Music magazine

Last updated

A music magazine is a magazine dedicated to music and music culture. Such magazines typically include music news, interviews, photo shoots, essays, record reviews, concert reviews and occasionally have a covermount with recorded music.

Contents

Notable music magazines

Music magazines were very prolific in the United Kingdom, with the NME leading sales since its first issue in 1952. NME had a longstanding rival in Melody Maker , an even older publication that had existed since 1926; however, by 2001, falling circulation and the rise of internet music sites caused the Melody Maker to be absorbed into its old rival and cease publishing. [1] Several other British magazines such as Select and Sounds also folded between 1990 and 2000. Current UK music magazines include Kerrang! and Mojo . [2] Magazines with a focus on pop music rather than rock and aimed at a younger market include the now-defunct Smash Hits and the BBC's Top of the Pops , which outlived the television show on which it was based.

The longest running music magazine in the UK is BMG, founded in 1903 by Clifford Essex. [3] BMG, which stands for banjo, mandolin, and guitar, is the oldest fretted-instrument-focused publication and actively promotes acoustic instruments of all kinds.

Major music magazines in the United States include Rolling Stone (founded in 1967), DownBeat (founded in 1934), and Spin (founded in 1985). Clash magazine was voted Music Magazine of the Year in 2004 and is the second largest UK online presence. Clash was also awarded Magazine of the Year at the PPA Scotland Awards. Alternative Press has more of an "underground" coverage including pop punk, post-hardcore and metalcore.

A major digital magazine from Sweden is Melodic. Melodic has its focus mainly on hard rock, melodic metal and alternative music.

Among classical music magazines, Diapason is the most read in France.

An example of a nostalgia magazine is Keep Rockin', [4] a 1950s and 1960s nostalgia magazine. The premier issue came out in January 2009. The magazine features a mixture of current events surrounding that time period (e.g. concerts, car shows) and stories with original photos from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as some reader-written articles about experiences growing up during that period.

Covermounts

Several music magazines include a free album of music (usually a compilation of tracks by various artists), known in the publishing industry as a covermount. The practice began in the 1980s with UK magazine Smash Hits giving away flexi discs, and graduated to mixtapes and compact discs in the 1990s, with modern magazines such as NME and Mojo frequently including cover compilations. [5]

The tracks are cleared for release by the relevant record companies, and are usually released for promotional purposes.

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>NME</i> British music journalism website and former magazine

New Musical Express (NME) is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a free publication, before becoming an online brand which includes its website and radio stations.

<i>Melody Maker</i> Historical British weekly pop/rock music newspaper (1926–2000)

Melody Maker was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born composer, publisher Lawrence Wright; the first editor was Edgar Jackson. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.

<i>Q</i> (magazine) British music magazine

Q is a popular music online magazine. Originally published in print in the UK from 1986 to 2020, it was inactive from 2020 until 2023. In 2023, Q was revived as an online publication. It was founded in 1986 by broadcast journalists Mark Ellen and David Hepworth, who were presenters of the BBC television music series The Old Grey Whistle Test. Q's final printed issue was published in July 2020, but began posting new articles to their website in 2023 before being fully relaunched in 2024.

Orlando were an English Romo band of the 1990s. They were one of seven core Romo acts featured by Melody Maker in their guide to the Romo scene and were subsequently cited as being "figureheads" of the scene. As well as substantial coverage in Melody Maker, the band also received press coverage from the NME, SelectSmash Hits and Penthouse UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Hepworth</span> British music journalist

David Hepworth is a British music journalist, writer, television presenter, and publishing industry analyst. He was instrumental in the foundation of a number of popular magazines in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Along with the journalist, editor and broadcaster Mark Ellen, he turned the pop magazine Smash Hits into one of the most popular UK music magazines of the 1980s. A presenter of The Old Grey Whistle Test in the 1980s, he co-presented the BBC broadcast of Live Aid in 1985.

<i>Psychocandy</i> 1985 studio album by the Jesus and Mary Chain

Psychocandy is the debut studio album by Scottish rock band the Jesus and Mary Chain. It was released in November 1985 on Blanco y Negro Records. The album is considered a landmark recording: its combination of guitar feedback and noise with traditional pop melody and structure proved influential on the forthcoming shoegaze genre and alternative rock in general.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Covermount</span> Storage media packaged as part of a magazine or newspaper

Covermount is the name given to storage media or other products packaged as part of a magazine or newspaper. The name comes from the method of packaging; the media or product is placed in a transparent plastic sleeve and mounted on the cover of the magazine with adhesive tape or glue.

<i>Sounds</i> (UK magazine) Defunct UK weekly music magazine

Sounds was a UK weekly pop/rock music newspaper, published from 10 October 1970 to 6 April 1991. It was known for giving away posters in the centre of the paper and later for covering heavy metal and punk and Oi! music in its late 1970s–early 1980s heyday.

<i>Uncut</i> (magazine) British music magazine

Uncut is a monthly magazine based in London. It is available across the English-speaking world, and focuses on music, but also includes film and books sections. A DVD magazine under the Uncut brand was published quarterly from 2005 to 2006. The magazine was acquired in 2019 by Singaporean music company BandLab Technologies, and was published by NME Networks from December 2021. to August 2023, when the brand was sold to Kelsey Media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vow (song)</span> 1995 single by Garbage

"Vow" is a song by alternative rock band Garbage. It was released as their debut single in early 1995 by Discordant, a label set up by Mushroom Records to launch the group, and Almo Sounds in North America.

<i>Record Collector</i> British monthly music magazine

Record Collector is a British monthly music magazine. It was founded in 1980 and distributes worldwide.

<i>Labour of Love</i> 1983 studio album by UB40

Labour of Love is the fourth studio album by British reggae band UB40, and their first album of cover versions. Released in the UK on 12 September 1983, the album is best known for containing the song "Red Red Wine", a worldwide number-one single, but it also includes three further UK top 20 hits, "Please Don't Make Me Cry", "Many Rivers to Cross" and "Cherry Oh Baby". The album reached number one in the UK, New Zealand and the Netherlands and the top five in Canada, but only reached number 39 in the US on its original release, before re-entering the Billboard 200 in 1988 and peaking at number 14 as a result of "Red Red Wine"'s delayed success in the US.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Flowers of Hell</span> Musical artist

The Flowers of Hell are a transatlantic experimental orchestra made up of a revolving line-up of 16 or so independent musicians based in Toronto and London. Their mostly instrumental sound builds bridges between classical music and post-rock, shoegaze, space rock and drone music, often resulting in their being described as an orchestral extension of the work of The Velvet Underground and Spacemen 3. They are led by synesthete composer Greg Jarvis. Much of their repertoire is an exploration of the timbre-to-shape synesthesia that causes Jarvis to involuntarily perceive all sounds as floating abstract visual forms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Messages (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark song)</span> 1980 single by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

"Messages" is a song by English electronic band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) from their self-titled debut studio album (1980). A re-recorded version of the song was released on 2 May 1980 as the album's third and final single, reaching number 13 on the UK Singles Chart and becoming OMD's first top-40 entry. As with their debut single "Electricity", "Messages" features a melodic synth break instead of a sung chorus.

60 Ft. Dolls were a Welsh rock trio active in the 1990s, known as the Cool Cymru era.

The Tronics were a London-based band that released records from 1979 to 1984. The band was formed and fronted by musician, songwriter, and music producer Zarjaz Baby, also known as Ziro Baby.

Neil Spencer is a British journalist, author, broadcaster and astrologer who lives in north London. He edited the New Musical Express (NME) from 1978 to 1985 and was a founding editor of the men's magazine Arena and of the jazz/art magazine Straight No Chaser. He writes regularly for The Observer, specialising in astrology, music and other aspects of popular culture. According to his website, his work has also appeared in The Independent, Mojo, Uncut and Elle, among other publications.

The Media Research Information Bureau (MRIB) was a music chart research company that operated in the United Kingdom from 1981 to 2008. It was best known for compiling the chart data for The Network Chart Show which was broadcast by many TV and radio shows, as well as being published in many music newspapers and magazines. MRIB also compiled other genre charts for the United Kingdom.

References

  1. ↑ Melody Maker to merge with NME, BBC News , 15 December 2000.
  2. ↑ FEATURE - Rocking to a new tune, Brand Republic, 23 October 2003.
  3. ↑ "BMG Magazine". Archived from the original on 14 May 2013. Retrieved 17 April 2013.
  4. ↑ krmag.com
  5. ↑ Geoghegan, Tom: Are free CDs killing music?, BBC News Magazine , 13 July 2007.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.