Magazine Analysis- NME

NME (new musical express) is a weekly music magazine. It is renowned for it’s coverage on Indie music, but in the last decade it has started to cover Hip-Hop, electronic, experimental and folk music. I think the target audience for the NME would be from late teens to late 20’s, I think that because the magazine is very focused on the youth culture of Britain and its not to the taste of people who aren’t interested in youth culture because of their age. The magazine is a key name in British music journalism, it is sold in Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England so it obviously reaches people nationally compared to Loud and Quiet which is mainly distributed in London. The cover for this issue of NME is very vibrant, the colours all work well together, especially the colour of Gerad Way’s hair, and the bright red really stands out against the white masthead and the backdrop of the photo. I also like how the tagline for the cover story is “Gerad see’s red”. I think this is smart, funny and fits in perfectly with the front man because of his outlandish hair colour and the nature of the cover story itself. However, the font colours are all very straightforward (black and white) but the all contrast very well with the bright red and blue in the photo of Gerad Way. Compared to Loud and Quiet this magazine cover is very busy, with lots of sell lines showing what is in the magazine and also free posters to get people to buy the magazine. The cover photo itself is very colourful; Gerad Way holds strong eye contact to the camera, he looks slightly angry and this fits in with the nature of the story, “We loathe what Goth has become”, this story is interesting and slightly controversial.