“Someone please fire me if I ever so much as joke about a women in rock feature.”

“It's clear that a dramatic adjustment to rock criticism's one-sided gender power-balance is currently underway,” wrote tenebrous critic Maggoty Lamb in the Guardian this August as Kerrang! magazine appointed Nichola Browne as their second ever female editor, and Krissi Murison became NME’s first. Hearty congratulations to Browne and Murison are certainly in order, but perhaps less so to Lamb for his inversely sexist assertion that their respective appointments represent a paradigm shift for female music journalists. He wasn’t the only one at it – amongst others, former NME scribe Lucy O’Brien’s article about the change of hands at NME was featured in G2’s Women section rather than Music.

“The most interesting story about my appointment is that there is no story,” says Murison. “Obviously that angle was lost on the newspaper editors, so in the week my job was announced, we had lots of people speculating about my so-called triumph over adversity, which was a bit patronising to say the least. I don’t want to be dismissive of anyone’s negative experiences in the music industry, but I can only speak for myself. Seven years ago I was a student at Bristol and interning at NME, now I’m going back as editor – if there is still a glass ceiling, I haven’t hit it yet.”

That’s putting it modestly. Growing up in Yateley, a small town between Reading and Guildford, Murison graduated from Bristol with a degree in English in 2003, working as Epigram’s deputy music editor in her second year, and the main music ed in her third. She interned at NME for a week whilst still a student, wrote freelance live reviews for the magazine throughout her final year, and became deputy editor within three years of leaving university before crossing the Atlantic to become Nylon’s music director. Trying to name highlights from the period must surely be a difficult task?

“Being able to live in New York for the best part of six months has been incredible. Before that, I’d say my final project at NME before I left, which was organizing the NME Awards 2009. Sitting there on the night with Blur, Grace Jones, The Cure and Tim Burton altogether in one room was really special. If only Jay-Z had come, it would have probably been the greatest night of my life.” Not bad going for someone who started out writing about music because she was “too musically inept to play in a band.” Or for a mere woman…

But given NME’s recent slippery foothold on the magazine market (figures published in February showed circulation to be down by 24.3%) and the wealth of snide message board commenters and industry types alike who perceive a lack of focus and abundance of hype within the magazine’s pages, there’ll be no time to pay attention to any supposed great glass elevator going off trajectory.

“All I can do is put out the best music magazine possible and let [the naysayers] make of it what they will,” she says on attempting to win over detractors. “There have always been a lot of bloody-minded indie snobs out there desperate for NME to fail regardless of what it does – sometimes I think you just have to cut your losses and embrace the fact that you’ve both moved on. Plus, it’s also a bit of a compliment that you can still make them so worked up and passionate about something they’re so at pains to tell you they don’t care about anymore!”

Conor McNicholas edited NME from 2002 until August 2009, when he left to edit the BBC’s Top Gear publication. He fell prey to criticism for his steering the magazine into the stolid territory of the so-called ‘New Rock Revolution’, focusing on establishing a cross platform media brand rather than on content, and, amongst other things, describing Beth Ditto’s position at the top of the magazine’s Cool List in 2006 as “living proof that you can still rock a crowd whilst wearing stilettos.”

On the gender as journalism debate, Murison quips, “Someone please fire me if I ever so much as joke about a woman in rock feature,” but she otherwise defends her erstwhile boss with sincerity, whilst hinting somewhat poetically at the changes she sees as necessary. As to how her stint in the American publishing industry as Nylon’s music director will influence her position as NME’s editor, she’s respectfully opinionated. “It was great to go away and get some perspective. I had a copy of NME airmailed over every week, and it was really interesting to look at it from afar and realise what was working and what wasn’t. It’s true what they say about woods and trees sometimes.

“I’m pleased to report that in the six months I’ve been away there are already loads of really sharp new writers coming through [in NME]. I want to make sure they have the room to be as brilliant and opinionated as possible. There needs to be much more debate and outrageousness.”

She gives a firm, “You’ll have to wait and see!” when asked what her exact designs for NME might be (though with it being a weekly paper, they won’t all happen immediately), but it’s not hard to spot a pattern in the broader opinions that she voices on the magazine’s content. A frequently read criticism of the magazine in its past incarnation is of its apparent reluctance to focus on the job in hand; that of new music, instead wallowing in the uninspiringly trite doldrums of ladrock, and it does seem a hard one to defend – Kings of Leon and The Killers have each adorned the cover three times this year, and Kasabian twice.

“NME has a strong history of covering lots of different genres. It was one of the first places in the world to champion hip-hop in the 80s and the rise of dance music in the 90s. Yes, it’s true that it’s been in the indie rock ghetto for a good few years – and understandably so.” Perhaps revealing where her tastes lie, she continues, “After all, all the most exciting new music has, until recently, been coming from there. However, NME has always operated at the cutting edge of wherever the music scene is, and as artists and bands become less tribal and more experimental, so must it.”

Her clear resolve is refreshing to hear. In print, Murison’s never one to mince her words, happily biting the hands that many incorrectly believe feed the music press by pointing out the laughable content of po-faced goth lite posterboys White Lies’ lyrics and daring to question the hero worship at the totem of Animal Collective. She comes across as witty without descending into wannabe Vice snark, straight to the point, and most importantly, genuinely knowledgeable and in love with her subject, not just its circulation potential. There’s little reason to believe that she’ll lessen the dint of her honesty as editor.

“The reason I got the job was because the publishing directors were very excited about my ideas and vision for NME. They want me to make changes and have lots of fun with it. Obviously if I suddenly decide to turn it into a gardening monthly or start spending tens of thousands of pounds on elaborate photoshoots in Dubai each week they might change their minds and have a quiet word in my ear…but for now I have complete control.”

It’s a position that many would kill to be in – the chance to influence the music taste of a young generation – after all, that’s the magazine’s biggest audience at present – but although Murison credits her early years at the paper with introducing her to being “crammed into toilet-sized venues watching brand new bands called things like Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party and The Killers,” she flinches at the notion of NME acting as a guidance counselor to new ears. “Oh god, I think it would be awful. Though that’s not to say that NME isn’t going to tell you about a load of great stuff you don’t yet know about.

“Honestly, I don’t want to aim the magazine at anyone other than me and my friends. That’s not supposed to sound exclusive or cliquey, but I just think that when you start writing for an imaginary audience other than yourself, you run the risk of being patronizing to your reader, or coming off as out of your depth. My friends are all smart, passionate music fans – if there’s stuff in there that they find interesting and exciting then I’m doing the job right.”

Krissi on…
Blogs invalidating the work of the critic: I actually think blogs have made the job of music critic even more relevant. There are so many confusing and conflicting opinions out there that everyone could do with a trusted voice cutting through the white noise.

Disastrous occurrences at Epigram: The music editor before me accidentally broke the embargo on writing about ‘Kid A’, which meant we ended up running the worldwide exclusive review. In reality, it was a complete coup which should have seen them lauded for their brazen journalism, but it didn’t seem quite the same when EMI refused to send them any more records that year.

Student journalism: Epigram’s an amazing learning curve for any journalist. You’re given complete control over what goes on the pages, without any formal training for the most part. Obviously this means you make loads of silly mistakes – like libelling the union president, or having the printers refuse to go to work because you’ve used the word “cunt” in a headline, or receiving death threats from Palestinian groups after inadvertenty running a highly-politicised piece of Israeli propoganda (not all of these were the responsibility of the music section, I’d like to make clear). On the plus side, you don’t make those mistakes again and end up learning things that it would take years to if you joined a national paper and worked your way up.


What she’s listening to at the moment: I’ve been living in New York for the past 5 months so a lot of the bands I’ve been seeing have been American. A few favourites are: Crocodiles, The Phenomenal Handclap Band, Jeff The Brotherhood and So So Glos. The xx came over from London to play a few shows in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago and they were incredible. I’m also looking forward to getting the new album by The Very Best.

The qualities she looks for in new writers: Being able to string a sentence together is a good start (it would scare you how many published writers I’ve come across who still struggle with this). At NME, most new writers come through writing about new bands in their area, so a good knowledge of (and enthusiasm about) your local scene is always really useful. Also pitch as many ideas as you can. If you want to really stand out though, you need to have a fresh voice and perspective – avoid clichés to try and find something new and interesting in your subject that hasn’t been written about before.

The main pitfalls of student music journalism: Thinking big words will mask the fact that you have nothing new or interesting to say. If it’s hard work writing it, imagine how hard it is going to be reading it.