In the 1960’s, a decade after the magazine’s first edition, the Beatles and the Rolling stones were featured on the front cover. They were the major rock bands of this time and represented a change of music- The Beatles covered a special genre which had not been used before. Using these popular bands ensured that many people bought the magazine to read about them.
The 1970’s resulted in the change of genre of which the magazine focused on. Punk music was a new craze in England and although NME was at first skeptical about using this new genre but with the employment of Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons a new image for NME was created. Bands such as the Sex Pistols were often featured on this new look magazine.
As the UK music scene developed, NME’s image did aswell. By the 1980’s the magazine staff were split between writing about hip hop and rock music. Sales proved to be lower when hip hop acts were on the front cover, and as this was often sales officially declined. Articles which were unrelated to music began to be featured as an attempt to boost sales.
The Madchester scene was introduced in the 1990’s. This covered new British indie Bands and also Grunge bands from the USA such as Nirvana and Pearl Jam, however, NME only sparked a great interest in these bands when Nevermind became popular. The magazine started to be dominated by American bands but still featured some British Indie Bands. Blur and Oasis, two popular Britpop bands were often featured, which increased NME’s sales and NME started using Britpop as a genre for the magazine to base itself on. However, with the decline of Britpop the magazine was again left directionless. It attempted to embrace DJ culture of the 1990’s but sales decreased and they were criticized for not supporting rock and indie music.
A change of design was needed; this resulted in the redesign of the magazine to a full tabloid size with full glossy colour covers.
At the start of the new millennium NME triumphed over Melody Maker, which was discontinued and merged with NME. The magazine attempted to broaden it’s coverage by using hip hop acts such as Jay-Z and Missy Elliot, as well as R&B acts such as Destiny’s Child. These were soon dropped as they proved unpopular. In 2002 there was a change of focus as the magazine started to focus on bands such as The Libertines and The White Stripes. This was called by the band “The New Rock Revolution”. New British bands such as Bloc Party and the Kaiser Chiefs were also used, which was labeled as new “indie music”. However, using this resulted in a criticism for the magazine’s lack of diversity. This resulted in another re-design in May 2008 which aimed the magazine at older readers and had a less poppy feel. Coldplay were featured on the first edition of the re designed magazine.
The magazine now covers acts such as Kings of Leon, Green Day and The Killers, but has also used Lily Allen and a tribute to Micheal Jackson after his death earlier this year. It uses mostly the indie artists of today’s music scene.
NME’s sales have risen and declined throughout the years with the use of different acts. The magazine has constantly adapted to suit the musical preferences of the target audience at each
time.
research is mainly from the wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NME
No comments:
Post a Comment