Music Magazine Origns etc

NME:

The New Musical Express (NME) is one of the most popular music magazines in the UK today; the first issue of NME was published in March 1952. In the 1970’s NME became the best selling British music magazine. In 2008 the magazine was redesigned and the target audience changed too an older person rather than just targeting the younger members of society, but the magazine could still interest the younger person and there probably lies the reason why the magazine is so popular. In recent years ‘Indie’ has become the genre of music associated with NME; this means that the bands featured in their magazine include Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and Kaiser Chiefs. These bands have emerged as ‘Indie’ icons in recent years.

Kerrang: 

Kerrang Music magazine was first published on the 6^th June 1981 by Geoff Barton; the magazine was initially inspired by rock bands such as AC/DC and other rock bands which were involved in the new wave of British heavy metal. The magazine has been accused of just jumping on the bandwagon of new music genres which become popular, for example Prince was featured regularly when he released ‘Purple Rain’ and more recently there has been criticisms on their current features which nearly always feature Emo and Metal core music. But even though their concentrated genre of their magazine has changed over time, Kerrang is still seen as a rock music magazine and therefore aims mainly at a younger audience but could still attract an older audience. Kerrang magazine remains one of the most popular music magazines in the UK.

Q

Q is a music magazine which was first published in 1986 and is released monthly. This monthly release was different from many other magazines and allowed them to make photography and printing more of a priority which they thought increased the quality of the magazine. It was called Q because they believed this single letter title would be more eye catching on shop shelves. Q has become known to focus on more modern music and therefore specialise in genres such as indie, because of their modern style they attract a much younger audience than other magazines. Q has become a highly popular magazine due to their emphasis on keeping their audience up to date with all the new music phases and therefore introducing new bands to their audience.