Music Magazine Textual Analysis

The New Musical Express, known as NME is probably the most popular music magazine in the UK. It was first published in March 1952 and has developed significantly whilst influencing the music genre, ever since.

The cover pictured displays Kate Nash and Jack Penate, two famous artists who are known to be friends. This is represented by their body language and smiley, welcoming facial expressions. This expressions also connotes summertime which links in with the summery style of the cover which uses bright colours and bold fonts. The contrast of the pastel colour the artists are wearing and the much brighter text creates a distinctive and eye-catching cover and draws the reader's attention. The use of the different colour also helps to highlight different articles through separating them and making them stand out. Conversely, amidst all the colour, some articles are details with simple black fonts against a white background. These stand out equally, as they contrast with the other colourful features. The inclusion of red text in some areas creates the typical NME brand through grouping red with black and white.

In typical NME style, the cover presents a somewhat unorganised array of text spread across the page with the main headline written centrally across the artists. The traditional black, white and red NME logo acts as a marketing tool in creating brand identity. The bar code, as an insignificant feature to the reader is also conventionally placed in the left hand bottom corner. However the inclusion of the NME website in this section may draw the reader's attention. The inclusion of the website helps build up a larger fanbase for the brand.

A variety of interesting language techniques are presented on the front cover. For example, the use of the superlative "sickest" in the headline "The sickest gigs ever" employs a type of play on words through using language recognised by the demographic as a colloquial way of saying cool or crazy, when in reality, the word "sickest" does in fact refer to its literal meaning in terms of most disgusting. Alliteration is also used in the headline "Rock n Roll Riot". This feature is separated from the rest of the cover with a block blue background and more distinctive font with the inclusion of the NME logo. These details create a separate graphic therefore specialising the feature and drawing attention to the further relevant information to the right of the graphic.