The British had taste

[Nano]

Re-reading an old rock mag (April 1987) I found this bit of info: British mag New Musical Express had just done a poll between its writers to find the 150 best singles of all time. And guess what... Seems they were listening to those then not so ol' dance records.
Here's the Top 10:

1) ARETHA FRANKLIN - I say a little prayer
2) AL GREEN - Tired of being alone
3) DIONNE WARWICK - Walk on by
4) PRINCE - Kiss
5) ISLEY BROTHERS - This old heart of mine
6) JAMES BROWN - Sex machine
7) AUGUSTUS PABLO - King Tubby meets The Rockers uptown
8 ) CANDI STATON - Young hearts run free
9) MARVIN GAYE - Sexual healing
10) CURTIS MAYFIELD - Move on up

Strange, huh? No Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, not even Donna... but Candi! :) And no Elvis Costello in a British writer Top 10! :D
I made my research, and I can assure you that Stephen Patrick Morrissey was already off the mag and into his music career. So he didn't vote!

[paul]

So what happened to Quinny...just kidding. Just a little jokeepoo :lol:
Actually Nano, I 100% agree. A lot of my favorite music comes from the land of Shakspeare.
Looking at the list, I wonder if these guys might change their minds now. I wonder for example if Kiss would still be there, either from Prince or Tom Jones!

[efunk_adelic]

There is plenty of great music from the UK. :) But then again, I pretty much like everything...

[Leatherman]

Originally Posted by Nano

Re-reading an old rock mag (April 1987) I found this bit of info: British mag New Musical Express had just done a poll between its writers to find the 150 best singles of all time. And guess what... Seems they were listening to those then not so ol' dance records.
Here's the Top 10:

1) ARETHA FRANKLIN - I say a little prayer
2) AL GREEN - Tired of being alone
3) DIONNE WARWICK - Walk on by
4) PRINCE - Kiss
5) ISLEY BROTHERS - This old heart of mine
6) JAMES BROWN - Sex machine
7) AUGUSTUS PABLO - King Tubby meets The Rockers uptown
8 ) CANDI STATON - Young hearts run free
9) MARVIN GAYE - Sexual healing
10) CURTIS MAYFIELD - Move on up

Strange, huh? No Beatles, Stones, Zeppelin, not even Donna... but Candi! :) And no Elvis Costello in a British writer Top 10! :D
I made my research, and I can assure you that Stephen Patrick Morrissey was already off the mag and into his music career. So he didn't vote!

Amongst it's writers maybe, if it was a poll of it's readers I can assure you there would be virtually no black music in there whatsoever. There was a similiar TV poll of the Brittish public, where they voted for the greatest musical artists of all time a couple and it was pretty depressing stuff.

[QUINNY]

Nano: That's a mighty weird poll result, unless it was taken at the very cusp of dance music's domination and they thought they'd better start getting half hip. Otherwise, what an odd mixture for numbers 1-10 for what was predominantly a Rock/Pop/Indie music rag?
I have no real way of explaining it except, are you sure this was just a poll and not a very specific "name your favourite old ......... tracks."

[ladyboygrimsby]

That poll was something of an anomaly, really. NME had been a very good rock magazine in the 70s, but it also gave a lot of coverage to ALL styles of music. I've got old NMEs with scene reports on Wigan Casino, soul weekenders, all kinds of stuff. But in the late 80s there was a bit of a war between some of its writers and the owners. It's known in the industry as 'the hip hop war'! The writers felt that black music was becoming the dominant culture musically and they should reflect that and the owners (and probably readers, too) felt it should be an indie rock magazine with some coverage of other things. The black music writers were purged and it went back to how it is now. In 1987, however, it still had a lot of black music coverage. They were the first magazine to put Marshall Jefferson on the cover, for example.

[Nano]

That's interesting, ladyboy... As for Q's inquiry, I thought that too but the Spanish rock mag from which I read this pointed out that there were 100 best songs but no rock song had made the Top Ten. This is Rock De Lux, a quite good mag that could easily be the "Spain NME", so they knew what they're talking about...