New Musical Express Research

The New Musical Express, also known as NME is a music magazine in the UK. It has been published weekly since March 1952. NME started as a music newspaper but gradually formed into magazine in the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. In the 14 November 1952 edition it was the first British paper to include a singles chart. In the 1970s it became the best-selling British music newspaper. NME was formed around was punk rock and has never really left that genre throughout time but expanded itself to a wider audience by releasing a singles chart of all music. This overhanging house style that they applied to the product happened in 1972. Nowadays they have adapted to modern times and altered into a rock orientated but branching out to many audiences such as: Emo/goth culture, alternative, soul and rap/grime but mostly INDIE.

The progression of NME starting in its early days as a newspaper and moving through time until ending up where it is today the UKs most popular music magazine.

Analysis of Dizzee Rascal NME front cover

The Masthead: Standing for New Music
Express but also a clever play on words on enemy. This suggests a presentation of anarchy and rebellion. Also the vibrant colour of red to contrast with the mainly white background is impactful to grab attention of consumers. Being placed at the top of the magazine shows that this will be the first place our eyes will see.

Header/skyline: This header

stands out due to its historical style and its bold striking nature to draw in the consumer with the word SPECIAL especially

Cover lines: These cover lines are

extremely contrasting with the white background so that it is visible for the target audience to realise their favourite bands and find them inside.

The Flash: This is also

purposely shown in vibrant red to attract the eye of consumers and overlapping the title so that our eyes follow down the magazine to this next. With contrasting text we are aware of whats important for us to read.

Main image: Dizzee Rascal

dominates the frame in this shot and comes outside the borders of where it should be by crossing over onto the masthead so that the readers eyes were drawn to his excited facial expression. The excitement throughout the whole on the image is shown through his movement, his smile and the canted angle portrays him to be a happy, joyful rap artist. The graffiti in the background has connotations of what the magazine may be about: anarchy/rebellion.

Caption and Pull-quote:

Here we see that (other than the title) these are the largest text on the page to intrigue consumers about who is featured in my magazine and what theyre saying. The use of exclamation marks and capital letters suggests hes stating his name and words loudly so that everyone should hear. Also it suggests the informality of the content linking back to the anarchy and rebellion. The large text shows that he is a popular rap artist and is making sure everyone knows that he is enjoying it.

Barcode and date: This

feature is essential for the purchasing of NMEs product, without this they wouldnt be able to sell their magazine and retrieve the statistics from it. This also features the date so it enables the consumer to know which issue theyre buying.

Who publishes NME magazine? IPC are the company who publish this magazine.

As you can see by all of these front covers that the title always contrasts with the background so that it can stand out on the shelf. Also a common trend with all of their magazines is that they enjoy blowing up an image of a musician in a MCU or close up photograph.