history of music magazines

FILM SCORE MONTHLY is a monthly (obviously) magazine that focuses around the release of film scores/soundtracks and reviews them. It began in 1990 and reviews scores from hugely popular franchises such as Lord of The Rings to indies such as Terms of Endearment. The typical reader of this magazine is people between the ages of 16 to 30 that are interested in the soundtracks and music side of film. The house style of FSM conforms to the traditional layout of magazine covers; all of the coverlines are in the left third, the masthead is in a different font and bigger size to all the other text, and the background image spans the whole page.

This quote is from FSM's website, describing what it is produced as:

"Film Score Monthly is one of the leading voices in film music appreciation. FSM was founded as a one-page newsletter sent to 11 people by editor/publisher Lukas Kendall in 1990, and has since grown to encompass a hardcopy magazine, prolific CD label, this website, and other publishing and documentary efforts."

CLASSIC FM was a magazine published in the UK every month. It began in 1995 and ended in April 2012. The typical content of CLASSIC FM is articles about classical music, its musicians, and how it features in media. The typical reader of it is musical fans, typically people aged 40+. The house style conforms to the average magazine cover style- the masthead is the largest text, coverlines are in the left third, and main image is poster style. When it was still in production, CLASSIC FM was published with Haymarket Publishing.
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If I decide to use classical music and film soundtracks as inspiration for the creation of my music magazine, I will use these two for it as I could create a classical music magazine with an article on film soundtracks as the double page spread.
However, I still haven't fully decided what genre I want to do for my magazine. I think that if I don't decide to do classical combined with film soundtracks, I'll do alternative rock- magazines that focus around the genre of alternative rock are NME or Q, which I will write about the history of below.
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NME magazine (full title New Musical Express) is an alternative rock magazine that has been in publication since 1952. The typical content of NME is interviews and articles focused around specific popular rock musicians, for example The Smiths or The White Stripes.  The typical reader of  NME varies from some teenagers to people of an older age group, as it depends on the band being featured for the age group buying it- 'older' bands will attract readers of an older age group whereas 'new' bands will most likely attract a teenage-based audience. The graphology (layout) of NME magazine mostly sticks to the traditional layout of a music magazine, for example having all of the coverlines in the left third and the masthead being in a bolder and blockier font. However, the main image of this cover in particular is over the top of areas of text and there is a definite colour scheme, which is sometimes unusual for magazines of this genre.





Q Magazine is a popular monthly music magazine that is published in the UK. Q was first published by the EMAP media/publishing group in 1986. Since then, however, it has transferred to BAUER Media. The title's origin is that a single-letter title would stand out and be easily recognised on magazine stands, which would attract more people to buying it. Q covers various genres of music, however its most common is alternative rock. The general audience and readers of this magazine are people older than teens, as most of the musicians covered in their articles have been popular since before teenagers will have known them. The masthead of Q is regular and stays the same for every issue, which further proves that a simple and recognisable title works well to attract readers.