Conor McNicholas resigns from 'NME'

Wednesday, June 24 2009, 16:18 BST

Digitalspy.com

By Mayer Nissim, Entertainment Reporter

 

Conor McNicholas has stepped down as editor of the NME.

 

McNicholas took over the publication in June 2002 and was named PPA consumer editor of the year in 2004 and BSME editor of the year for entertainment magazines in 2005.

 

Publishing director Paul Cheal said: "Conor has made a great contribution to the ongoing development of the NME."

 

McNicholas said: "It's been a huge privilege to edit the NME and be part of such an iconic brand that has continued to shape the future of magazine publishing."

 

On his Twitter page, he added: "I'm leaving to go and edit Top Gear magazine at the BBC. Amazing job for a petrolhead like me. Will be at NME for a good few weeks yet."

 

Are you pleased Conor McNicholas has left the NME or do you think he did a good job?

I am pleased he has left and do not think he has done a good job.

 

I don't think I need to say why, it is pretty obvious.

I think there is more than enough evidence of old posts on this site to let you know my opinion of Conor McTwat. :lol:

 

Him and Max Mosley effectively resigning in the same day. Good times. :D

If they can get the right editor on board then they might be able to get the NME back on track, but im unsure if they could find someone good enough, unless this destroys the magazine (putting it to it's much needed death) whoever is the next editor though, will surely not be as bad.

It needs a complete overhaul by somebody who loves music not one who spins marketing jargon.

 

But I think the independent music scene has been pretty much killed off - the majority of the releases in the so-called indie, alternative and specialist forum are none of the above...and if that's what you're expecting from the NME then that's what you've been getting and will continue to get.

 

Would be nice if they cut the photos and increased the writing at least though.

It needs a complete overhaul by somebody who loves music not one who spins marketing jargon.

 

Agreed, I would say that Conor McNicholas was the last straw for me as far as the NME goes.... I had read NME every week since about 1988 through to 1998, then only kind of occasionally, then when McNicholas took over and totally dumbed down the mag, not at all....

 

NME was once a really good read, with intelligent, witty, sharply observed journalism which engaged with the reader on a critical and intellectual level... Then all the good journalists left and got jobs with the Broadsheets - Guardian, Independant, etc.....

 

McNicholas' petty and stupid vendetta against Morrissey (which went to the extent of actually re-writing what the original interviewer had originally written in a way which was positively Stalin/Goebbels-esque) really summed up for me everything that was wrong with McNicholas and the sheer depths to which the NME had plunged.....

 

Good riddance to bad rubbish..... -_-

^

 

I'd also add particular lows was the way his mag got behind & hyped out of all proportion Lily Allen as if she was the new PJ Harvey (when she just so happened to have been a schoolmate of Conor at Hill House School, Millfield and Bedales School two of the ten most costliest schools in the country (also Prince Charles attended those junior & senior school). Even to the extent that it tries to knock & ridicule Lady GaGa an artist whom has had a run in with Lily Allen early in her career, despite the fact that more credible monthly magazines like The Word, Uncut, etc, and most music journals as well as musical peers like David Bowie, Robert Smith, Deborah Harry, Grace Jones, Thom Yorke, Brian Eno, etc have praised her as being a potential saviour of the pop music genre.

 

Also the way it got behind arguably the worst genre in music history (perhaps replacing 1980s Hair Metal), Emo and acts like My Chemical Romance & Fall Out Boy.

 

Add to that its attacks at every opportunity of two unquestionable Great British music icons Morrissey & John Lydon. Both because they were 100% correct at pointing out the importance historically of a magazine like the NME, and how it has gone downhill so rapidly under Conor McNicholas reign.

 

But perhaps the most unforgivable thing he did was when he was the chairman of the 2007 judging panel of the Mercury Music awards, when allegedly according to others on the panel there was a battle regarding what album should win that award between Amy Winehouse – Back to Black; Bat for Lashes – Fur and Gold; the Klaxons - Myths Of The Near Future. The votes were split 4 each for Amy & Bats For Lashes; 3 for the Klaxons, and 1 was for another album on the list, however he persuaded that judge to change to vote for The Klaxons causing a 3 way tie & as head judge he had the casting vote so enabling that very patchy IMHO album of new wave of new rave bollocks to beat two of the greatest albums of the decade to the prize.

^

 

I'd also add particular lows was the way his mag got behind & hyped out of all proportion Lily Allen as if she was the new PJ Harvey (when she just so happened to have been a schoolmate of Conor at Hill House School, Millfield and Bedales School two of the ten most costliest schools in the country (also Prince Charles attended those junior & senior school). Even to the extent that it tries to knock & ridicule Lady GaGa an artist whom has had a run in with Lily Allen early in her career, despite the fact that more credible monthly magazines like The Word, Uncut, etc, and most music journals as well as musical peers like David Bowie, Robert Smith, Deborah Harry, Grace Jones, Thom Yorke, Brian Eno, etc have praised her as being a potential saviour of the pop music genre.

 

I successfully managed to ignore the Lily Allen hype.... In fact, I've successfully managed to ignore most of Lily Allen's appalling "music".... :lol: God, if Lily Allen is the new PJ Harvey, then Puke Prickhard of The Kooks must be the new Ian Brown or Bobby Gillespie.... :rolleyes: :lol:

 

Like I say, I've not read NME really at all since that silly tw@t took it over.... I only read the Morrissey "article" because your good self (I think...) reprinted the whole thing on this very site..... :lol:

 

Also the way it got behind arguably the worst genre in music history (perhaps replacing 1980s Hair Metal), Emo and acts like My Chemical Romance & Fall Out Boy.

 

Exactly... Over-hyping these ludicrous, over-blown and cr@ppy American "Goffick" acts when a perfectly good, Neo-Goth Rock scene was ignored on the NME's very own doorstep in Camden.... <_< Okay, they've helped The Horrors get along, but there are plenty of others just as good and even more local, that were ignored by these Music Press Fascistas.... Also the complete ignorance of a LOT of good German/Scandinavian/Dutch, etc, Rock/Synth/Electronic acts as well.....

I stopped reading it in 1998 too Grimly, Steve Sutherland pretty much started the rot but McNicholas took it to new levels of the tawdry. The sad thing is it was probably the only way for it to survive...almost as sad as the fact that the only decent thing in it over the past decade has been the crossword. Praise Trevor Hungerford...could they make him the editor?

I stopped reading it in 1998 too Grimly, Steve Sutherland pretty much started the rot

 

Actually, yeah, you have a pretty valid point there mate to be fair.... Sutherland was a good NME journalist, but just didn't seem to make a good Editor.... Still, I suppose a lot of the time that happens in a lot of other areas, sometimes a good worker or a foreman will fail in a management position, or a good football player will fail as a club manager.....

Yup, although I guess he didn't have much to work with back then. Indie was on its knees with the most inventive stuff apparently being the likes of The Verve, Travis and the Stereophonics while dance music, a few notable Warp acts aside, was almost exclusively lost in a myriad of cheesy big beat (cheers Norm) and trance (yuck).

Yup, although I guess he didn't have much to work with back then.

 

Pretty true... Probably the greatest Indie moment of the late 90s was Radiohead's absolutely blinding headlining set at Glasto in '98..... Oh, and The Prodigy absolutely p***ing on Oasis at Glasto...... :lol: :lol: