AOB 3 (Music Video) Creating Meaning

For this post, copy and paste your treatment / moodboard.

AOB 3 (Music Press) Creating meaning

NME analysis.

Task 1: Place both old and new images on a Photoshop doc, Powerpoint or straight on your blog.

You are to discuss how meaning is created….basically, how the covers communicate.

To do this you will have to take a look at various elements of the covers.

Intro - Talk about what you are attempting to do.

Paragraph 1 - Talk about the new NME cover.

What audience is this magazine aimed at?  How can we tell?

Mode of address (manner and tone)?

How does the copy appeal to its audience?  

Aspirations of audience?

The content it promises?

What messages and values are being communicated?

Describe the typical ‘reader profile’

Include these…

Masthead – typefaces, colour, size, placement

Feature Article – headline, rhetorical questions

Cover lines – amount, address, size, typeface, exclusives,

Photography – Studio/Live, edited, subject, treatment, background, body language

        (try denotation and connotation)

Layout – Busy, sparse, gridded, slanted, effects, emphasis on image or text, strapline, branding

Paragraph 2 - Talk about the new Old cover. Use the same points as above.

Conclusion – Discuss the main differences and similarities.


Task 2: Copy and paste the magazine that you completed for uiti 2 into this post.

AOB 1 (Music Press) Changing genre, History

Below are the notes for the NME 'Inky Fingers' documentary.  Use them to augment your own notes when you write this up. 

Mags History notes...

1731 gentlemen's magazine - draw images - no cams and DTP, no girls. Loads of text.

1885 Good housekeeping - keep husband happy

1897 - Vogue... similar conventions (name them), ladies - but drawn, articles on royalty, position of women in society.

Marylyn 1955 Cleleb photos, articles on how to get your man

Nova - 1960s, change in womens lives, different roles

Mens mags were generally niche magazines, cars, foottie, fishing, 

1986 Arena. General lifestyle mag eventually out for men. Stared with men on cover, then resorted to a woman.

Modern Representation of Girls: white, young, slim, perfect teeth and skin, 1996 first black model on Vogue, apart from Health and Fitness mags who had been doing it for ages.

NME Notes

NME 1952 Non-glossy, tabloid format. Owned by IPC.

Journalists would write about pop, and be really nice about the bands and artistes.

Morris Kinn first editor, first to feature singles chart

Massive in the 60s,  huge circulation, still a cosy relationship with bands

NME 1969 audeince had changed and become self aware teenagers, soft dugs resort to hard drugs /

peace and love resorts to violence - spiky attitude and harsh writing won back its readers

Alan Smith joins as editor, large 300,000 circulation by 1973

Gonzo journalism is standard.

Nick Kent  wanted to write like Lester Bangs.  Wrote for FRENDZ mag.  He states he once wrote copy on toilet paper as he had to get it in on time.

New young writer Charles Shaar Murray wrote for OZ  prior to NME

New influx of writers that wrote in a similar way to Rolling Stone magazine 'loud fast and funny'

Nick Logan began as editor in 1973 aged 26 - brought in the uncluttered cover and made the paper a more hipper and questioning proposition. 

Penny Smith photographer, big images due to crappy paper.

Age of the supergroup and prog.  ELP, Genesis

the along comes Punk... 1976

1976 Advert for '2 young hip gunslingers' to cover the Punk scene, joiurnalists - Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons joined and changed the direction and tone of the paper. When reviewing bands they were either at your feet or at your throat.

The only place to really find out about punk - only place to see it happen, was in the NME. not in papers, tv or even gigs... 

Liked The Clash and Sex Pistols

Really odd Politically Correct attitude  - Stranglers song 'Peaches on the beaches' didn't impress Burchill

Generation X too clean

Neil Spencer new editior redesign the paper.

Tony and Julie had moved out but were still just about writing for the paper

Kent, McDOnald, Burchill and Parsons out..., new talent needed to be brought in   

Nick Logan went to smash hits... then the Face magazine to cover booming New Romantic scene.

NME dazed and bemused.... who do we speak for... readers decline

Barney Hoskins, Paolo Hewitt, what do we write about?  Punks gone... now - 2-tone,  new order 

Paul Morley wrote about Manchester Fall, Buzzcocks, New Order

Morley and Penman were new double act (before this we had seen Kent and Charles Shaar Murray, also Burchill and Parsons)

NME has now become political and intellectual ....the form, the writing style of what they wrote was deemed very important. Philosophy and culture were covered.

Article of youth suicide, very daring writing very audacious, very small audience, but meant a lot to a small audience.  What other publication aimed at a youth market could do this?

Mid 80s, Thatcher's yuppie, laddy culture . NME supports red wedge, Labour movement, lots of folks out of work due to Tory government, CND extremely political.

IPC were very unhappy abut political content

Been there 7 Years, then Spencer left

NME hip hop wars.  Hip hop, soul or rock?  Many thought hip-hop was just a fad, why have black artists on the cover? we appeal to a white audience. 

Two thirds of audience left.

Neil Kinnock on the cover IPC were again not impressed.

IPC stepped in and took control. Overnight paper was changed, lots of journalists left.

IPC got in Alan Lewis.  Populist editor after higher circulation. T'Pau on cover. BIgger readership.

Now it's instantly non political, less 'hip', more middle-of-road (MOR)

James Brown on board as journalist

Steve lamaq - 'camden lurch' made up genres.

Kevin Cummins  photographed Mondays

NME put Morrissey on cover for any reason

A long way form the revolution of the 70s, they were in love with sales

John Harris  'Killed the dad' by putting Morrissey on cover and stated that he was a fascist

Conor Mcnochols got Morrissey back after 12 years of not speaking to the paper.

So many mags have folded along the way.  Everybody has their own period of NME that they love.

NME survived by being a chameleon and changing with the tastes of its audience. .