MUSIC MAGAZINES RESEARCH & ANALYSIS

Analysis of different music magazine covers

Kerrang magazine

On this magazine cover the way it speaks to its readers is in its own personal way. The language used on this cover is of an aggressive rocker tone. “FEAR! FURY! HEAVY F**KING METAL!”, this is basically shouting at the reader, as this matches the type of music this magazine covers it appeals to the reader very well. The type of text used also seems to be very aggressive, the title has cracks showing how the music itself is aggressive and crazy. The colours in this magazine are similar to evil colours such as red and black

The contents page for this magazine is similar to the front cover with the dark colours and aggressive fonts.

Top Of The Pops magazine

In comparison to the Kerrang music magazine this one is much more of a feminine one, this is easily noticed by the colours and the type of language used in it.

The tone of this magazine is much more gossipy and flirty. “OMG JLS CONFESS EVERYTHING”, the way this is speaking to the reader is almost as if two girls are having a gossip session with each other.

This magazine is more welcoming and easier to grasp than the Kerrang radio, as this one uses bright colours which make it look welcoming whilst the Kerrang magazine is the complete opposite.

DJ MAG

With this magazine it is also the complete opposite to the Kerrang magazine but quite similar to the Top Of The Pops one.

The colours again like the Top Of The Pops magazine are nice welcoming colours, the coversine's going down the side seem to fit in well with the image of the woman just like the Top Of The Pops magazine.

This magazine similarly like the Kerrang magazine speaks to the reader in a way in which only the audience would know, the sort of language like “DISCO –TECH DONS” isn't something we would see daily.

Questionnaires

What gender are you? How old are you?

The majority of people I asked tended to be aged 15-17Male and females

61%

39%

Male

Female

How old are you?

7

5

3 3

0

2

4

6

8

15 - 17 18 - 19 20 - 21 22+

Age

Am

ount

of p

eopl

e

Questionnaires

What area do you live in?

Sutton Coldfield Kings Heath

Edgbaston Great Barr

Harbourne Maypole

Shirley Moseley

Tyseley California

Selly Oak Perry Barr

Hall Green Cradley Heath

Castle Bromwich

These are all the different areas people put when answering this question. As you can see people are situated all over Birmingham

Questionnaires continued

Do you buy music magazines? If you were to buy a music magazine how much would you pay?

A lot of people would pay £4.01+The amount of people that buy music magazines

50%50%

Yes

No

If you were to buy a music magazine how much would you pay?

1

2

4

5

6

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

0 - £1

£1.01 - £2

£2.01 - £3

£3.01 - £4

£4.01+

Pri

ce

Amount of people

Questionnaires continued

How much would you spend on music based products?

How often would you buy a music magazine if you were to do so?

Many people would purchase a music magazine weekly

Daily Weekly Monthly Yearly

0 11 7 0

How much do you spend on music based products a month

0

2

4

6

8

10

0p - £5 £5.01 - £10 £10.01 - £15 £15.01+

Price

Am

ou

nt

of

peo

ple

Questionnaires continued

What do you like reading in a music magazine?

Latest Music Chart Music Interviews Information on events Gigs Gifts Gossip

What type of music do you listen to?

More than one could have been selected

Type of music Amount

Dance 6

RnB/Hip hop 6

Pop 10

Dubstep 5

Rock 3

Grime 2

Indie 1

Classic 0

Other 1

Questionnaires continued

If you were to buy a music magazine what would attract you to one? More than once answer could be selected

The price would attract people the most when buying a magazine

Gifts Eye grabbing images

Price Colour

4 9 13 5

Questionnaires continued

What is your occupational status?

From my results over half the people I asked were students with part time

employed people followed with 28%

What is your occupational status?

66%

28%

6% 0%

Student

Part time employed

Employed

Unemployed

Summary

From my results from the questionnaires 50% of people answered they actually purchased music magazines and most people said they would pay £4+ for them. People also tend to spend around £10 -£15 just on music based products which may include cd’s and band gear etc. When it came to the actual type of music a big amount of people picked pop, and when buying a music magazine they would be attracted by the price mostly followed by eye grabbing images. When coming to making my music magazine I would want to think about the sort of image which I place at the front as people are attracted to eye grabbing images. The price would also be the key to a music magazines success. I also found out that people lived basically all over Birmingham, and were mostly students probably studying at college or university. All together I had 18 questionnaires completed by people.

IN WHAT WAYS DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT USE, DEVELOP OR CHALLENGE FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL MEDIA PRODUCTS?

My magazine actually challenges forms and conventions of a real magazine, because when the reader reads it, its like the magazine is speaking to them because of it being a question and answer. I have also wrote the language in a way that the target audience would and artists would speak in order to make it sound as if the artists I interviewed is speaking to the reader. “This shows going to be a banger, trust me”, this is an example of the type of language I have used in my music magazine which illustrates the way in which people of this type of genre music would tend to speak. In most music magazines the language isn't similar to this therefore it is challenging conventions.

HOW DOES YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT REPRESENT PARTICULAR SOCIAL GROUPS?

The age of the particular social group would be both male and some females mainly between the age of 14 – late 20’s. This age would be the age in which the actual artists would be and the people that listen to this genre of music. The image which I used was an image of an artists which I made. The posture of him is one of a typical grime/artists, holding the microphone and adoring the crowd. The image below shows the typical posture that a grime/rap artists would have.

WHAT KIND OF MEDIA INSTITUTION MIGHT DISTRIBUTE YOUR MEDIA PRODUCT AND WHY?

There is really too many institutes that would distribute my media product because of the genre which is grime/rap. There is one institute that would distribute which is RWD magazine which is a British based magazine which features Music, Style, Sport, Gaming, Film, Technology, News, interviews and charts on hip hop, Grime, Dubstep, RnB, UK garage, Drum and bass and U.S. house music. The reason why my media product would fit in with this institution is because it includes interviews and the genre of grime which my media product has.

HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE? PAGE 1/2

The primary audience of my media product are young males aged 14 – late 20’s as mentioned earlier. Because grime and rap is a genre of music which have mostly black males as the artists the audience would also relate to this, young black males. There are also many white grime/white artists so the audience wouldn’t just be young black males it would also be white and other ethnicities. There are also secondary audiences of my media product. These would be younger siblings of the primary audience or close people to them that see what they read day in day out. Using the Acorn classification the audience wouldn’t be those who are at the very top of the list or people at the very bottom. They tend to be people who are near enough in the middle.

HOW DID YOU ATTRACT/ADDRESS YOUR AUDIENCE? PAGE 2/2

The thing that is appealing about my magazine is that it speaks to an artists which the audience would enjoy reading. The questions that I made are ones which give answers that would excite the readers. E.g. “So Lee where did the name “Double Lee” come from?” and “Are we going to see any new singles and collaborations soon?”. With questions like this it gives the magazine a more enjoyable to read giving the reader an insight to the artists lives and music.

WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?

When making my product I used a range of technologies, such as Fireworks, Adobe InDesign, Quark Express and Photoshop. When using these software's at first I didn’t know how to use them properly, so it took a while for me to get to grips with them. Once I knew how to use them it was time consuming to make my product to good quality. Doing every little thing like changing a small part of the magazine was difficult. These software’s were only available in school and had no access to them outside of school.

LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

The preliminary task and main task are two tasks which require different types of effort. With the preliminary task the software we used which was Publisher wasn’t as difficult as the ones I used for making the main task. The images I used when making the preliminary task were simply taken in a school library with no profession whatsoever. The images I took for the main task I used back lights, professional cameras in order to get a great image. The amount of work and effort that I had to put into the main task was far more than the effort put into the preliminary task. The main task was much more intense due to the deadlines that needed to be met each week and the amount of work was much more than the preliminary task.