NME RIP

It's been a long time coming sadly but today whichever global mega corporation owns the tattered remains of the NME has announced that it's to stop printing any more copies after this week's issue, effectively ending 66 years of music history.

I bought and read the NME for years, decades even. I stopped after one of the many tiresome relaunches but still flicked through copies in WHSmith from time to time, which took all of three minutes. And that was the problem. There was bugger all in there for the £2 or whatever it was they wanted you to part with every week.

I stated reading it again when it became free though and occasionally picked up some decent new music tips from it, even if it meant ploughing through 20 pages of 'advertising promotions in association with VO5'. I know we're all supposed to believe that 'print' is dead but there's still something sad about knowing that bands in the future won't be able to see themselves on NME's hallowed pages.

In the words of Ash's new single - a band who appeared on the cover of NME on more than one occasion - what a buzz kill eh?