ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the emergence of popular music journalism in the period since the mid-1950s, and focuses on the links between the music, its celebrities, and the press. It considers developments in music mediation through the different titles, from the mid-1950s to the day. Presse des Jeunes titles like Top had no agenda other than that of selling copies and making a profit; if coverage of popular music was likely to favour such an end then it was pursued. Popular music coverage became a regular feature, though in the form of differently formatted columns and features. The ever-increasing interest in popular music among their readerships, though, pointed inevitably to the emergence of specialist publications. In a way, music journalism was detaching itself from the music, asserting its independence; the scenario-review’ asserted the personality of the journalist, whose authorial prestige was premissed not only on knowledge of music and milieu, but on rhetorical prowess.
