THE 25/26 FESTIVE PERIOD SERIES (5)

Check NME every week for 2005’s brightest stars, and we’ll see you again with the cream of the crop this time next year.

That’s how yesterday’s posting ended.  And it just so happens that I have the CD from twelve months on.

Rockstars? Who do they think they are? Strutting around the planet shooting their mouths off. Time to bring ’em down to size. Time for the fans to have their say.  Time for the ShockWaves NME Awards 2006.

NME has been polling its army of devoted readers since 1953 to find out who they think is good, who is great and who should be chucked off the nearest cliff. This year you’ve voted in your thousands and right now bands are either nursing their champage hangovers or being comforted by their mums. 

This CD is your souvenir of the ShockWaves NME Awards 2006, including the amazing nationwide tour, the many fabulous shows that have made up London’s biggest live music festival and the awards ceremony itself.

The Awards has always been a special event, but this one has out-ranked all others to take its place as The Greatest Party NME Has Ever Thrown. This is the soundtrack. Enjoy.

Is it just me, or is that not the most patronising, arrogant and probably coke-fuelled way to piss off the vast majority of a readership who had no way of getting to ‘the greatest party’ either because they couldn’t afford it or lived so far from London that it was an impossibility.

The tour referred to did make its way to Glasgow on 27 January 2006, and I was, I’ll admit, lucky enough to be in attendance.  The tickets had gone on sale two months in advance, and as I was keen to again see headliners Maximo Park, I bought a couple for myself and Rachel.  But as it turned out, one of the support bands was the hottest name on the bill….the only one of the four acts NOT to be included on the celebratory CD.  Arctic Monkeys were omnipresent, and yet there was nothing the NME could do when Domino Records chose not to allow any songs to be part of the CD.

mp3: Franz Ferdinand – You Could Have Had It So Much Better
mp3: Editors – Bullets
mp3: The Long Blondes – Once And Never Again
mp3: We Are Scientists – This Scene Is Dead
mp3: Oasis – Rock’n’Roll Star (live)
mp3: The Cribs – Mirror Kisses (live)
mp3: Maximo Park – Now I’m All Over The Shop
mp3: The Strokes – On The Other Side
mp3: Kaiser Chiefs – Saturday Night (live)
mp3: Ian Brown – My Star
mp3: Mystery Jets – The Tale
mp3: Babyshambles – Albion

The CD can be had for 1p plus P&P over at Discogs, but it turns out to be cheaper overall to buy from a different seller who is asking for 30p.

JC