The New Musical Express (NME) started in 1952. London music promoter Maurice Kinn bought The Accordion Times and Musical Express on the day it was due to close down and relaunched it as the NME. Inspired by the Billboard chart, NME established the first weekly singles chart in a British newspaper in the 14 November 1952 edition. In 1959, the NME introduced the NME Poll Winners' Concert, an awards event at which poll winning artists voted for by the public performed. From 1964 onwards, the concerts were filmed, edited, and transmitted on British television a few weeks after they had taken place. They ended in 1972. During the 1960s, the paper championed the new British groups emerging at the time, including the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. The paper’s focus was on pop music for most of the 1960s, and began charting the rise of psychedelia towards the end of the decade. Its closest rival, Melody Maker, was known for its more serious coverage of music. At the start of the 1970s, NME lost ground to Melody Maker, thanks to its focus on pop instead of the emerging progressive rock genre. The paper almost closed in 1972, but new editor Alan Smith recruited writers from the underground press, including Charles Shaar Murray and Nick Kent. By the middle of the decade, NME was the best selling music newspaper in Britain. In the mid-1970s, NME started to champion underground music genres such as glam rock and punk. Although NME was not as quick to champion punk as Sounds or Melody Maker, writers Julie Burchill, Paul Morley and Tony Parsons helped to move the focus of the paper towards punk from 1976. The paper also featured youth-orientated issues and became more openly political during the time of punk. It took an editorial stance against political parties like the National Front. From 1979, Morley and Danny Baker championed new post punk bands, including Joy Division. With the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, the paper took a broadly socialist stance for much of the following decade. It supported the Red Wedge movement and had a cover feature interview with Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock in 1987. Writers in the early 1980s included Chris Bohn, Paolo Hewitt, Danny Kelly and David Quantick. By the middle of the decade, the NME was again in danger of closing due to falling sales. Readers began to leave NME for new magazines The Face and Smash Hits. The former editor of Sounds, Alan Lewis, joined NME in 1987, charged with turning the paper’s fortunes around. Lewis brought in new writers including Andrew Collins, Stuart Maconie, Mary Anne Hobbs and Steve Lamacq to give the paper a stronger identity and sense of direction. NME featured new bands coming out of Manchester, such as the Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses, and focused on the Acid House scene, helping to increase its readership. The 1990s saw NME focus on the Madchester scene that emerged in the UK out of Acid House, the British indie and shoegaze scenes, the Seattle grunge scene and Britpop. The magazine launched its website NME.com in 1996. In 2000, NME absorbed its rival Melody Maker, which had also suffered a decline in readership figures. The market for music magazines was shrinking and NME attempted to broaden its music journalism to include hip hop acts, electronic musicians and R&B groups. This was unsuccessful and NME returned to its more traditional coverage, helping to introduce US and Australian rock bands to a UK audience, and continuing the champion the growing British indie scene. In 2008, the magazine received a redesign aimed at an older readership with a more authoritative tone. Repeated redesigns and relaunches of the magazine under a rapid succession of editors failed to boost sales. A transition to a cross platform approach, including print, web and app content, was more successful. From September 2015 to March 2018, the print version of NME was distributed as a free publication. NME output is now delivered entirely digitally.

Joy Division began in Salford in 1976. Guitarist Bernard Sumner (also known by the surnames Albrecht and Dicken) and bass player Peter Hook formed the band after attending one of the Sex Pistols gigs at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall in 1976. The day following the gig, Hook borrowed £35 from his mother and bought a bass guitar from Mazel Radio on London Road, Manchester. Sumner already had a guitar. The pair rehearsed in Sumner’s grandparents’ house in Salford, their instruments wired into a gramophone instead of an amplifier. Sumner and Hook formed their first band with schoolfriend Terry Mason on drums. They tried to persuade another schoolfriend, Martin Gresty, to join as vocalist. When he declined, the band placed an advert for a singer in the Manchester branch of Virgin Records. Ian Curtis responded to the advert and was hired without an audition. Sumner, Hook and Mason knew Curtis from attending gigs in Manchester and got on well with him. The band was billed as Stiff Kittens on flyers for their first gig at the Electric Circus in Collyhurst, Manchester. The band was supporting Buzzcocks, and guitarist Pete Shelley and Buzzcocks manager Richard Boon suggested the name. The band changed the name to Warsaw shortly before the gig on 29 May 1977. This was a reference to the David Bowie song ‘Warszawa’ on his album Low. Two days before the gig, Tony Tabac joined Warsaw as drummer, with Terry Mason taking on the role of band manager. A month later, Steve Brotherdale replaced Tabac as drummer. Brotherdale also played in the punk band The Panik. Warsaw recorded five demo tracks at Pennine Sound Studios in Oldham, Lancashire in July 1977. Soon after the sessions, the band fired Brotherdale as drummer. The following month, Warsaw placed an advert for a drummer in Jones’ music shop in Macclesfield. Stephen Morris responded and met up with Curtis at his home. Curtis played Morris the demo tracks and the pair talked about their musical interests and the punk scene in Manchester. Morris joined Warsaw at a rehearsal at the Abraham Moss community centre in Crumpsall, Manchester the following week. Warsaw recorded tracks for a debut EP, An Ideal for Living, at Pennine Sound Studios in December 1977. They played the Swinging Apple in Liverpool on New Year’s Eve 1977, their last gig as Warsaw. A London punk band already had the name Warsaw Pakt and so, to avoid confusion, Warsaw renamed themselves Joy Division. The name came from the novel House of Dolls. Their first gig under the Joy Division name was at Pip’s Disco, Manchester, on 25 January 1978. In March 1978, RCA Records approached Joy Division to record a new wave cover version of a Northern Soul classic, ‘Keep on Keepin’ On’, for a compilation album. In April 1978, Joy Division met TV news reporter and broadcaster Tony Wilson and band manager Rob Gretton at a band contest, the Stiff/Chiswick Challenge, held at Rafters nightclub, Manchester. Gretton was also the house DJ at the nightclub. He was impressed by the band’s performance and offered to be their manager. Wilson was also impressed and, after being challenged by Curtis about why he had not yet put Joy Division onto his music show ‘So It Goes’, promised that they would be the next band he would showcase. Joy Division did not record the cover version for RCA Records. Instead the band recorded an album for RCA at Arrow Studios, Manchester in May 1978. They were not happy with the final mix and asked to be released from the RCA contract. Their debut record was the self-released EP ‘An Ideal for Living’, in June 1978. Tony Wilson’s late night music programme ‘So It Goes’ was cancelled before Joy Division was able to perform on it. In September 1978, the band made its television debut performing ‘Shadowplay’ on ‘What’s On’, Wilson’s music segment in the evening news magazine programme Granada Reports. In October 1978, Joy Division recorded two tracks for the Factory Records double 7-inch EP ‘A Factory Sample’. The band recorded with producer Martin Hannett at Cargo Recording Studios, Rochdale, Lancashire. They contributed two tracks, ‘Digital’ and ‘Glass’, to the EP. Joy Division then joined Factory's roster, with Gretton becoming a partner in the label to represent Joy Division’s interests. On 27 December, during the drive home from a gig in London, Curtis suffered his first recognised severe epileptic seizure and was hospitalised. He recovered in time to record a session for BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel in January 1979. In April 1979, Joy Division recorded their debut album ‘Unknown Pleasures’ at Strawberry Studios, Stockport, with Hannett again on production. Factory Records released the album in June 1979. The band performed on ‘What’s On’ the following month and made their only national TV appearance on BBC 2’s ‘Something Else’ in September 1979. From October 1979, they joined Buzzcocks on their UK tour. This allowed the band members to quit their regular jobs and become full time musicians. Joy Division is known for not releasing album tracks as singles. The band’s debut single was the track ‘Transmission’, released in November 1979. In January 1980, Joy Division toured Europe. The gig at Kant Kino in Berlin inspired the track ‘Komakino’, which Factory later gave away as a 7-inch flexi-disk in June 1980. Before that, in March 1980 Joy Division recorded their second album, ‘Closer’, at Pink Floyd’s Britannia Row studio in London. Hannett was the record’s producer. The same month they released two tracks recorded as part of the ‘Closer’ sessions, ‘Atmosphere’ and ‘Dead Souls’, as an art package called ‘Licht und Blindheit’ through the independent French record label Sordide Sentimental. Curtis’s health deteriorated during the recording of ‘Closer’. Depressed about the restrictions his epilepsy placed on his ability to perform live, he made his first suicide attempt in April 1980. The band was due to tour the USA in May 1980, to promote ‘Closer’. Curtis’s death by suicide the evening before the band was due to fly over to the USA prevented the tour taking place. In June 1980, Factory Records released Joy Division’s final single, ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. The following month, the label released ‘Closer’. Following Curtis’s death, the remaining members of Joy Division re-formed as New Order.