NME Institution Research

In lesson we have watched the history of the NME and this is a summary of what I have found out...

NME.com

• New Musical Express, has been publishing since 1952 and started in the UK.
• During the 1960s the paper championed the new British groups emerging at the time.
• The latter part of the 1960s saw the paper chart the rise of psychedelia and the continued dominance of British groups of the time; During this period some sections of pop music began to be designated as Rock.
• In the 1970s it became the best-selling British music newspaper. During the period 1972 to 1976 it was particularly associated with gonzo journalism, then became closely associated with punk rock through the writing of Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill.
• By the early 1970s NME had lost ground to the Melody Maker as its coverage of music had failed to keep pace with the development of rock music, particularly during the early years of psychedelia and progressive rock. In early 1972 the paper found itself on the verge of closure by its owners IPC (who had bought the paper from Kinn in 1963).
• By the mid 1980s NME had hit a rough patch and was in danger of closing. During this period they were split between those who wanted to write about hip hop, a genre that was relatively new to the UK, and those who wanted to stick to rock music. Sales were apparently lower when photos of hip hop artists appeared on the front and this led to the paper suffering as the lack of direction became even more apparent to readers.

• The start of 1990 saw the paper in the thick of the Madchester scene, and covering the new British indie bands and shoegazers.
• By the end of 1990, the Madchester scene was dying off, and NME had started to report on new bands coming from the US, mainly from Seattle. These bands would form a new movement called Grunge and by far the most popular bands were Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
• In 2000 Steve Sutherland left to become Brand Director of the NME, replaced as editor by 26-year-old Melody Maker writer Ben Knowles. The same year saw the closure of the Melody Maker (which officially merged with the NME) and many speculated the NME would be next as the weekly music magazine market was shrinking - the monthly magazine Select, which had thrived especially during Britpop, was closed down within a week of Melody Maker. 

• In the early 2000s the NME also attempted somewhat to broaden its coverage again, running cover stories on hip-hop acts such as Jay-Z and Missy Elliott, electronic music pioneer Aphex Twin, Popstars winners Hear'say and R&B groups like Destiny's Child, but as in the 1980s these proved unpopular with much of the paper's readership, and were soon dropped. In 2001 the NME reasserted its position as an influence in new music and helped to introduce bands including The Strokes, The Vines, and The White Stripes.