Camden, north London, 1993. Hundreds of people were thronging the streets, streaming past rows of brightly painted buildings, buying food from market stalls by the canal and bartering with traders.
Sitting in a noisy pub, Louise Wener, the lead singer of a then little-known band called Sleeper, clutched a pint and waited excitedly for a journalist to arrive. "It was our first interview with NME," she recalls. "This guy walked in with a big jacket - I remember he was bald. He sat down at the table, took one look at me and then turned to speak to the other guys. I was the main singer and writing the songs, but he did not ask me a single question."
Wener, who is now a novelist, says that is what music journalism was like then, a "boys' club" - where it was acceptable for writers to ask her lurid and patronising questions and for photographers to leer as they told her to undo another button of her blouse. "It was creepy."
So it came as something of a surprise to learn last week that the magazine she once found so "hideous" - that staffed its offices and filled its pages mainly with men - had appointed Krissi Murison as its first female editor. "I almost fell off my chair," says Wener, laughing.
Wener started out 16 years ago, when the battles between Oasis and Blur were just commencing, Brit Pop and Girl Power had yet to peak, and Lily Allen, Lady Gaga and Little Boots were still at primary school.
But how much has changed in the intervening years? What is different about the offices of the record labels, promotion companies and music magazines? Have they really turned from places dominated by men to ones welcoming and supportive of women? And just how significant is the decision to establish Murison at the helm of one of music's leading publications?
One thing is clear - this is an issue that divides the women of the music industry, from publicists to booking agents to artists themselves. While some complain that the "boys' club" is still very much alive, others argue that the lack of women is more down to choice than discrimination. Having a child, they argue, while working long nights away from home is simply unsustainable for many women.
Murison herself is determined not to dwell on the issue of gender. "I got this job for many reasons, none of which had anything to do with what sex I am," she says. "While I can't speak for the experiences of women at NME or other music magazines in decades past, I can safely say that all my encounters have been nothing more than positive. My first introduction to the NME office was as an intern seven years ago and now I am coming back as editor - every single door that could ever have been opened to me has been."
Not so for others. They argue that women have to fight harder for every chance they get in the industry. Although women appear to succeed in some areas, such as PR, in others such as A&R they have hardly made a mark, they say.
Speech Debelle, the 26-year-old rapper from south London who is a surprise nomination for a Mercury award, describes her first impressions of the industry. "Sexism", she says, is too strong a word for what she has encountered. "But every person I have come across in this business in any position of power have been men - and even more, they have been white men." It has not come as a surprise: "That is the world we live in. The world is run by middle-class, middle-aged, Caucasian men. That is the way history laid things out."
Terri Hall, the managing director of the publicity company Hall or Nothing that represents Oasis, says she can "count on two hands" the women in prominent roles within record companies.
"I think possibly the hierarchy of record labels are quite dismissive of women and fear 'if I promote them, they will have a baby'. It is tragic we are even talking about this today."
Talking about how Murison's appointment has come as a surprise, she adds: "I don't know what it is about music. The editor of Sunday Times Culture is a woman, the editor of Guardian Weekend ..."
Some are trying hard to change the profile of the industry. Alison Wenham, chair and chief executive of the Association for Independent Music (AIM), looked at her own board four years ago and was disgusted to see it filled with "white, middle-class, male graduates". Today it has five women and as many non-white members.
"There is no doubt there is an issue," says Wenham. "If you look at the big companies, there is a chronic shortage of gender and ethnic diversity." She argues that women lack the confidence to stand up and realise they can make a contribution as valid and important as any man.
"There is a timidity that is quite understandable and valid when confronted by a sea of maleness. What we are dealing with is a type of tribalism. Men get comfortable with each other and outside business there is a whole social network that revolves around the things a lot of men enjoy - football, cricket, golf, fishing. Not many women do that. So it confirms this prejudice and feeds itself."
For others it is less the golf club and more the men's toilets. "There is an aspect of the music industry that is taking cocaine in toilet cubicles," says Kitty Empire, the Observer's pop critic. "That is where a lot of the socialising takes place. You would be surprised how many friendships and alliances form in men's toilets, and if you are a woman you probably won't be there. The male toilets are like the golf clubs of normal industry."
She says the work also involves lots of late nights and "long drives to see anonymous bands late at night who are third on at a pub in Corby". Women who have children find it difficult to take the time off and then come back, adds Empire, who says the mid-30s are a crucial time for those in the industry. She says younger women are able to ape men but older ones find it harder, which is why so many break away and set up their own publicity companies.
While there is clearly a long way to go before women truly break through the glass ceiling of the music world, many would argue things have come a long way. Some of the stories of the past seem outrageous by today's standards. Take the case of Alison Hussey, who has been a consultant in the industry for two decades. In the early 1990s, when she ran her own company, Hussey took one of her artists to meet "an extremely well known A&R man at a major label".
"He totally ignored me and instead directed the whole conversation to the musician, who was male," says Hussey. "Then, at the end, he turned around, looked at me and said, 'And what do you do, dear? Are you the backing vocalist?'" In another case a "well-known member of the music glitterati" made her sit in the centre of the room while he told her in "a misogynist way" what he wanted to do to her. "Telling me in effect that if I slept with him he would sign my artist," adds Hussey, who says she walked out in disgust. But she adds: "As far as I know, that sort of thing doesn't happen these days."
Hussey says change is coming - even if it is slow. She talks about a female networking event, called Girls Allowed, set up in 2003 for those in the music industry. It began with six women and now has 120 who meet four times a year. Others say they simply fight back against discrimination.
"Statistically it is male-dominated - but I don't believe the music industry is unique in this way," says Kanya King, founder of the MOBO awards. "Sometimes people don't take you seriously, sometimes they insist on seeing your boss. But if they don't think much you can surprise them."
For others the change in the industry has been dramatic. Orla Lee - who as general manager of Polydor Records at Universal has climbed the ladder to become one of the music industry's most powerful women - has a simple outlook: "If you work hard you will be rewarded. It is about the person, not the sex."
Alison Howe, the former producer of John Peel who now co-produces Later With Jools Holland, says she, too, has never felt held back. "I'd like to think it makes no difference whatsoever. I have not had any issues in that respect," she says. Then again, Howe admits that when she tried to think of the people running the major record labels - "I can hardly think of any women". Perhaps Murison, Lee, Hall, King, Wenham and Hussey are the exceptions that prove the rule.
