These People Are Not Your Friends

On Thursday Steven Wells died. Swells was many things but most importantly for me he was a writer for the NME. I read both the NME and Melody Maker religiously between 1992 and 1998, pretty much the last gasp for both publications. My dad had been a subscriber since before I was born and every Thursday after school I’d go to the newsagent to collect them. Swells and writers like him had a huge influence on not just my musical taste but my writing style and beliefs about journalism and criticism.

In a piece of serendipity that is also slightly ill-timed another NME writer of that era, John Harris, asks where have all the good music writers gone? There is no mention of Swells. As the writer himself alludes to, Harris is now part of the dad rock tendency and this hangs over his article.

Speaking of dad rock, Bruce Springsteen was pretty special last night.