NME

Music Magazine Analysis

General

NME (New Musical Express)

The target audience for the magazine according to the NME website is for fans and listeners of Rock, Indie and Indie rock bands/ artists. The magazine tries to include lots of older artists as well as incorporating various new artists. 'The Rolling Stones' are a great example of an older band that NME likes to incorporate, in my edition of the magazine the particular band focus is on 'The Arctic Monkeys.' They like to give an informal style of writing to create an effective rapport with the target audience. NME is a mass market product, it aims at a wide range of different ages. My edition of the NME Magazine is £2.70 which is produced every week. Its circulation in 2011 was 23,924. NME and Q suffered sales declines of almost 20% year-on-year in a tough first six months of 2012 for the music magazine market.  Supposing every copy that was distributed was sold at the price of £2.70, the monthly revenue would be £64,594 approx, monthly this would be £258,379 approx.

The Cover

The title is called New Music Express, the 'New Music' part is quite self explanatory; the magazine updates and informs the reader on the new music available. The word 'Express' is defined as 'quick as possible', the two work together to illustrate that the magazine aims to get new music out as quick as possible. This edition of the NME magazine franchise has a slogan, 'The Story So Far' this is because it is a special birthday issue, this slogan is also the strap line of the cover, it could also be seen as an enigma. NME released 8 different birthday issues to celebrate its 60th birthday, this strap line is only evident on these editions of the magazine. The masthead is also the NME logo; this is what the reader looks at to identify the magazine.

The main image is of the band called the 'Arctic Monkeys,' the facial expression for the three members at the back is emotionless, although there is a shocked expression on the member who is lighting the original magazine on fire. All three are looking directly at the character and seem to have a firm and rigid stance, their clothes are stereotypical for their music genre, all this reaches out to the reader because it portrays the 'rock' genre. On the front of the magazine no other images appear because NME want to devote this edition of their special birthday issues to The Arctic Monkeys. There is anchorage; the subjects expressions match the strap line 'the story so far'.

It promotes the first ever issue of NME, this provokes you to look inside to compare and contrast the newer magazine layout to the former. This is content is promoted effectively by being placed in a big gold circle in the top right, it still follows the house style but manages to grab the readers attention effectively and successfully.

The only time the cover here 'talks' to its reader is when it has a pull down quote from The Arctic Monkeys saying; "We started buying NME when we were 16. It didn't take us very long to get on the cover.." This quote tries to lure in the reader, it makes them want to read further inside. I have not seen another magazine that looks remotely similar, except the other magazines in these 'special birthday issue' which NME are realising, its unique selling point (UPS) is the neatness and the light amount of text that makes the reader want to read more. The format of the cover is very neat and very clean. There are only 3 main colours used for the fonts; black, gold and white, colours of which work very well together. The background image is tidy with a white backing surrounding the subject. All text is appropriately formatted around the image and there is just enough text to get the reader engrossed and to want more.

Inside

 In this edition there are 67 pages. Advertisements include 9 in total, 3 of the pages are non-musical related advertisements  while the other 6 are tour dates for a wide variety of bands and artists. All the advertisements evident in the magazine are related to music. E.g. the upcoming tour dates. Some of the advertisements are clearly suited for the target audience; on the 4th page there is an advert for superfast fibre broadband, this would appeal best to students, to whom of which internet is a necessity. You can tell the target audience of the magazine simply by looking at the adverts, obviously because its a music magazine its going to have music advertisements; these predominately take up the advert spaces in the magazine.

Features

UPFRONT

Radar

The NME Chart

Beneath the covers

Reviews

Gig Guide

Fan mail

There are 15 double page spreads in my edition of the NME magazine. The majority of them include an artist or band talking about how they have progressed with a big picture of them to the side of it, although a few of the double page spreads are on reviews of current music and upcoming events. The magazine achieves a unified house style because it keeps the amount of different font colours and styles to as low as possible, the language throughout is informal so it appeals best to the fans and listeners of Rock, Indie and Indie rock bands/artists. Colours in the magazine are mostly black, white with some gold and blue, colours are kept similar throughout. The house style is appropriate to the target audience because it is informally written and structured, this creates the assumption that the fans and listeners of Rock, Indie rock bands/artists like the magazine to create a rapport with them.

Initial Ideas

Front Page

  

•  A big, bold company name.   
• Large and engrossing cover lines to cover appropriate areas of the magazine  
• A musician that appeals to the targeted group of my choice. 
•  Not too full on, must be dedicated spacing between text. 
•  A clear, crisp picture, suitable for the target audience.
• An effective and interactive slogan.
• A clean formatting of fonts and structure.
• Entising content

Contents

• Clear and effective formatting evident.
• A suitable amount of pages - not too little and not excessively too much.
• Understanding of the correct price in correspondance to how frequently the magazines are released.
• Make the main story stick out compared to the others.
• A suitable amount of pictures at a high quality.
• Use various fonts, but make sure they work effectively together, and make sure that they follow the same house style.
• Make sure that it is clear and understandable for the reader. 

Double Page Spread

• Make it broad and eye-catching.
• Use effective pull out quotes to catch the readers attention. 
• Look into what people want to read.
• Drops cap could be used, if used well.
• Make sure that if quotes are used, that they are powerful and relevant quotes.
• Structure this in a way that is easy to read and clear to understand for the reader.