NME Music Magazine Analysis

NME MUSIC MAGAZINE ANALYSIS By Rita Protasiewicz

12GTA

NME MAGAZINE BACKGROUND

NME was first published in 1952 and has been one of the longest running weekly music magazines in the history of music. The magazine started in a broadsheet newspaper format and used newsprint.

The NME magazine was mostly Indie but mostly concentrated on Punk Rock in the UK and US through the 1970s and 60s. Its writers were iconic; Danny Baker and Tony Parsons are some examples. The magazine contained more than just music, it also contained left wing socialist ideology.

In 1998, the NME went through an a major innovation and became now had a colour magazine ink finish and was being printed in tabloid size format.

However, the music magazine has suffered greatly due to the rise in digital media and this meant that less print copies were being sold. In its peak days, 300,000 copies of the NME were sold weekly! This has fallen down to only 14,000 issues being sold.

FRONT COVER ANALYSIS The layout of the front page follows the house style by using bold font colours and attractive coverlines on either side of the subject. The convention that is most obvious the dominant, red colour scheme. However, the artist’s name is in a black typography as he is the main focus of the magazine.

The subject that is being represented on the front cover is Johnny Marr. He is connecting with the audience by looking straight at the reader and this suggests that the NME magazine wants to connect with its target audience. He is following the conventions of the magazine as the genre of music that he produces is alternative rock and indie rock.

MAIN COVERLINEThe main coverline uses the tag ‘ultimate’. This word has been used to attract the target audience by making the article more interesting by categorising it. This indicates that the magazine has a high reputation as the articles are worthwhile reading. The repetition of the word ‘ultimate’ in one sentence carries the guarantee that the reader will not miss out on looking at the article. What is more, the artist’s name, Johnny Marr, is highlighted in bold to indicate the importance of this musician in this music magazine.

COVERLINES The inside articles have been transferred onto the front cover through the use of pull quotes. This way of copying quotes across to other pages is very effective as it gives the audience an insight into the music magazine without them having to even open any pages. This means that audiences are more willing to buy the magazine when they notice it on the shelf because they are already anticipating what they can find inside. This is a great selling point for the NME as it means more issues can be sold.

MORE COVERINES & BARCODE More coverlines have been placed in the right third of the front cover. The plug ‘Plus’ has been used to attract the reader to this particular section. The audience feel like they are getting extra out of the magazine when they notice this part. The title of each article has been highlighted in red. This means that the colour scheme is once again elaborated and this catches the audience’s attention.

There is a barcode in the bottom right corner where it is easily accessible.

PUG The pug is ‘the ear of the magazine’ and in this case is situated at the top right-hand side of the front cover. A featuring article has been placed in a bold, red circle to ensure house style of the NME is continued throughout. Also, the vibrant, red colour catches the audience’s eye and this ensures they are more likely to buy it.

CONTENTS PAGE The contents page is slight different to the front cover page through the use of a different typography, however the red and black colour scheme has been kept.

The layout of the menu list is bizarre as it does not follow the norm of how a contents page is laid out. The expected layout of the menus is in a chorological list with the page numbers on one side. With the NME example, the articles are not in the order in which they appear inside the magazine. Perhaps the intention was to confuse the reader so that they spend more time looking over the contents page.

LEFT THIRD The contents has been split into thirds and this is the left third. The purpose of this is to make it easier for the audience as we naturally read from left to right.

The page numbers are in bold red and this imitates the colour palette.

Once again pull quotes from the articles have been used and made bold. This means that the audience get an insight into what they will be reading.

The same feature photograph as the front cover has been used to suggest that the subject (Johnny Marr) is an important icon in the music industry.

MIDDLE THIRD There is an image of a featuring artist which attracts the audience.

Once again pull quotes have been used to give the reader an idea of what they can expect inside the magazine.

There is a miniature menu list titled ‘Plus’ to give a bigger overview of the articles inside. This is effective, especially when the contents page is so muddled.

RIGHT THIRD The coverlines follow the example of those on the contents page in which there are pull quotes and red page numbers.

A pug has been used in the bottom right-hand corner as an effective promotion of the NME subscription. To make sure that the audience would not miss it, the bright red colour scheme has been used once again. There is also a website that the audience can visit for further information. This is a successful form of advertising as the audience does not only have the physical copy of the magazine but now analogies the digital articles.

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD The layout of the this double page spread follows the convention of a music magazine as the feature article photo bleeds onto two pages. The photograph of the Haim sisters is definitely the first object that the audience notice as it takes up most of the page.

The right hand side page contains the copy and another image.

RIGHT HAND SIDE PAGE The top strip contains a larger typography to introduce the copy below. Once again the red colour scheme is repeated and the main features are highlighted in this way.

An obvious aspect of the article is the drop-cap of the first letter. This has been used to indicate where the beginning of the article is.

There are more images on the right hand side that still link back to the article.

EXTRAS There is a pull quote in the middle third of the page. This quote comes from the artist itself and this attracts the audience as they can form an opinion about the artist before even reading the magazine. Also, it picks up the main parts of the article.

There are some more images that relate back to the article. These are used to brake up the long block of text.