Sarah Herndon and Samuel Stebbins

Introduction Music journalism found significance in the 1960s, following the Beatles’ mainstream success. One of the first popular music magazines was Melody Maker, a British magazine that began being published in 1926 and ran until 2000, finding success when it started focusing on Rock music in the 1960s. With the emergence of publications like New Musical Express (NME) and Rolling Stone, Pop music and cultural criticism became a serious pursuit of many journalists, helping to legitimize...

Hannah Brown, Macy Love, Gracie Doolin, Linsey Prahl, Maggie Zdrowdowski, and Francesca Griffero

The Music Magazines presented in this exhibit highlight the influence these magazines had on establishing the social and cultural identities of today. In the late 20th century music magazines began to see a transformation from simply reporting on musical events to influencing the music industry as a whole. These magazines began interviewing artists, reviewing music, ranking artists, making social and political critiques, as well as determining what unique look fit within each genre. We begin to...