Transcript History of The Music Press

History of The Music Press
Lesson Objective
• At the end of the lesson
we will have developed
an understanding of the
history of music press.
The beginning
Billboard magazine is an important
contributor to the development of the
music press because it was one of the first
publications devoted to the music industry.
It was first printed in 1894, but it was in
1936 that is published the ‘music hit
parade’ that gradually evolved into top 40
charts.
It is primarily aimed at music
professionals.
1950s – 1960s
Melody Maker / New Musical Express
•To start, music magazines
were largely uncritical of
musicians’ output – everything
was always good!
•Their content was mainly
charts and singles, gig listings.
•These two were often referred
to as ‘inkies’
Melody Maker was a
weekly newspaper that
began in 1926. Initially, it
was renowned for its
coverage of jazz music.
After the introduction of it’s
rival, New Musical
Express, in 1952,which
seemed to have a more
youth-orientated appeal, it
broadened it’s coverage.
Both New Musical
Express and Melody
Maker played a huge
part in developing a
tabloid newspaper
format for music news.
They offered weekly
information on all
upcoming record
releases, with articles
on artists and their
music.
1960s
During the 1960s and 1970s, these
magazines dominated UK
newstands, as they were the only
up-to-the-minute access to the
music scene at the time. This is
important because music was a
huge part of youth identity.
1960s
Changes in society in
the 1960s with the
arrival of bands like
The Beatles and The
Rolling Stones, plus
the rising drug
culture, changed the
nature of music and
music writing.
1960s continued
The music fanzine is considered to have
emerged in the 1960s – these magazines
included Crawdaddy (which is still available today
online), Mojo Navigator and Who Put The Bomp!.
The creation of such amateur publications
highlighted a desire to document a ‘scene’ of
music.
Fanzines are very much alive on the internet,
even today.
Rolling Stone was created
by Jann Wenner in the
1967. It was a fortnightly
publication which
contained a mixture of
current affairs, celebrity
interviews and coverage of
the music industry. Its
appeal lay in the way the
journalists addressed the
youth audience.
Rolling Stone was less about
factual information and
more about music culture.
1970s
The Early 1970s saw the music industry change, first with “Glam Rock” –
Sweet, Mud, Slade, T Rex – and then ‘Prog. Rock’ – David Bowie, ELP and
Yes. Music papers were still largely uncritical of groups until the later years,
when it was noticed that Prog. Rock bands were spending more on staging,
lasers and lighting than actually making good music.
Mid 1970s
In the mid 1970s writers began to move away from simply
writing about music and started writing about “serious” issues
such as politics, philosophy, etc.
The “Music Press” became divided between Musicians’
papers such as Melody Maker (techniques, “proper music”)
and Political papers such as NME (the meaning behind the
bands and their songs).
The NME changed its
style in this period to
meet the changes,
especially the
introduction of Punk,
head on.
New writers were
recruited from the
magazine’s own
readership, with ads like
‘wanted: hip young
gun slingers’. Julie
Burchill became a top
NME reporter overnight.
Late 1970s – Early 80s
However, readers started
to abandon NME because
it no longer wrote about
“normal” bands and was
too obsessed with itself
and its politics.
In fact, 1978 saw the
start of a new type of
music magazine…
1978
Smash Hits launched a new glossy
mag catering for a younger audience in a
smaller magazine format. Its focus was
on “trivia” – favourite colours, food,
pop-musicians’ lifestyles, etc.
It included polls, letters, surveys, fan
club information, all in an attempt to
keep in touch with their readership
– People wanted lyrics, posters, free gifts
on the covers...so they got them!
The emphasis of these magazines was
pop, which paved the way for
contemporary celebrity magazine
obsessions.
Late 1970s – Early 80s
Style in pop music became more important than
content:
make-up, clothes, the video, fashion and hair.
1980s
Independent music labels
wanted their own voice and
began producing more
fanzines. These fanzines
were often typed,
photocopied and
distributed at concerts or
by subscription.
Despite the handmade
appearance this encouraged
a whole new generation of
writers, photographers and
cartoonists to contribute.
1980s
The 80s saw a new layout of
magazines – “style” magazines
such as The Face and Blitz
became popular, not just for
music but information about the
latest fashions and hairstyles.
There was a lot of
experimentation with typefaces,
layout, graphic design, making
the music press new and
more exciting with breaking
the rules.
Many critics argued
that these new glossy
magazines – tabloid
and style based - left
a void in which the
serious consideration
of new and usually
‘indie’ music
floundered.
1980s
Kerrang! arrived in
1981. It evolved from
the template created
by Smash Hits, though
it tried to have a more
‘flippant’ mode of
address. It’s target
audience was very
genre-specific teens.
1980s
Q was first published in
1986 by EMAP, a company
that owns many other music
magazines.
It attempted to draw on
sophisticated journalism,
and reflected an older
demographic of readers.
It fast became one of the
biggest selling music titles in
the UK.
1980s
The Wire is an avant-garde title
launched by jazz
enthusiasts Anthony
Wood and Chrissie Murray in
1982.
Though the magazine originally
focused on jazz music it branched
out over the years to include other
musical forms with an emphasis on
the avant-garde. In the late 1990s
it began to use the term ‘post-rock’
to describe its more eclectic
musical interests that included hiphop, reggae, rock, dance music,
electronica, jazz, new age and
contemporary classical
The Wire is everything
that Smash Hits is not:
sophisticated instead of tacky,
critical instead of fawning and
masculine perhaps, instead of
feminine.
1990s
New technologies began to emerge
in the 90s. Music videos became
popular which began to change
many aspects of the ways in which
music is consumed.
Every single comes with a video;
sometimes more money is spent on
the video than the single.
The launch of MTV, the first TV
market for music videos, allowed
even little known bands to make
lots of money and impact with a
well made video.
Several other British
magazines such as
Select and Sounds
also folded between
1990 and 2000
1990s
The proliferation of music
journalism in newspapers, on
television, radio and the internet
saw a slump in sales figures
for mainstream titles.
Although the 21st century has
seen many magazines
marginalised by the Internet
and other digital media, this
has resulted in the streamlining
and increased specialisation of
magazine publishing.
1990s
Different genres of music started to get
their own magazines during this decade.
Magazines like Mixmag, which had a
club/dance music focus, and The Source,
Classic Rock and Hip-Hop were all
produced starting in the 1990s.
Declining sales of Melody Maker
resulted in a glossy magazine format
in 1999 and an eventual merger with
its long-time rival, NME, in 2000.
Today, the NME has diluted its
newspaper identity in favour of a
magazine costume change.
2000s
Today – is there a limited “music
press” because “everything is pop
culture”?
Daily newspapers feature pop stars
and “celebrities” appear on daytime
TV.
People are famous for being famous.
Anyone in a band or with some talent
assumes that they have a right to be
rich and famous.
2000s
There has been a
considerable shift since
the 1980s, when
magazines like Smash
Hits regularly sold in
excess of half a million
copies an issue. In fact,
the magazine closed in
2006, with sales having
shrunk to less than
100,000.
2000s
Music magazines in
the Noughties were increasingly niche
marketed at very specific sub cultural
demographics, with very specific
strategies for listening.
And, on the one hand, this is a product
of the over-riding strategic editorial
policies of large media groups
like BAUERfor whom titles
like Q and Kerrang! are but one
product within their consumer
portfolio.
On the other hand, it is also a product
of the inevitable retrospectivism
brought about by the digital
revolution.
Plenary
• How do bands use the internet to promote
themselves in the digital age?
• How do you think the record industry has
changed over the last ten years?
• How has the music press accommodated the
changes to the way in which people listen to
music?