The Industry

 ‘The Etude’ was the first U.S magazine dedicated to music, it was founded by Theodore Presser in Lynchburg, Virginia. It was first published in October 1883 by 1884 Presser had moved his publishers to Philadelphia where he started the Theodore Presser Company, continuing with the magazine until 1957. In the early 1900’s the ‘Melody Maker’s’ jazz magazine was regarded as the best weekly music magazine for nearly half a century, in 1928 they created the ‘honours list’ it is still regarded as being the UK’s first music chart. By November  14^th 1952, ‘New musical Express’ and ‘Record Mirror’ had started to publish the first singles charts in the UK and ‘Record Mirror’ ran the first album charts from 1956. Some music magazines companies have gone on to create TV programmes or air their own music channels, however when Top of the Pops magazine was created it was from the much-loved TV series, ironically the TV series has since ended but the magazine has lived on.

Some magazines such as ‘Melody Maker’, ‘Record Mirror’, ‘Sounds’ and ‘NME’ were labelled as ‘Inkies’ this was started because their ink would rub off on the hands of the readers. When fashion magazines turned away from this format to the glossy covers we see today, ‘NME’ decided to do the same, this proved to be a good move as the rest of the ‘Inkies’ didn’t survive to be seen today.

Music magazines can be categorized in various ways.

The Teen Glossies – such as Smash Hits and Top of the Pops

Critical Monthly Glossies – Q, Mojo and Word

Genre Specific – Kerrang!, Mixmag and The Wire

I researched into who producers and distributes Kerrang! magazine, as this is my main inspiration in creating my music magazine. I soon found that popular magazine producers Bauer - http://www.bauerverlag.de/ produce Kerrang! and have done since 2008

Before this it was produced by EMAP - http://www.emap.com/ and originally owned by United newspapers - http://www.ubm.com/ 

Kerrang!'s publication began on the 7th of June 1981, with AC/DC on it's cover. Kerrang! was aimed at British heavy metal fans in the early years of production.