Further Research On The Music Press History

Music Press


In the 1950s-1960s the Melody Maker/New Musical Express were published, the contents was mainly chart and singles, with gig listings.
This formed changes in society in the 1960s with the arrival of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, as it formed drug culture, this changed the nature of music and music writing.

In the early 1970s began "Glam Rock" this included Sweet, Mud, Slade, T Rex. This then escalated into "Prog. Rock" with artists such as Pink Floyd, Emmerson Lake Palmer and Yes. News papers were still largely uncritial of groups, until Prog. Rock bands started spending too much money on staging and lighting. NME then changed its style to meet Punk head they recruited new writers. In the mid 1970s NME embraces punk, where writers began to stop writing simply about music, and write about serious issues such as politics etc. The Music Press then became divided between Musician papers such as Melody Maker and Political Papers such as NME. In the late 1970s-Early 80s readers started to abandon NME because it no longer wrote about music and was too obsessed with "serious" issues. in 1978 Smash Hits launched a new glossy mag, for a younger audience in a smaller magazine format. It focused on "trivia". Including polls, letters, surveys etc, this kept it in touch with the reader. What people also found in the early 80s is that the style in pop music (fashion) became more important than the content.

In the 1980s independent Music labels wanted their own voice and began producing fanzines. These were handmade, but despite that appearance the encouraged a whole new generation of illustrators to contribute. New layouts of magazines were introduced, such as 'The face" and "Blitz" these became popular quickly. These didn't include just music, but information on hairstyles and fashions as well. People experimented with typefaces, layout and graphic designs.

The 1990s were when new technologies began to emerge. Music Videos became popular which changed the way music was consumed. Every single came with a video. The launch of MTV (the first TV market for music videos) made artists realise that a band can make a lot of money with a well made video.

Nowadays there is a limited music press because every thing is pop cultured. Daily newspapers feature pop stars and celebrities.