Magazine Research

NME – New Musical Express
NME is a weekly music magazine, originally published in 1952. The main genre through the 70s was punk rock, although when the magazine experienced sales troubles it touched on the hip-hop and pop genres.
In 2002, the magazine reasserted its position with newer bands such as The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Vines & The Libertines. The magazine now focuses on new Indie British bands such as Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party & Arctic Monkeys. In 2008 the magazine also started including softer bands like Coldplay, although still keeping to the Indie genre.
NME also organise a wide variety of tours for up and coming bands, including Rock, Rave and Indie tours. The tour names refer to the genre of music of the bands, such as “ShockWaves NME Indie Rock Tour” and “ShockWaves NME Indie Rave Tour”. These tours have included bands such as The Big Pink, Florence & The Machine, The Ting Tings and La Roux.

Outline
Outline magazine is also hugely based online with their “Outline Online” website. It is a local magazine mainly featuring bands, gig reviews, photos and listings from Norwich and Cambridge. On their website they have a music drop down list, with live reviews, album reviews, band reviews and a Local Band list (the reviews also partially featured in the magazine).The website is also linked with Blogger, FaceBook, Twitter and MySpace.
The main Genres of the bands features in Outline are Indie, Rock, Punk and Indie Rock, with local Norwich bands such as The Kabeedies and The Lost Levels.

Q
Q is a monthly music magazine, dating back to 1986, originally sub-titled as “The modern guide to music and mode”. The magazine includes many interviews with popular artists, and a Review section that evaluates new releases, radio broadcasts, TV music, live performances and reissues. Q produces a special magazine every other month, usually specializing on a specific genre/musical times or a specific influential musician/artist. Q is sister with Mojo magazine (which will be mentioned below) and Empire, a film magazine.
Inside the magazine promotional gifts are given away, in the form of cover-mounted CD’s or books, and there is a section called Q50; Q’s 50 essential music tracks of the month.

Mojo
Mojo, the sister of Q (above), was first issued in 1993, with cover stars of Bob Dylan and John Lennon (The Beatles). More modern issues have included The White Stripes, Radiohead, Oasis and Bjork, having stayed with similar styles of music (Indie-Rock/Older style Indie and Rock-Pop). The magazine includes a CD which ties in with the theme of the magazine or a certain article within the magazine.

Kerrang!
Kerrang! is a popular Rock magazine, with original cover bands like AC/DC. Modern issues have featured Fall out Boy, Biffy Clyro, Paramore, 30 Seconds to Mars, YMA6 and Lost Prophets.
The magazine features band posters, band/music news and reviews of new bands, live performances and albums. The main genres featured in Kerrang! revolve around Rock, with extras being Nu Metal (Linkin’ Park/Limp Bizkit) and Heavy Rock (Machine Head).
Kerrang! also does music tours (similar to NME), however these tours keep within the Rock genre. These tours have featured bands such as All Time Low and My Passion – Heavy Rock/Emo bands.
The magazine also has a yearly CD featuring this genre of music, mainly from bands that have featured in the magazine over the year.

Look - recommendations page for music (like other fashion mags)
Look is a fashion magazine with a musical recommendation page. The fashion is mainly "high street", "affordable" and "up-to-the-minute" with shopping advice, celebrity style/news and real life stories. The celebrity news in the magazine suggest more of a Pop genre (if we were to label the celebrity news), leading to the genre of the recommendations they make.

Pop music magazines such as "Smash Hits"
Smash Hits was an extremely popular music magazine for hit music, pop tunes and boy/girl bands (Boyzone, Cheeky Girls, etc.). Smash Hits stopped publishing in 2006, and seems to be replaced by magazines such as Heat - tuning audiences to celebrity gossip/news about pop stars, rather than focusing on the pop's music.