Music magazine analysis

Luke collinson

The Masthead stands out because it is big and bold and even though you cant see all of it you don’t need

to because it’s a famous magazine. The masthead is

partly covered.

Use of 3 main colours; black, orange and blue all of these colours stand out well on the white background

The main story is a darker blue than the rest of the story to bring attention to it.

Secondary stories are smaller than the main story to show that they are not quite as important.

In this picture it shows famous rapper 50 cent in medium long shot with a main story next to him “50 cent, why he’s everyone's favourite gangsta.” in the picture he is dressed classically how you might imagine a modern gangster to dress; flat cap, chain with the cross on it, tattoos and expensive jewellery.

From the main title and the main image with him wearing a crown it makes the audience think that maybe he has won, or that the ‘king’ of hip hop doesn’t have the title. This makes the audience wonder and are there fore more likely to buy it.

There are almost two mastheads here one is the general one to show the name of the magazine, it also has another title showing that it is a special. It also seem to be a trend that the title is partly covered up.

The background is a dark red, this compliments , the gold tile and all of the mans ‘bling’ e.g his crown. Also it makes the white writing really stand out, this mean that it is more likely to look at it and buy it. Lots of jewellery and expensive things seem to be a trend in hip hop/ rap magazines, in this one he is wearing a gold crown and chain.

The stories aren't all necessarily to do with music meaning it can also appeal to a wider range of people and give a variation to the magazine.

This is the barcode, issue date and price. The price is $5.99. this is very cheap for a magazine and works out to be around £3.87.

The central main image is a well known hip hop artist B.I.G. The picture is close up. However this is a different type compared to the other two magazines which both use medium long shots. This one may not be because it is trying to focus on the fact that he has a crown on.

The masthead is again partly covered, this seems to be a similarity in all of the music magazines.

The masthead is also covered in diamonds, this is very typical of hip hop as it is all to do with bling and expensive things, as you can see expensive jewellery is a theme of hip hop very easily by just glancing at the cover. This also makes it easy for most people to tell the general contents of the magazine, which is very helpful because it can reel in any fans of this type of music.

This picture is a medium long shot of lil Wayne and Baby. This shot also shows them dressed as what seems to be typical hip hop.

About half of the page is taken up by a picture of 50 cent, this shows that he is probably one of the main stories since it is on the contents page. Next to him it says 48 in red writing, on the right all the page numbers are in red, this makes it easy for the reader to understand that this is where 50 cents article is. This also allows the reader to open the magazine up and straight away they know where the main story/ a big story is.

On the right it has a full list of the contents. There is not much writing on this page, there is just; the title of the page, the page number and a very brief on line description of what is to be expected on this page. The brief descriptions can come in the form rhetorical questions, short one line statements or statements that have no context thus making no sense to the reader and making them want to get the context meaning they will need to read it.

On this contents page, filled mainly with a picture, it is set out very similarly to the other contents page and has the same colour scheme.

The contents page is set out into 5 sections; one is the main story, next is featured stories that don’t come with in the other categories, there is also a special section that would change every issue the focus this issue is “women in music”, then there is the “every month” section these would be things that feature in the magazine every month and finally the review section where different music is reviewed.

This contents page is very down to the point, there is minimal writing on it and it only shows the main articles of that issue, it doesn’t show what every single page has on it.

I think that only putting the main stories on is a good idea; it means as soon as a reader opens it the know what page to go to at a glance, but also it leaves the reader wondering what is on the other pages which encourages them to open it up and have aLook.

This page is black and white except for a small bit of red, this would be good because it catches the readers eye before the whole image they then look at the whole thing, they recognise him and we have their full attention.This contents page, much like the others, is full mainly of an image all the writing is small and minimal.

The Image of him being grabbed suggests that he is desired and that he also has big fan base.

Rap is always very controversial, this image could be a metaphor of the media trying to pull him down.

This show what section of the magazine the reader has reached. Because it is a section it suggests that this is a monthly thing

This double page spread is split 50/50 between text and a image. The image is there to catch the readers attention and if they don’t know who they are reading about they can put a name to a face.

Even though the writing only takes up a page the story is probably continued on the next few pages.

On the image page it has a quotation in bold, this is a highlight of the article and is used to draw the reader in

The transparent ‘J’ on the page give it focus and allows the reader to gain interest in the page. It also makes it clear that the article is about Jay-Z

The two distinct colours on either side of him, red and blue, suggest that maybe he has a dark side and this article reveals it if you read on

The title takes up minimal space and goes on to the other page. The title is also effective because it is a statement from the man its about, instead of a made up statement from some journalist this makes it more relatable.

The fact that the writing is on the left and the picture is on the right suggests that the article is only on those pages and doesn’t continue. This is a strange way to do it and is unconventional.

I think that the slanted blue writing was a bad idea because as a reader it is very distracting and almost makes the writing hard to concentrate on. Also blue on a light blue back ground doesn’t look nice.

I don’t like this double page spread because it seems to messy and unorganised and I think many readers would feel the same

On this page there is a colour scheme of yellow and black, this stands out and is eye catching. There is not much writing on this page as the picture and title take up about 75% of the page, this is probably because it is a main story, the writing would continue o to the next few pages.

The subtitle “how high?” is linked very closely to the picture and insinuates that whatever it is that he's smoking, its not a vape. This all links in to hip hops stereotype of drugs and illegal things.