NME Magazine began in the late 50s and contained information on rock and roll music and famous stars such as Elvis Presley. In the 60s when The Beatles became famous, the NME was a huge and successful market. However by the early 70s NME started to loose readers as a new genre of punk music was coming into fashion. The music scene had changed but NME had not adapted with it and was starting to fall behind. A new editor and new writers were hired and it soon became successful again, as they were now adapting with the changing music scene. Into the 80s, electro and new romantic music such as Duran Duran, The Human League and Elton John became introduced to the music industry and became more popular than punk. Once again NME adapted to this and was able to sustain their readership. As the popular genre has changed over the years, NME have now kept up and change with the music scene to keep up with the current generation. It is constantly adapting and this is why it is the oldest music magazine that is still hugely successful today.
During the 70s, other music magazines around only talked about single and album reviews. NME went behind the scenes to offer something different to the reader and had interviews with popular stars, backstage information, albums and singles, new music and interesting articles. This magazine was offering so much more than any other magazine for sale and so it reeled in readers. In the 80s, NME had decided to go one step further and start producing articles based on serious issues such as politics. One issue included the topic of 'Youth Suicide'. The final straw came during a political election however when the magazine went too far with a front cover and ended up having 2 writers sacked. After this NME had a new editor and became all about the music again. In the late 70s/ early 80s, it used famous star Morrissey from 'The Smiths' on many of their magazine covers, who was a really popular artist and fan of the magazine himself. On one occasion, Morrissey fell out with NME and did not speak to them for 12 years. After some time NME was losing readership again and Morrissey needed a career boost, and so they invited him back for another cover. This proved really successful and soon NME had a huge circulation again.
In the 70s, the writers were very bold and to the point. They made fun of artists, calling them names and being 100% honest and not being afraid to tell the truth and say if a gig was bad. They wrote about serious issues in the 80s, involving suicide and politics to make the NME be more than just a music magazine and stand out from the rest. Instead of just being about album reviews and upcoming concerts, they talked about life in their articles and related to their audience through them. Any of the articles from the 70s especially would not pbe published today in the magazine.
