General questions about

What is a music magazine?A magazine which contents are all about or mainly revolving around music. There are a range of magazines, all of whom contain music from a certain type of genre, including rock, hip hop, indie, punk, etc. Most music magazines tend to focus on only one genre and possibly a few sub genres that relate to the main genre. This is because people have different taste in music and if the magazine included only a small part about their genre they would be less likely to buy it.

What content (text/copy/writing/articles/stories) would you expect to find in a music magazine?

Band/Artist interviews are really important and are a huge part of music magazines. They enable the reader to find out about the band from their perspective and maybe get more in-depth knowledge about them as people and their lives. They are getting information from the primary source and not just a reporter. Other things I would expect to find in music magazines are articles on upcoming bands, band news such as splits/reunions/new bands, chart tables, album and record recommendations and lists, CD/record reviews, Gig listings and reviews, artist profiles and a lot of photographs of the bands included within the magazine. Photographs are important in music

magazines because they can connote a lot of things about the band and what kind of band they are by the props, colours and settings used. For example if the band has long hair, is wearing all black and are pictured with Jackson Demmelition king V guitars, chances are that they are probably a hard core or metal band. Another thing that is in pretty much every music magazine is advertisements, often relating to music, such as instrument brand advertisements, shoe and clothing advertisement or concert advertisement.

What images would you expect to find in a music magazine?

Most of the photographs, except for advertisements, would be of bands. I could expect at least one large or a couple of small pictures to go with an interview or article about a band. Every page should have a few images on it because it makes it much more interesting and colourful to look at and enables the reader to connect the text with the band. I would expect to find different genre magazines to have different types of images. For example, a pop magazine would probably have rather happy looking people, wearing bright colours or at least in a colourful setting. In contrast, a magazine like Kerrang tends to feature photographs that connote more of a ‘rock’ look, for example, bands wearing black or dark clothing, holding instruments such as guitars or singing into a microphone and being in darker settings such as rooms, fields at night or on stage.

Identify general characteristics/ Features that you would expect to find in all music

magazines?Interviews, lots of pictures, fonts and colours to go with genre, editor’s letter, same masthead, cover lines, particular colour scheme and advertisements.

Questions about music magazines front covers (look at any four covers)

Identify the features/characteristics they all have Noticeable mastheads Artists on the front cover (either one artists or a band) Main, larger and obvious cover line

Barcodes, price and issue number and date Particular colour schemes and use of more than one colour Suitable fonts that go well with genre of magazine

Why are these features present on all the magazines? Why are they important? The masthead makes the magazine instantly recognizable, attracts readers to the magazine and connotes what kind of magazine or music genre it is, for example the masthead of Kerrang is black and has a ‘smashed’ effect which connotes rock and loud music. Front cover photographs are important because they will instantly attract an audience if they like that artist and also connotes, again, what kind of music genre magazine this is. They also add colour to the magazine and improve its look and make it more noticeable. The cover lines are essential because it shows the content within the magazine and can catch peoples’ attention and interest. Colour themes also contribute to the image the magazine portrays; as do the fronts.

List 5 differences between the magazines and account for these differences.-The ‘Clash’ magazine has noticeably different cover lines compared to all the other magazines. It has one main cover line underneath the masthead which relates to the cover image and then at the bottom has a few very small ones that are all written in a few lines, not all over the page like the other magazines. This gives the ‘Clash’ magazine a much more symmetrical and simple look and isn’t as much all over the page as the other three magazines. This would make the magazine stand out on the newsstand and would attract the attention of the reader. -‘Rolling Stone’ and ‘Clash’ both have stuck to a much simpler colour scheme, using only one or two colours for the font on the cover page. In contrast, ‘NME’ and ‘Kerrang’ have both used more than two colours. This could show the fact that ‘Rolling Stone’ and ‘Clash’ are trying to connote the idea that they are more sophisticated and the other two are more fun. -‘Clash’ and ‘Rolling Stone’ also only feature one artists on the cover, whereas the other two magazines have a whole band on the front cover. ‘Clash’ and ‘Rolling Stone’ are thereby again trying to go for a more simple and serious look. -Bring me the horizon on the cover of ‘Kerrang’ are all wearing black and white suits which looks quite dark and connotes the type of music they do and what their lyrics are about. The wombats in comparison show that their music is much more fun and upbeat by the fact that they are wearing colourful shirts and jumpers and are jumping, unlike BMTH who are simply standing there looking serious and moody. -‘NME’ and ‘Kerrang’ also both have a header above their masthead, unlike the other two magazines. This gets in more information onto the front page and shows even more about the contents within the magazine.

Take one of the magazine covers and say what type of music magazine it is. Provide at least 4 specific examples from the magazine that supports your claim that it belongs to this particular genre.

Just from looking at the front cover I would almost instantly say that this magazine is about rock and hard core music. First of all, the masthead supports this straight away because of the ‘shattered glass’ effect and the fact that it is black and in caps. This look connotes loud music etc. The main image is of ‘Bring me the horizon’ who are a screamo band. For people who wouldn’t know this it would still be clear because of the fact that all of them have long hair which most rock musicians stereotypically have. The main singer is also has visible tattoos on his neck and hands which is not particularly ‘socially accepted’ like rock music. Again, tattoos are also another stereotype linking to rock and hardcore music. The other images on the page are all of singers performing live. They are also covered in tattoos and most have long hair. Red is one of the colours used on the cover. Red often connotes danger and things relating to darkness.

For the same magazine, say who you think the target audience is. Give reasons for your answers. I think the target audience for this magazine would be adolescents and young adults from ages of about 15 to 25 because those are typically the sort of people who listen to modern rock music and hardcore. The bands on the cover appear to be in their early to mid twenties. Although older people may also read this because of Metallica featured on the front who have a lot of older fans and are older themselves.