Article Analysis for NME

The NME article I’m analysing is a double page spread on a band called Rolo Tomassi. It’s in a section that is quoted as “the best new music first” in the magazine. The page is very messy, with the pictures and text boxes being at awkward angles, and a lot of different colours and backgrounds used.

The band name is at the top embedded in a blue box, which makes it stand out more, and it’s positioned at an angle that overlaps the text and the main image. At the top left corner of the box is a bright red speech bubble which says NME LOVES in, and it comes just before the band name, which is effective, because it shows the article is clearly about Rolo Tomassi, because as an upcoming band at the time, their name was not well known, so it’s good to have it clear.

The text is in quite a big chunk, broken up by only one quote from their guitarist, and also the two columns, however, NME’s official target audience is men aged 17-30, they are over the teenage stage, and are likely to be more sophisticated, so they can handle reading two columns in a music magazine. The text is very informal however, probably because they did polls which showed that around eighty percent of their audience is in full time work or education, which shows that when they read the magazine, they probably want an informal break, and because they’re quite young, informal language is a good way to get through to the audience.

The picture that takes up the main bulk of the left page is a picture of Eva Spence the vocalist. It’s a picture of her live, in a pose that shows a lot of passion and energy, which references their music. They also have a photo of the band together being intimate like a family, which shows they’re close, but also has intertextuality, as their music is very tight.

The general colours used are black, white and blue, which are house colours for this particular feature in NME. It’s bold, but also good to have specific sections specifically coloured as more than half of NME’s readership read at least 3 in every 4 issues, which means that they can locate this section easily if up and coming music is their particular interest.

The text suggests a musically knowledgeable readership, as in the first paragraph, they throw in some band names like Joy Division, Oasis and Nirvana, who are bands who have quite cult like followings, and are seen as musical visionaries for the music that NME covers. They then throw in some relatively unknown musicians names as a contrast to this, which also shows that the reader is expected to have a knowledge of the music that they’re reading about.

They include a lot of information about Rolo Tomassi, and how they started, and their influences and lives. This is good because they’re expected to become big, so it allows readers a chance to learn about these musicians before they become big and change, like a lot of bands do when they reach fame.

I really like the awkward layout of the article, as it captures my attention because the awkwardness makes it stand out a lot more. I also really like the use of a “need to know” box, because it looks like a little notepad and has facts about them in. It’s a summary of the band for people who don’t want to read the article, and I don’t like the large amounts of text in one go because it’s too much to look at, so the small box is good.