Music magazine comparison - NME

NME was first published in 1952. In the first decade of being published artists such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were featured on the cover.

The genre of NME is generally rock, alternative, and indie but has had a variety of artists such as Rihanna and Jay-Z in more recent years. This shows that NME is able to adapt to whatever is popular in the music industry at the time.

NME was first published as a music newspaper then changed to a magazine format in the 90s and has always been released one a week.

NME also has a chart list, however the NME chart is in the magazine.

The masthead for NME is the letters ‘NME’ and then the brand ‘new musical express’ this gives the magazine a link to its traditional roots of early years after publishing as it was originally called New Musical Express but was abbreviated to NME to be more catchy to readers. The masthead is very clean around the edges compared to the Kerrang! logo, this could show that the magazine is proper and is a clean magazine.

The main story is usually in much bigger font compared to the other stories, this emphasizes the story and the main story is usually linked to the artist that is on the cover, this makes it easier for the reader to understand what will be in the magazine most, this helps them decide whether they will want to buy the magazine.

The cover of NME is usually just the main image and the titles of the story around the edge, this means that the reader wont get confused when they look at the cover and they will be able to understand very quickly what the stories of the magazine will be.

Much like Kerrang! there are stories on the cover that are not about an artist, but are about music as an example there is ‘The state of music today’ this addresses the issue of music changing and whether that is good or not.