History and development

within the music press.

1926- Melody Maker and the rise of

the 'inkies' In 1926, this is when the 'Melody Maker' music newspaper in the United Kingdom was first published.

Published by the institution of IPC Media which is still with us here today publishing magazines. Melody Maker is seen to be the worlds oldest weekly music newspaper. The magazine was mainly targeted at musicians themselves. The music newspaper was said to have concentrated on the Jazz genre. In the 1950's a new competitor also known as NME was then published and covered the famous rock n roll

which was aimed at the youth. Both papers were weekly with the upcoming record releases and articles. During the 60 and 70's both papers dominated news stands as they were the only papers that

allowed the public to get hold of information on music. Later in 1999 Melody Maker then became a glossy magazine and eventually NME in 2000 both owned by IPC Media merged together. The 'inkies' were providers of detailed coverage of independent label artists and those not producing mainstream music. For example in the 70's and 80's the 'inkies' were the only source of information for the 'indie

scene'.

1936- Billboard magazine and arrival of the charts.

Billboard is a weekly American magazine which was first printed in 1894 but in 1936 this when Billboard published their first ever 'music hit parade'. Hit parade is a list of the most popular recordings at that moment in time also known today

as the charts. The billboard charts then provided chart countdowns for radio stations and even on TV's American Top 40. From 2005, Billboard has continued

to succeed in the music press and contains charts for DVD's and internet downloads.

1966- The rock fanzine

In 1966 several SCI-FI and comic fans recognised a shared interest into the Rock genre of music. SCI-FI fans, Paul Williams went onto create

'Crawdaddy' and Greg Shaw created two California based zines, 'Mojo Navigator' and also 'Who Put the Bomp' in 1970. These then kickstarted

the journalistic careers for both Greil Marcus and Lester Bangs.

1967- Rolling Stone

Rolling stones magazine was first released in 1967 in San Francisco, independently by editor and publisher, Jann Wenner who is still well

known today. Jann wished to keep with the youth culture therefore when it came to creating the magazine it was less about factual information on

new releases but more about the music culture.

1978- Smash Hits and magazines for different genres

Smash Hits was first released in 1978 and was a teen glossy fortnightly magazine containing a general theme of the genre pop. This is when it came clear in the music press, magazines

were being created and categorised into different genres. It led the way into including celebrities, interviews etc. Another genre specific teen magazine was KERRANG which was

released in 1981 which copied the template and style of Smash Hits but in the genre of mental. Once it was the 90's we witnessed 'Mix Mag' which was a dance/clubbing genre style

and also the genre of Hip Hop and rap was presented In Americas monthly 'The Source'.

1980- The Face and glossy lifestyle magazines

'The Face' launched in 1980 by NME's writer and Smash Hits' editor, Nick Logan created a new music publication which he based on having full colour and a

glossy format. The Face became sucessful in the opening of the floodgates for the 20 and 30 something demographic. It stopped publishing in 2004 but not

before it gave way for Q magazine which was created in 1986 followed by Select, Vox which no loner are available, Mojo and Uncut – all of these fell into

the glossy magazine identity.

2011Now in 2011, there are a variety of different music

magazines all categorised into different genres. We still have the billboard magazines, rolling stone, NME etc with a

few new and modern magazines. A lot of the magazines follow the codes and conventions in selling there magazine

and stick to a certain layout, colour, font etc.