NME

Case Study

History

The paper's first issue was published on 7 March 1952 after the "Accordion Times and Musical Express“ for £1000 just before it was abut to close.

It was relaunched as the New Musical Express.

The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were frequently featured on the front cover.

New Musical Express has played a central part in the British love affair with pop music. Snotty, confrontational, enthusiastic, sarcastic: the NME landing on the doormat every Wednesday was the high point of any music fan's week, whether they were listening to The Beatles, Bowie or Blur. The Sex Pistols sang about it, Nick Hornby claims he regrets not working for it

Background

1960-NME would featured new British groups emerging at that time. The magazines rival magazine was “Melody Maker”. Some pop music was turning into rock.

1970- NME had lost ground to Melody Maker, as its coverage of music had failed to keep pace with the development of rock music, particularly during the early years of psychedelia and progressive rock. However after a switch of editors and style by mid-1973, the paper was selling nearly 300,000 copies per week and was outstripping its other weekly rivals, Melody Maker, Disc, Record Mirror and Sounds.

1980- Sales were apparently lower when photos of hip hop artists appeared on the front and this led to the paper suffering as the lack of direction became even more apparent to readers. NME also started to feature non musical topics like politics and sports.

1990-NME started including more American bands like Nirvana.

Today- NME's major factual blunders, both in print and on its website, such as using a photo of Alanis Morrissette for a Fiona Apple review in 2012, and referring to George Harrison as the Beatles bass player in 2014, have been criticized by both its readership and the press

Strong colours of black, white, red and yellow

It includes sell lines with images revealing what is inside

Indie Rock is represented though the band and artist names

NME Today

The magazine is sold weekly for £2.50 an issue.

It is based in Southwark, London, England It includes 50 colourful pages Follows the layout conventions including

with main image, has full colours and has images that relate to the text in the article.

As well as a magazine NME has its own website and a radio station in progress.

Target Audience

NME targets men usually between the ages of 17-30, it targets people between the lower middle class, skilled working class and working class.

They are devoted music listeners especially to indie rock

Content

The majority of this content for NME magazine is based around indie music

It tells the readership latest gigs, singles, albums and news related to the best indie

artists.

Bands that are commonly featured are Arctic Monkeys, The 1975 and Kings of

Leon

Style

NME magazine includes iconography associated with rock e.g tattoos, piercings and dark make-up

The magazine features Red and black most strongly, along with primary colours like yellow and blue suggesting a male readership. These colours are also conventional colours throughout the indie rock genre

Mode of Address