Music magazines were very prolific in the United Kingdom, with the NME leading sales since its first issue in 1952. NME had a longstanding rival in Melody Maker, an even older publication that had existed since 1926; however, by 2001, falling circulation and the rise of internet music sites caused the Melody Maker to be absorbed into its old rival and cease publishing. Several other British magazines such as Select and Sounds also folded between 1990 and 2000. Current UK music magazines include Q, Kerrang! and Mojo. Magazines with a focus on pop music rather than rock and aimed at a younger market include the now-defunct Smash Hits and the BBC's Top of the Pops, which outlived the television show on which it was based. The longest running music magazine of the UK is BMG, founded in 1903 by Clifford Essex. BMG, which stands for Banjo, Mandolin, and Guitar, is the oldest fretted instrumentfocused publication and actively promotes acoustic instruments of all kinds. Major music magazines in the United States include Rolling Stone, Down Beat, and Spin. Clash magazine was voted Music Magazine of the Year in 2004 and is the second largest UK online presence. Clash was also Awarded Magazine of the Year at the PPA Scotland Awards. Alternative Press has more of an "underground" coverage including pop punk, post-hardcore and metalcore. Among classical music magazines, Diapason is the most read in France. An example of a nostalgia magazine is Keep Rockin', a 1950s and 1960s nostalgia magazine. The premier issue came out in January 2009. The magazine features a mixture of current eventssurrounding that time period and stories with original photos from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as some reader-written articles about experiences growing up during that period.
Covermounts
Severalic magazines include a free album of music, known in the publishing industry as a covermount. The practice began in the 1980s with UK magazine Smash Hits giving away flexi discs, and graduated to mixtapes and compact discs in the 1990s, with modern magazines such as NME and Mojo frequently including cover compilations. The tracks are cleared for release by the relevant record companies, and are usually released for promotional purposes.
