Impact of the Internet on Music Magazines (NME)

NME

In the late 1970’s NME started lose readers because people wanted to move back to reading about music, not politics which is what NME was writing about. At its peak, it sold 750,000 copies per week. In July, that figure had shrunk to 15,000. As of Sep 2015, NME is now free, using increased advertising to fund it. 

1980’s and 1990’s

New layout of magazines, they became more stylish. Magazines such as The Face and Blitz experimented with style and layout. 

2000’s

Video technology has now come out – launch of MTV is the first TV market for music videos, sometimes more money was spent on the video than the single. In 2005 YouTube launched.

Audiences discover new music online – youtube, streaming and social media. Pop culture is now everywhere.

How/why has the internet affected magazines?

On social media it’s easier to find out what the artists are doing, than finding it out through looking at a magazine. Also, the internet is a free, instant platform so the public can find out information/news instantly but a magazine needs to be published so by the time someone reads the magazine the news won’t be new any more.

Pre-internet

• People could find out more about their favourite artists (eg their fashion)
• Or could be introduced to new artists
• General music news
• Information like release dates, tour dates
• Can find out about music brands
• Exclusives – interviews, images
• Can find out how to find and buy merchandise
•  Free gifts, posters – signed posters, music disks,                competitions to win prizes
• A sense of community (that ppl have found in other places    now)
• The charts

   

     

 Today

•          Could be as a souvenir, if you like an artist in it
•          Magazines provide a change, you can’t get distracted by links
•          Nostalgia, Keeping a tradition alive – collectors
•          Has to offer something that the internet can’t eg exclusives
•          Competitions draw ppl in. These could be online so the magazines are using the internet

UK Music Press 1950's, 1970's and present day

History of the Music Press (in the UK)

General: Music magazines include music news, interviews, photo shoots, essays, record reviews and concert reviews.


1950's

• Popular music magazines played a major part of the creation and promotion of the pop and rock music genres in the mid-1950’s. Music of the United Kingdom began to develop in the 1950s; and the UK very quickly become one of the leading centres of popular music in the modern world. By the 1950's forms of more traditional British music, including folk music, brass and silver bands, music hall and dance bands, were already giving way to the influence of American forms of music including jazz, swing and traditional pop, through film and records.
• The significant change of the mid-1950s was the impact of American rock and roll, which provided a new model for performance and recording, based on a youth market.

1970's

• Punk rock developed at around 1974, originally in the USA. The first punk band is usually thought to be the Ramones from 1976. This was taken up in Britain by bands also influenced by the pub rock scene, like the Sex Pistols and The Clash, (especially in London) who became a new musical/cultural movement, blending simple aggressive sounds and lyrics with clothing styles and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies.
• Punk rock bands created fast, hard-edged music, typically with short songs, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraced a do it yourself ethic, with many bands self-producing their recordings and distributing them informally. 1977 saw punk rock spreading around the world, and it became a major international cultural thing. However, by 1978, punk had split up into the wider new wave and post punk movements.

Present Day

• The music press is constantly changing to adapt to what people want. Recently we have seen a revolution in music listening as the radio has gained popularity everywhere and new media and technology was developed to record, reproduce and distribute music.
• Music performances have become increasingly visual with the broadcast and recording of music videos and concerts. Music of all kinds also became increasingly portable. Headphones allow people sitting right next to each other to listen to different pieces of music.
• Magazines such as NME (New Music Express) were huge in the late 20th century however they have lost sat massively to the rise of the internet. This is because why would the majority of the public buy a magazine with information in it that they could quite easily find out for free online.

Evaluation (Prelim Project)

Evaluation of Preliminary Project

My magazine meets page conventions because it is centred around an image of a person, which is what almost all magazines about people do, since it gives it an element of humanity. It has a masthead at the top of the page, which sits just above the head of the sixth former pictured. I used a house style of blue, since the sixth former was wearing a blue suit at the time; and red. I used century gothic as the font for the masthead and segoe UI semibold for the red information which details what is inside the magazine and the blue cover line which helps to make these clear.

I used explosion shapes for the 'plus' and the offer in the top-left hand corner because it gives them a sense of importance and makes the text that is on them stand out more than the pieces of text which don't have shapes behind them, but while they are important they are also extras to the other information that is already on the page. I thought that my colour scheme of blue and red would be good because they contrast with each other a lot but they also stand out from the background of the photo that I used, that and the blue matches the suit of the sixth former, as I've said before.

I believe that my finished front cover is very good since it has a professional title which draws people in, (since it is at the top and in a shop the top is often the only part of a magazine that someone can see because they are all stacked one behind the other) and then enough information to make them want to read more, but not too much that the page looks overcrowded. Also, I think that the photo looks real (natural) which is great because I don't want it to look like it's obvious that it's staged because then it would look like the magazine editors hadn't put any effort into taking the picture. I'm also very pleased that the mise-en-scene fits in very well with the sixth former, and provides a good background for text since it isn't very busy. I used a mix of upper case only, and upper and lower case phases on my front cover to give it a bit of variety, I didn't want it to look like I had stuck with the same type of text for the whole of the front cover.

I believe that I could have managed my time for this project much better since I didn't finish planning the magazine or properly consulting my target audience before I actually had to start creating the actual front cover however saying this the few people that I did speak to felt that my magazine has a good basic genre, everything, so if they don't like one section they might still find some other sections of the magazine interesting.

In hindsight I should have got focused quicker when I was doing the magazine plan and target audience, I spent way too much time reviewing and annotating other typical magazine covers considering it was worth a low amount of marks compared to the front cover. I do not believe that this had a major negative impact on my front cover though, which I spent a good amount of time on also since it is worth the most marks in the task. 

Front Cover (Prelim Project)

Front Cover Design/Layout

Front Cover:

Magazine Plan (Preliminary Project)

1&2.

3. Target Audience (Readership Profile)

The target audience that I am aiming for for my magazine are 16-18 year old males. This is because they are the people who are most likely to read a sixth form magazine since they are sixth formers themselves. Their occupation is therefore being a student since anyone who reads a sixth form magazine is most likely to still be in education. 

The sort of person that I think will buy this magazine are going to be committed to their education, but have time to socialize as well. They use Facebook occasionally but never use twitter. They are interested in technology and engineering, and want to become an electrician or an electrical engineer when they are older. 

Having asked some people what they think of my magazine concept the overall opinion of it has been positive. Some say that they would like to see useful information in it rather than making it about how successful some schools are. Therefore I don't intend on putting the school or university league tables like I originally considered. Also, taking advice from a few sixth formers who I talked to they suggested that I should aim it at both genders rather than just at a male audience, which means that it will give me a broader audience. Most of my audience will use social media so I think that it would be a good idea to use this platform to promote it. 

4. Magazine Plan -
Name
Example names could be Teen's Survival Handbook/Magazine, this name has a sense humour about it however i think that a disadvantage of it is that it gives of a negative feeling towards education which is not the aim of my magazine. Another name could be OverView, it is short and so easier to remember, I also think that it gives it a sense of professionalism because although it is magazine for sixth formers it still needs to look clean and professional.

Slogan
The slogan for my magazine will be quite short and simple but i hope it will be catchy so that people who see it might remember it. However, I am considering not including a slogan at all since it will only take up more of the page. In addition to this, the photo that I am going to go for will have little space at the top for a masthead and a slogan, and I don't think that it would work if I put a slogan anywhere other than directly below the masthead.

Colour Scheme and Fonts
The font I will use will probably be mix of bold easy-to-read lettering for the title and a simple font for the cover lines and other text. I am definitely looking at blue as the main colour, and red or maybe white as the secondary colour. I don't think green would work in combination with the darkish blue I am going for because they are too similar. This will be my house style that will run throughout the magazine.