Historical Music Magazine Research

Melody Maker and NME

Melody Maker was first launched in 1926 and its focus was jazz, aimed at professional musicians. It had a small target audience, so its style was very technical and instructive, about the music, rather than the musicians, which is the main focus of music magazines today. For example reviews for musical instruments were often featured.

 Melody Maker’s competitor in around the 1960’s was New Music Express (NME), which began in 1952 and was created to cover the emerging rock ‘n roll genre. NME started the first ‘UK Singles Chart’, which became a popular list that music buyers based their purchases on, and the idea was borrowed from the American magazine Billboard.  

In the 1990s, Melody Maker became less and less popular. They received less artist interviews, and bands stopped advertising gigs, however, its classified advertising section stayed a highly read section in the music industry itself and Melody Maker was the first place musicians advertised when they wanted to find new band mates. But, when Melody Maker finished in 2000, it was selling just 32,500 copies a week, their lowest number in their 74 years. However, the institution IPC was able to merged it with NME, although many will say that there is very little of Melody Maker’s professionalism in today’s NME.

Smash Hits

One of NME’s most successful periods was in the 1970s when editor, Nick Logan succeeded in persuading it into a hipper, more irreverent editorial point of view. In 1978, Logan launched another magazine called Smash Hits, which targeted teenagers. The magazine published song lyrics, which is what made it so famous. Smash Hits stopped publication in 2006 but is still a profitable website as well as digital TV and radio.

Kerrang!

Kerrang! was introduced in 1981 and was one of the first music magazines to be genre specific, as it focused only on rock and metal music. Other magazines like this were mainly produced in the 90’s, such as Mixmag, which had a dance and clubbing music genre, The Source, was specific to hip hop and rap music and Classic Rock magazine, with a rock music genre aimed at an older audience. 

The Face

The face was created in 1980 by Nick Logan, editor of Kerrang!, smash hits and NME and was a monthly magazine very similar to Smash hits, but was aimed at an older audience and focused not only on music but also fashion and lifestyle. The magazine stopped in 004, but was the influence for many modern magazines such as Q, Mojo and Uncut.

Billboard

Billboard magazine’s first issue was published in 1894, but only became very well known in about 1936. From the magazine, a radio channel and record sales charts, called the Billboard charts were created. Although, the magazine was mainly aimed at experts and professional in the music industry, it was and is now, available to the general pubic

 

Rolling Stone

The magazine was first launched in 1967, and was known for reflecting on the changes in music culture and political concerns about music, whereas other magazines of the time provided factual information