by
Lily Allen has opened her regularly free-flowing gob - proverbially - on her MySpace page to have a pop at NME and the magazine's editor, the award-winning Conor McNicholas.
Allen is angry with the magazine's decision to drop its proposed cover of Allen plus a selection of other female artists - those featured around the top of the magazine's 'Cool List' (click here; Allen was third) - and also with its editor's rather dangerously sexist remark that "you can still rock a crowd when you're wearing stilettos".
This week's issue features Muse on the cover, rather than the likes of Allen and 'Cool List' number one Beth Ditto, frontgal with excellent Olympians The Gossip. Allen had fallen out with NME previously, regarding drug-related comments (read the reveal-all interview on Pitchfork), but agreed to contribute to the 'Cool List' article because "the context was so important, i.e. a strong female presence in music".
She comments on her latest blog:
"Now I don't care for the 'Cool List', and I said this to them in the interview, which is probably why they didn't print it. I don't really think the NME are in any position to tell us who is cool and who isn't; personally I don't think a bunch of people sitting in an office drinking tea, inventing musical genres, and watching Nathan Barley DVDs are leading any kind of cool brigade, do you? But I did find it interesting that they wanted to put five women on the cover, and wanted to name 2006 our year."
Which, of course, they didn't. And then there was Conor's comment, a little unwise in hindsight. Says Allen:
"I mean how fucking patronising. Is that all we are, stilleto-wearing people? Is that all he could say, that we brought a 'new energy' to the music scene? Don't make me sick. We've always been here, you arrogant prick. This was your chance to actually show you meant it. And instead you put Muse on the cover, 'cause you thought that your readers might not buy a magazine with an overweight lesbian and a not-particularly-attractive-looking me on the front. Wankers.
"You should take your heads out of your New Rave arses, and actually think about your responsibilities to youth culture, and to women in general."
And to that, we need add nothing.
