. when you previously had very strong feelings about the subject.

I've decided I've completely zenned out about NME. While I was still in school I use to read NME quite regularly, it kept me up to date on music and it had nice interviews and features and an awesome gig listing in the back. However, over the years it dropped a lot of the objective journalism and settled more for tabloid sensationalism. Somewhere between the reviews of albums that failed to mention what the album sounded like and the articles that spent more time on the lead singer's hair than his band's ability. I bought NME for the last time on the 17th of October 2002, giving it up after reading a four page article on The Libertines that said that it wasn't about their music, or about their live performances, but about their style.

Because NME are so powerful in alternative music, they can make or break bands. Enough hype and the worst band can get into the top twenty, which they frequently seem to do. The focus on one sort of genre and attitude has left a lot of good bands without any publicity. They inspire a lot of ire. Or they did at least. Lately I've come to the realisation that they're only a company who are out to make money, and if they make more money reporting on one specific music scene than they do on publicising good new music so be it. I wish they didn't, but they do. I'm now zen with the idea.