Researching Different Genres of Music Magazines

For my research I chose to look at a wide variety of music magazines containing different genres to get ideas for what path of genre I want to aim for my own magazine.

Indie All indie magazines seem to be very simplistic in the overall appearance. The masthead is usually a bold, simple and large title which mainly takes up the whole upper section of the magazine cover - they may do this because it will stand out compared to the other magazines and it will be very clear and easy to read from far away on the shelf's in stores among its other competitors. The central image seems to mainly be a musician or band as most indie music is aimed at the younger generation usually aged between 16-25 and usually white British which is why the magazine on the right is white British. Indie is not as messy such as like rock so it would not reflect the same layout on its magazine being cluttered, in this case its kept simple however the colours can be very similar to rock magazines like dark and neutral colours but the music isn't as loud and heavy like rock so the indie magazine would reflect differently slightly to its cover more.

Dance Dance magazines would have bright and powerful colours that would reflect the club lights. Bright colours have been used so the main cover line stands out on the page to the black background. The use of the ellipsis  such as “messages…” highlights that the story is to be continued. The image seen of the moon on the bottom left highlights how the magazine is about clubbing which is a night time activity. Furthermore, the central image of the front cover is a medium close up and the artist is directly looking at the camera, as if hes looking at the reader which draws them in and also it would attract more to a female audience than a male audience. They would have puffs and graphic images of celebrity gossip as dance magazines would be mainly aimed at the younger generation at 18+ as they would be clubbing at this age. The magazine would be cluttered which would reflect the people who go clubbing as they would like to think they have a crazy ‘cluttered’ lifestyle. The masthead would be bright and bold to attract people to buy the magazine again stall the other dance magazine competitors.

Pop Pop magazines seems to typically follow the same trend of vivid and bright colours all over the front cover. They also consist of a wide range of typefaces and graphic images which are usually pop artists and this will gain interest to the audience as they will all look up to them as role models. Also the vast amount of  information packed into the front colour will again attract the younger audience successfully. The colours such as on the 'we love pop' magazine below has a lot of feminine colours. This is due to the large amount of audience are girls aged 13-15 that would buy this pop magazine. Secondly, it would also involve many articles such as hair and make up tips and a large amount of celebrity gossip and this would again encourage the female demographic to purchase the magazine. The main image would always consist of a popular celebrity that would contain the most new gossip about, the name of the magazine would be extremely large and bold with bright colours so its easy for the young demographic to read from a distance and therefore will attract them to purchase. The language would be informal as the targeted audience will not be that so that the readers feel like the magazine is talking to them therefore forming a relationship between the magazine and reader which would encourage them to buy more magazines from that company.

Rock Rock magazines usually consist of a main image of a band member from a rock or heavy metal band, they normally have numerous tattoos all over there body, darkened eyes with eyeliner and even flowing long black hair. The masthead would also be a big and bold text that makes it easy for the viewer to read such as the 'KERRANG' one to the side. Furthermore, The colour scheme for rock magazines are similar for most rock magazines, they mainly all use white, black and red. However KERRANG uses a small amount of red to keep it subtle, therefore KERRANG differs from most rock magazines. The layout on the magazines typically be not very orderly, mad and messy because the heavy metal readers and their music would be seen like this also so it would reflect onto the magazines front covers and there audience, lastly they would also have various buzz words around the front cover to attract the readers again. The target audience for this magazine would first and foremost be teenagers (mainly those 16+) and also those in their 20’s. Some of its viewers would be approximately in their 30’s (the same age as the people featured in the magazine). Or simply, people who admire rock and loud music as the magazine mostly centres on rock and punk music.