Who is popular today?

Keir Starmer wants all schoolchildren to do a two-week stint, preferably with a law firm, but they should learn to be TikTok physios or butlers to robotsWhen I was 17 I coveted work experience at the NME more than any other placement. This was early 2005, when the Libertines were responsible for the dominant north London teenage aesthetic. Schoolboys unironically wore crimson Victorian soldiers’ tunics to house parties. We didn’t know any better. For a would-be hack, there was only one magazine worth pursuing. I confidently applied for my slot, assuming I’d be invited in the following Monday, leaving me a decent window to revise for my A-levels after doing smack at Pete Doherty’s flat. They offered me a fortnight’s work experience … in March 2007.Two years is a long time when you’re 17 and even longer for indie bands. By the time my turn came around, I had practically forgotten about the NME. So had everyone else. The lustre had come off the “scene”. I went along nonetheless, turning up to their tower in Blackfriars wearing a grey accountant’s suit, an undergraduate dressed as a middle-aged man in an office full of the opposite. One evening I was offered 24 cans of Carling to stay late and transcribe an interview with Keith Richards. The next morning I was asked if there were any “news lines”. Not really, I said. Just the usual Keith Richards stuff. A few days later I saw some of the words I’d typed up on the front page of the Sun under the headline: KEITH: I SNORTED MY DAD. Continue reading...