MUSIC MAGAZINE COVERS

These two magazines include mainly up and coming indie bands. Neither are mainstream although Artrocker is slightly more left field, focusing on indie and electro, while clash includes more pop and rap artists.

Artrocker is mainly a music magazine, but is also very focused on art and fashion, so the covers will normally be artistic shots such as the one on this cover. The style of photography suggests that it is a left field magazine (if you were to compare it to NME, you would see that the colours for Artrocker are muted and uses soft focus. Whereas NME uses bight colours and sharp lines to draw the eye – this is because it is a much more mainstream magazine designed to appeal to a wider audience).

Clash magazine, whilst being less mainstream than NME, is still a fairly all inclusive music magazine, most of the bands featured will be played on mainstream radio stations. The cover is something which would appeal to its target audience (16 – 30), this is because it looks alternative, no fussy writing or colours, the artist, Jay-Z, is represented as a serious musician, his look suggesting ‘you don’t know what I’ve been through’. The fact that the cover is not bright colours and happy faces means that the magazine is not patronizing audiences by fulfilling a need for excitement, but show that it a a serious music magazine for an intelligent audience.

NME is a very mainstream music magazine. It has a much broader target audience, for instance, than spin. NME appeals to a wide age range, very young teenagers to people in their 40’s. It also appeals to both genders.

The colours used are very eye-catching, bright primaries and bold white outlined with black.

On this cover they are using the TV duo ‘The Mighty Boosh’. By using these, they are showing that not only are they a magazine centred around music, but they also are aware of trends and people who are seen as ‘cool’.

Spin magazine is a more alternative magazine than NME, but still houses main stream music. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, for instance, are an alternative band who have recently become popular in mainstream music in the last two years. The fact that they are on the front cover of spin would attract both people who enjoy mainstream and alternative music. The colours used on the front are bold and the font is strong and striking,

Q magazine is very ‘indie rock and roll’. Although it does contain other mainstream pop and rap artists, its main focus is on indie rock bands such a Muse, Coldplay, U2 etc. The image on the front cover of the magazine is of Muses’ lead singer Matt Bellamy smashing the ‘Q’ of the Masthead with his guitar, this gives off a very ‘rock and roll’ vibe, further backed up by his pull quote ‘I bought 50 tins of beans and an axe’ and the cover line under the lead article ‘Matt Bellamy is out of control’. The colours used are red, black, grey and white, when used together these are menacing and masculine colours, this makes sense as rock music is predominantly associated with males.

MixMag is far more accessible to both genders. In fact the cover used above could even be described as feminist, the artist ‘La Roux’ is used as the main image, she is a strong feminist role model, known for dressing in men's clothes and wearing her hair short. The writing, the background, La Roux’s make-up, hair and clothes, are all different shades of gold, I think this colour was used to suggest glamour and riches, making the magazine more appealing to older teenagers and young adults who are intrigued by fame. The magazine is known as very ‘cool’ (again for older teenagers/young adults), the pull-quote for the lead article shows this, talking about ‘going bananas’ and going to bed late.

These are two covers from the magazine ‘Rolling Stone’. The first is recent, and the second was printing just after John Lennon died. The first cover has used the colours red and white for both the lettering and the main image’s clothing. This is a refreshing change from red and black (often used on rock music magazine covers), as it makes it a lot more accessible to both genders. Rolling Stone is not just a music magazine, it also has an interview with Jackasses’ (stunt and prank programme) Bam Margera as one of its cover lines, this also pulls in a more general and wider audience because it is not kept specific to the subject of music.

The second cover was published in 1980. The image used was taken by Annie Liebovitz of John and Yoko, on the last day of his life. This was ranked as the top magazine cover in the last 40 years. Obviously, the reason it is so minimalistic is because everyone knew who he was, and everyone already wanted to read about it, no cover lines or sky lines needed. It would also be insulting to direct attention away from Lennon, as his death was seen as a great loss in the music industry. I love the minimalism and artistic image, and would like to use something like it for my cover, however I acknowledge that I would not be able to get away with having no cover lines at all if I wanted to sell any copies of my magazine.