Analysis of MOJO Front Cover

The masthead ‘MOJO’ is at the top of the magazine; meaning it follows conventions. It’s white writing on a black background. There is small grey writing over the top of the masthead that says ‘music magazine’.

There is a main image of The Beatles and two small images; one of Bob Marley and one of Brian Wilson; these are part of the skyline which announces important information about the magazine. In the skyline there is also a flash promoting a free CD inside.

There is another flash on the front cover which is a red box with ’33 pages of reviews’ written inside.

The house style is a black background with white writing and red banners.

The left third is an exclusive interview with Paul McCartney and information about the other music artists that are featured in the magazine.

On the right of the magazine there is also information about other music artists that feature in the magazine. Because they are on the right rather than the left they aren’t as important as the articles on the left articles. This is because the important information is put on the left of the magazine because this is what the reader sees first.

Decoding- The magazine main article is The Beatles; they’re the main image of the front cover and arguably Paul McCartney is more

important that the name of the magazine because he is in front of the masthead.

Paul McCartney is in front of the other band members of The Beatles which suggests that the others aren’t as important and the fact that the magazine interviews mainly Paul McCartney almost proves that he is more important.

One of the main reasons I believe they have put Paul McCarthy at the front and the others at the back is because he is the only one alive and the ‘How I survived The Beatles’ has a double meaning; how he managed and how he actually stayed alive.

MOJO have used and old picture of The Beatles from the 60’s which gives a nostalgic feel and takes readers back to the time when The Beatles were alive and recording songs.

To add to the ‘old’ look to the magazine they have used bleached colours which makes the magazine black a white with only a splash of colour in the form of skin tone and Paul McCarthy’s tie. The magazine uses contrasts of black and white.

Analysis of MOJO Contents PageWhen compared; you can easily tell that the front cover and contents page belong in the same magazine because they have the same house style. Both the front cover and the contents have the red, white and black colour theme. Another factor that links them both together is the ‘MOJO’ masthead that appears on both of the pages.

The Contents page has a strong picture of bob Marley. It is in black and white which gives a nostalgic feel; just like the front cover. The black and white gives it a serious feel which is what the whole magazine is about.

MOJO is a serious magazine for serious music lovers. They buy the magazine especially to read about certain bands and they take there music very seriously and just want to know the facts, they aren’t interested in a colourful, funny magazine.

The contents doesn’t have every page number covered on the feature; they only have the page numbers of the bands interviews meaning that when the readers look at the contents page they are looking at it solely for the page number of the artist they want to read about.

There is a pull quote that relates to the image of Bob Marley. It is written by his photographer and has a double meaning. It say’s that she ‘get’s a rush’ when she has taken a good picture. This is saying how beautiful the picture on the contents and also referring to drug

usage because of the word ‘rush’; by doing this it relates the pull quote to Bob Marley.

The picture is a very artistic photo. They have done this because of the older age group it is aimed at; they see music as art.

Analysis of MOJO’s Double Page Spread

The By Line at the beginning of the article is combined with the Standfirst; ‘Let It Be promised… erasing the memory of their past…’ tells us that the authors name is Jon Savage who is a well known, well respected writer. He is an author who is perfect for MOJO magazine because MOJO magazine is well known and well respected.

There are two lead images at the top of the article; both in black and white, one with John Lennon and George Harrison on and the other with Ringo Star and Paul McCartney on. Being black and white

means it carries on the nostalgic theme MOJO have decided to use for this issue.

There are two Drop Caps in this article; the first one is very large and almost doesn’t look like an ‘I’ because it is so large and unless you start to read the article you don’t realise that it is actually a Drop Cap.

The second Drop Cap of this article comes ¾’s of the way down the first page of the Double Page Spread (DPS) which suggest that the information above this isn’t part of the article itself as such; but more of a summary and when read it is confirmed that it is a brief overview of what the article is going to be about and then when the second Drop Cap is inserted to the article facts are explained a lot more thoroughly.

This MOJO DPS is different on either page in the sense that the left page doesn’t have any column’s it is just one solid block of paragraphs. On the right hand side the article is split up into two columns’ with images in-between them. The images separating the column relates to the article for the obvious fact that they are Beatle records and album cover but it also relates in the way it’s positioned. It is separating something… just like the Beatles separation.

The theme of separation continues in the thick black banner running through the middle of the article with the words ‘I ME MINE’ written vertically; this separating the article relates to The Beatles because some of the reasons why they split up is because of selfishness, narrow mindedness and an inability to get along with each other. ‘I ME MINE’ reflects selfishness because it is all about an individual and it doesn’t take anyone else’s opinion or feelings into consideration.

In my opinion this is a quite boring DPS because it has a black and white theme with only a little bit of colour. It looks dull and miserable because The Beatles aren’t really smiling in the picture; they just look as though they aren’t really that bothered about their music. The dullness of the article could be related to The Beatles feeling at the time the pictures were taken (1969) because they all felt miserable and there was a lot of tension between them.

The tone and register of the copy shows that it was written for the more intelligent and devoted Beatle fan. I believe it is written for the more intelligent reader because right from the beginning of the article it uses very descriptive language; for example: ‘The sleevenotes trumpeted’. The whole article uses complicated words that can only be understood by those at the top end of the IQ scale.

The article is for the extremely devoted Beatles fan for the simple reason of; Jon Savage explains events in a such a way that would only be understood by a fan because to someone who knows very little about The Beatles; like myself will not understand why places, like Twickenham are related to The Beatles and why the death of Brian Epstein was so devastating to them; some may not even know who he. This explains why the article isn’t for people who know very little about The Beatles.

In all, The DPS is a rather boring article for someone like myself and it is a very miserable subject because it is explaining a break up between a well loved band. It is an article to be taken seriously because it doesn’t contain quirky comments and it doesn’t use many colours meaning that it is about the content of the text rather than the distractions like pictures or jokey quotes. The article fit’s in well with the nostalgic and serious theme of MOJO magazine.