Have I ever admitted here that I like Wham! and George Michael?
And thanks for posting the Peter Frame stuff, I used to study that religiously too. Heartwarming to see that again.
Thank you, the knack for simplifying things is actually a professional disease of mine. It's my job as a litigator to boil the most complex cases down to a simple story and a few quips. It drives Edith mad the way I sometimes summarize an incident that took, say, half an hour or more, in three sentences and then answer to her question of "What else happened?": "Nothing, that's all that's relevant."
When punk came along, the NME (which was pivotal in giving Punk a forum) thought it was the pinnacle of music journalism and acted that way. But if truth be told: Their articles were on a different level to either Sounds or Melody Maker (US music mags were even harder to get in Germany than Brit ones, so I rarely got my hands on a Rolling Stone, Creem or Hit Parader). I had never before read people - Charles Shaar Murray, Tony Parsons, Julie Burchill, Caroline Coon, Bob Edmands, Tony Stewart to name a few - writing about music like they did in the NME back then and really devoured it. If I'm honest, a lot of my posting style here in this forum owes a huge debt to what I read in the NME from 76-79.
The humor really got me, they would refer to Deep Purple as "
Shallow Sepia", lambast Judas Priest as "
an act studded with macho insignia, yet totally devoid of true male virility" and their cover single Diamonds & Rust as "
ample revenge for all the terrible things her nibs (= Joan Baez) has done to Dylan songs over the years", painstakingly analyse Ayn Rand over Rush interviews ("
hopefully you didn't go see them with your dole money, that wouldn't be in line with their philosophy at all" and excel at being damning with faint praise like "
Alex Lifeson is a competent guitarist of the genre. I've been to too many Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa and Jeff Beck concerts to say more." or "
Francis Rossi has a fine croon, but the guy who "sings" alongside him - Alan Lancaster - would have a hard time getting a job with Bachman Turner Overdrive".
All these quotes have stuck with me for nearly 40 years now! And there are a whole bunch of then (1976/77) in Germany totally obscure bands I got to know (and still like) via the NME: Strapps, Judas Priest, Dictators, Ramones, Starz, Moxy, Rush, Mahogany Rush, Doctors of Madness, Clash, Sex Pistols, Damned, Television, The Jam ...