"If the pandemic gave the general public an insight into touring life minus the hour onstage – ie, drinking earlier and earlier in the day to alleviate the tedium of being stuck in cramped, largely identical rooms with the same three or four people for months on end – for many musicians it had the opposite effect. By removing the social gigging element of their lives and careers, lockdown starkly exposed dependencies they’d previously been able to disguise as a typical rock’n’roll lifestyle" - music journalist Mark Beaumont wrote in the Independent introducing his piece about musicians who stopped drinking in the pandemic: members of Royal Blood, Deadletter, You Me At Six, Wu LYF and others.

"Such high-profile homages to a band long under-appreciated beyond these shores... cut far deeper than any barbs in the script. They don’t just lift The Smiths into the revered echelons of your Beatles, Rolling Stones, Whos and U2s; they remind us how special a band we’ve come to define by their differences really were as a unit" - NME's Mark Beaumont writes about a recent 'The Simpsons' episode (as well as the recent movie 'Shoplifters of The World'), and what it means for the band (Morrissey didn't like The Simpsons, said he would sue, if it weren't so costly). The columnist believes "here’s our chance to rescue The Smiths from the pyre, unshackle them from the conversation around them and let their music settle back into its rightful place, just below the heart of the human condition".

"But frankly, the whole list made me wonder what the hell the Hall Of Fame has been doing all these years, getting a bowling alley fitted? I mean, Iron Maiden? Chaka Khan? Todd Rundgren? Fela Kuti? All still in the queue? What is this, The Great Escape for pop legends?" - NME columnist Mark Beaumont comments on this year's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees. How it's set-up now - "it’s just making successful rock’n’roll look like a thing of the increasingly distant past".

"By trying to tell the entire life story of a rock legend in less time than they would’ve spent onstage most nights, they inevitably come across like facile ‘Greatest Hits’ tributes" - NME's Mark Beaumont argues in favor of music biopics without any of the subject's music, because - "Cinema rarely turns out convincing biopic performances, so why not cut the cringe, ditch the hits and concentrate on the stories instead? ... In fact, I’m all for more musical biopics without any music. After all, why limit cinema to the biopics of listenable bands?".

Inspired by the stealth approach of the Mercury Prize ceremony last week, NME's Mark Beaumont writes today that all the awards ceremonies should be conducted that way - "Most of music’s award ceremonies have become so formulaic, dreary and smugly ‘establishment’ that the ninja approach necessitated by corona might well be the shake-up they desperately need". There's several benefits, one of which is - stars caught off guard: "At a stealth award ceremony, you’d really get an insight into the true natures of the stars... The cult rock band, with no time to rehearse their snarled acceptance shrug, might break down and weep like Paltrow in an Oscar factory at the unexpected honour".

"Conspiratorially-minded pop stars have always been the best to hang out with. Every quote is paranoid gold, every story full of mystery and intrigue and, Jesus, have they got the best drugs" - NME's Mark Beaumont wrote in response to Ian Brown's tweet-trum “NO LOCKDOWN NO TESTS! NO TRACKS! NO MASKS NO VAX!”.

NME's columnist wrote, as usual, a warm and funny text, this time about music docus: "One of the main reasons we can watch documentaries about hugely successful bands without seething with envy is the knowledge that, had we followed that career path ourselves, our odds weren’t too great of living to be in the documentary"!!! The last one he liked is the one about The Band - "a rare example of bit players striking it big on their own terms, then watching on helplessly as success tugged at their stray flaws until the whole thing unravelled".

"The Band’s story seems perfectly concise and contained, ideal celluloid fare, and 'Once Were Brothers' director Daniel Roher does a fabulous job of scooping it up in one piece and placing it neatly on film" - Mark Beaumont writes in the review of the new documentary about the Americana godfathers. "Everything about The Band feels so steeped in dust and mythology that the entire film feels like a window into something strangely arcane".

NME's Mark Beaumont is pissed with VICE's article 50 Greatest Landfill Indie Songs, because, well, they're utterly wrong: "The ‘00s UK rock scene was as exciting, energised and unpredictable as Britpop or punk, and far more varied than both. It was a golden age for indie rock as bright as any before or since and you were lucky to be there for it, not least because the shadow of ‘landfill’ has since crushed the opportunities and exposure granted to alternative rock, to the point where current generations are rationed to one or two new breakthrough guitar bands every couple of years".

NME's columnist put it clear and simple: "Give us escapism; take us out of our misery just like your music does. Transform your front room into a scale facsimile of the bridge of the Nostromo, mash every loose food item into a ceiling high sculpture of Apollo, put psychedelic stardust filters on your next colonoscopy. Just take us anywhere that isn’t here".