This is another magazine specialising in music, other magazines like this include Kerrang, Mojo and Q magazine. Nme, like Kerrang, have extended their media cooperation: by investing in the NME music channel on sky television, NME tour and awards and are even the sponserers of Leeds Music Festival. Musical artists are mainly from the indie genre with artists such as: Beth Ditto, Kaiser Chiefs, The Twang, The Editors and a lot more. The genre’s which aren’t involved within this magazine are Artists from the Dance genre, artists such as Cascada and Ultra Beat, or artists from the R’n’B genre such as Beyonce or Chris Brown, it seems like Kerrang this is another very limiting magazine in terms of the difference in genres. The stylistic features of this genre are similar to the Kerrang magazine although isn’t as heavy in promoting self expressionism, the indie genre, however also has an attitude with their artists which is reinstated within the headline ’Kiss My Ass!’ it’s also reinstated by the photograph as well which establishes the attitude which surrounds this genre. The content of this genre are again quite similar to the Kerrang magazine, the content which is guaranteed is gig information in the back of the magazine, it includes information on tickets for the gigs and artist information who are planning gigs etc. Other content are interviews with bands which are typical for these magazines as well as website urls to exclusive album previews, every content is all musical based.
The masthead spells NME is bold, bring red font on top of black. The red creates a feeling for the magazine, how the magazine includes ‘red, hot music!’ which is what your buying the magazine for, to be in the know about brand new, hot music. The idea of the letters being in capitals reinstate the idea of the indie rock, which is a sub genre of rock music being loud and ‘in-your-face,’ however also makes the magazine stand out for the audience, it’s eye catching. On the headline they’ve used an almost ‘joker’ like font, this reflects the attitude for the artist and the genre, how artists creating music in this musical genre just seem to want to have a good time, and if anyone tries to stop them, the sub headline states ‘Kiss my ass!’ Again the headline of the artists name is in red which connects with the masthead, however also reflects the idea of this artist being ‘Red hot, brand new and happening!’ I feel they have printed the subhead line in Black for this states the seriousness of how she feels as it’s also a pull quote. The plug stating ‘Free poster’ is white on red, I feel this is used honestly for variation of colours however, they’ve cleverly created the word ‘Free’ a lot more bold and larger then the other words in that plug. The font of the plug is just the standard Times New Roman font which makes it seem like serious deal to the audience. Over all the heaviest font is obviously the masthead which is a convention of magazines, the second heaviest seems to obviously be the headline followed by the subhead line. The photograph of Beth Ditto is taken in long shot portrait and this is the only photograph on the front cover, apart from the cut outs used as a plug. Beth is naked in this photo and the lighting instead of creating shadows which is what we’d expect to hide explicit parts on her body, she uses her arms and legs to hide them and the lighting lights up the whole photograph, which errors out shadowing, this gives the idea of her being open and not hid away. This is the technique they used on the Britney Spears photograph on Rolling Stone magazine. It creates the idea of the artist being open and honest in the obvious interview or main story, which will intrigue the audience. The only star photographed on the page is Beth who is a female; and I feel this is what audience are looking for, a female who is breaking the stereotype of how a female should act, it shocks the audience therefore intriguing them into wanting to read about them. They’re all arranged by using the conventions of an average magazine, Masthead is the largest, boldest text at the top with the tagline underneath. The largest photograph is what the head line is based on, there are plugs and lurs involved, these are smaller then the main features of the magazine and are also placed out of the way to the left.
The colour as a whole on the page is pretty much the simple colour pallet of the conventional WOB/BOW and also red and yellow. The good thing about this colour pallet is it’s very eye catching to the audience as well as shows the magazine off in a positive light as it’s reassuring the audience how this magazine only includes the hottest, newest music. The main item on the page which you notice is the picture and the headline, they are the main focus points of the piece as it’s such a striking photograph of a naked overweight lady I feel they proposed that photograph for that very reason, the headline and subhead line are the following focus points of the front page. You then focus upon the masthead and the plugs after that, I feel a good magazine front page has to keep the audience interested from every main focus point the audience look at. The red text all connects with the red masthead, and also connects with the photograph as Beth has a lipstick kiss print on her ‘ass’ thus the metaphorical headline is then related to the photograph: all of the elements of text and image relate to each other or at least back to the masthead, I feel this is a good idea, as it reinstates and embeds the masthead into the audiences mind. I feel the cover basically makes what the magazine has inside obvious to the reader: the idea of this magazine almost rebelling in a sort of way, it’s promoting the idea of people to break the stereotype and telling people they don’t have to be what others want to them to be.
The masthead of ‘NME’ stands for ‘New Music Express’ which is also the tagline underneath the masthead. The idea for ‘New Music’ reinstates the idea of why the audience is purchasing this magazine, for the new music, this is also reinstated by the colour of the Masthead being red, it reflects the idea of it being brand new, hottest music. The word ‘express’ creates the feeling of this magazine being fast in some way, whether it’s by delivery or the time of it being published it’s a positive term within the title even if it is unclear the meaning behind the term is, it only gives off a positive connotations for the magazine.
The main focus point, the photograph is of Beth Ditto posing naked. The angle is slightly lower, so she is looking down, this creates a dominating effect which connects with the idea of her posing naked, it’s as if she is a role model posing naked on the stage for everybody to view. Her facial expression comes across as quite hard faced which reinstates the idea of her being a dominant figure. Her make-up is quite harsh on her face and is involved with the idea of her having a hard face. This photograph creates an attitude which also sets an example for the magazine, the attitude she has reflects the pull quote to the right of the photograph the photograph basically looks like she’s telling people to ‘Kiss My Ass!’ the photograph creates the idea she’s a role model by doing this because of the harsh criticism any woman could receive for doing anything like that, the contrast of women’s roles: now compared to 50 years ago, women would never do anything like that, as well as the idea of this woman being overweight proves the confidence and with overweight people receiving negative comments quite regularly through the media again, she again could be seen as a role model. I think the photographs represent women as confident humans, rather then the stereotype which they have seemed to receive over the years while their husbands are the breadwinners for the family. The magazine is basically saying says people can do what they want now a days, weather it’s pose naked or exploit their sexual orientation, why should people care what other people do? This reflects the idea of the Indie genre as well, as indie stands for individual: it’s reinstating the idea of artists writing their music how they want about what they want: I feel it represents freedom within society.
This magazine seems to be operating in anyone with a love for music of the Indie genre, and self expressionism. I feel it challenges the status quo as it’s representing women as loud confident humans rather then the stereotyped house cleaners, it’s also challenging the status quo by showing an overweight women on their front cover, where as on other magazines and papers they only seem to show naked skinny women. It seems to reflect society a lot more then other magazines do however, challenges the status quo by breaking the stereotype people have gathered from certain social groups. The magazine seems to support women rights, as well as the idea of accepting the way overweight women exist in society, not just skinny women. It supports the idea self expressionism through music and the idea of individuality through out humans.
I feel this media text makes it’s money by printing what people want to read about, the idea of it supporting the idea of individuality and promoting individuality in music. It’s realising society printed in magazines isn’t necessarily the society of today, with women cleaning the home rather then working, it doesn’t really happen anymore. Other piece’s of media in which is connected is television, as it has some information regarding the television show ‘peep show.’ Again, the market is great for publications like this as indie music is becoming a lot more popular however, just like the karrang and Rolling Stone, the one problem is just they’re expansive magazines to buy. I feel again, the audience have strong control over the content in the magazine, for to keep it as close to real society, it has to be aware and listen otherwise it would become another magazine which stereotypes society and musical artists. I feel it’s views are very independent as it has to be to remain a good indie music based magazine. After all it can’t really care too much what people think, as it has a photograph of a naked women on the front of the page.
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