Music magazine analysis

Music Magazine Analysis

Typography

The typography on this magazine cover clearly

relates to the rock genre.

The font style of the masthead is a sans serif font.

This makes the magazine look less feminine and

more male targeted. It also looks very distorted,

like smashed glassed or broken pieces which

suggests aggression, loud music, violence, etc.

The text of the masthead is also in black, which

could signify darkness and you associate darkness

with the rock music genre because it’s aggressive

and loud.

The cover story of the magazine is also a sans

serif font. This helps relate to the genre of the

magazine because it shows masculinity which

relates to the band it’s referring to because all of

the members are male. It also helps to relate to a

younger teenage target audience because it

doesn’t look so fancy and mature. The colour of

the font is white and so it contrasts well with the

background, which is red and black.

The coverlines of the magazine are all in a sans serif style font. This helps to relate to the

genre because it shows masculinity, it stands out and it’s very clear to read. The coverlines

are also in a smaller font, so the main focus is on the masthead and the cover story, but it’s

still a good size so that it’s readable and still grabs some of your focus and it isn’t completely

over-powering. The font colours vary from black, white, red and yellow. This helps relate to

the genre because the black, white and red contrast very well against each other. Also black

is a dark colour which could represent darkness which you associate with the rock genre

because it’s aggressive and loud. The red could also signify blood. The pull quote is in a sans

serif style font. It’s black, which fits in with the colour scheme of the rest of the page, and

again it’s quite small so it allows the masthead and cover story to be bigger and bring in

more attention.

Layout

The masthead on this magazine cover is at the top of the

magazine covering the whole width of the magazine

cover. This brings the main focus of the magazine to that

exact point.

It uses the rule of thirds by placing the members of the

band in the centre of the magazine and it also places the

cover story underneath which meets with the exact points

of where the lines meet.

They also placed the band members on the vertical line so

it’s more of a balanced picture, and they also placed a lot

of the writing from the cover story on the vertical lines

too, so that the main focus is drawn towards the picture

and the writing.

The masthead on this magazine cover comes right

underneath the top line of route of the eye.

Just above the top line of the route of the eye is the puffs,

so the posters.

Through the diagonal line you have the picture of all of

the band members.

Just above the bottom line of the route of the eye is the

cover story.

So this means that the magazine is conventional, because

the masthead, main image and cover story all come into

the route of the eye.

Colour

The colour scheme of this magazine cover consist mainly of

red, black and white.

The red of the magazine signifies anger and danger, because

when we get angry we normally go red in the face and so it

could connote anger. The red of the magazine could also

signify blood, and blood is linked to violence and aggression,

which links into the genre.

The black of the magazine signifies darkness. Darkness

connotes fear and sadness, so it could relate to the genre of

music, because fear links in with danger and aggression.

The white of the magazine just contrasts well with the red

and black of the magazine.

Images

The images in this magazine use shot types like mid-shot. This

is a useful shot type because it allows you to see their faces

and what they’re wearing. So with You Me at Six, you can see

they’re all wearing black clothing, this links in with colour and

helps relate to the genre of music as dark and aggressive. It

also allows you to see their faces at a reasonable view point,

and still allows you to see the expression on their faces.

The rest of the shot types on the magazine are either close

ups or mid-shots. The close ups are on the smaller pictures

from the coverline, so it allows you to still be able to see a

clear expression of their face. So with New Found Glory, you

can see with the singers face how expressive he is and it

allows you to see how passionate he is about his music. The

other shot type, mid-shot, is used in one of the My Chemical

Romance posters at the top, just above the masthead. This

allows you to see what they’re wearing, and they’re wearing The Black Parade costumes,

which was one of their eras, so you can see that the photo is obviously from that era. This

also links in with mise-en-scene because it’s costume.

The sort of props and costume they use is with the lead singer in the main picture, Josh, you

can see he has horns stuck onto his head, so this relates to the music genre, because when

you think of rock, you think of aggression and violence, and Josh could be portrayed as the

devil because of his horns, and the devil is aggressive and uses violence.

Language

They use different sorts of language on this magazine cover.

For example, on the cover story it says “Death to pop punk!

You Me At Six come over to the dark side…” so it uses

dramatic language, like death and dark, which links in with

the genre as the genre of the magazine and music is

associated with dark themes.

There are also lots of band names and lots of festival

names, including “+Over 1000 gigs listed!” so this gives you

an insight at what’s inside of the magazine, which helps

appeal to the target audience because the target audience

obviously likes bands and attending festivals, so this

magazine helps them to see which festivals and bands are

the best and which ones will help appeal to who.

Conventions

This magazine is conventional because it uses route of the

eye and rule of thirds. It also includes pictures of bands,

posters, interviews, etc.

It has the masthead at the top going across the entire

width, it has the cover story relating to the picture of the

band on the front cover, and it has lots of coverlines placed

all over the page.

It uses dark colours to represent the genre, so aggressive,

violent and loud.

There is a lot of text on the left third of the page, so that is

conventional as well because there’s normally a lot of text

on the left third of a magazine cover.

Typography

The typography uses a very house style effect

because they use the same font styles and the

same colour scheme as they used on the front

cover, they used red, black, white and yellow on

the cover a lot, and then within the contents

they use the same colours.

The font style used throughout most of the

contents is sans serif, which creates a masculine

feel to the magazine, because the magazine

brings in a lot of male readers, so they’re going

to shape the magazine around the main

audience that is attracted to the genre.

They also use serif in the “Win!” speech bubble.

They used this because it attracts your eyes

towards it because it’s a different font style and

so it doesn’t blend in with the rest of the

magazine, and also its font colour is black, and

it’s against a yellow bubble, so it draws your

eyes towards it.

The font colours used are mainly black and red, but they use yellow for the sub-headings,

this again fits in with what the front cover was, which included black, red, white and yellow.

The colours fit the genre because red connotes anger and aggression, and could also

represent blood which links in with anger and violence. Black connotes darkness and

sadness, which fits in with the genre because we relate darkness with horror, which fits in

with the genre because rock music can sometimes be quite scary and use horrific lyrics.

Layout

For the contents page, it uses rule of thirds, because you

can see down the vertical lines, main things are placed

there, so down the vertical line on the left, you have a

picture of a band, and on the vertical line on the right, you

have a list of stuff that is included in the magazine, so the

news, posters, features, etc.

Also, when the lines meet, there are other main things, so

the lines that meet at the bottom left highlight the

headline, and so your eyes are drawn straight towards

that point, and the lines that meet on the top left

highlight the image of the band, so that also draws your

eyes towards it. Also all of the lines that meet on the right

highlight the contents page and so your eyes are drawn

towards that too, and it allows you to get a detailed

description of what you’d find inside the magazine.

The order of the magazine is very clean and well organised, it’s not all in your face and over

powering, it’s laid out very neatly and clean, which is not very conventional for a rock

magazine, because when you think of rock, you think of mess and violence and guitar

smashing, etc. However, the contents page is very neat and clean. Although contents pages

are conventionally clean and organised, so you can see clearly what you want to find and

where you can find it.

Colour

The colours of the contents page link in with the colours

of the front page, they use a lot of the same colours, like

red, black, yellow and white. For example they use red,

black and yellow a lot for the font colours, and they use

white across the right of the page and all the way across

the bottom.

They also use dark colours with the band members, so

black clothing, which helps with the black font colours

and linking it to the genre. They also used the red for the

colour of the “All Time Low” font, which draws attention

towards the band, and highlights the band so that it’s the

main focus of the contents page.

Like I said before the colours are very consistent, which

connotes a house style effect.

Images

The types of shot types used in the main image is long

shot, but the text of the headline covers the bottom

half of their legs and feet. This allows us to see the full

view of the band and what they’re wearing. It’s

important to see what they’re wearing because it

allows us to see what they’re like and what sort of

colours they wear, in this case, dark colours to relate

and link in to the genre. Another reason it’s a good

shot to have is because we like to see all of the band,

rather than just the singer or drummer. It also allows

us to identify the band members. Their poses are all

normal, they’re not doing any over the top posing like

air guitar or anything, they’re just standing there, one

has his arm in the air, but again it’s not too in your

face.

They also use an image of Andy Biersack, who is the lead singer of Black Veil Brides, and the

shot type used is a medium close up, this is a good shot type to use because it allows us to

see a bit of what his wearing, but isn’t so far away that we can’t identify who he is. It also

allows us to see the expression on his face and what his emotions are.

One of the final images used is just a picture of a bunch of Kerrang magazines placed over

the top of each other, this is because it’s advertising a subscription to the magazine, and just

allows you to see a few of the magazines you’d be able to subscribe to.

There isn’t much mise-en-scene used, the main centre image doesn’t use any props but has

a consistent colour scheme in clothing, which is black. The image using Andy Biersack has a

skull as a prop, this connotes like a dangerous kind of style, because no-one normally walks

around with a skull in their hand, so it’s got a mystery and danger feel about it, which

relates to the genre.

Language

The language used in this magazine is very ordered

and not as dramatic as the front cover. It says “All

Time Low tickets and meet and greet!” this isn’t as

dramatic as the cover story that was shown on the

front cover. It doesn’t contain words like death, and

dark-side, it’s very calm and contained.

They say “Win!” in relation to the All Time Low tickets,

but they have the font in its own little bubble and as

its own font style, so this makes it a bit more dramatic

than the rest of the language because it’s very big and

you can tell it’s important because of the fact that it

has its own font style and colour.

The rest of the language just talks about what’s inside

of the magazine, and at the bottom there’s a readers

letter that they sent into the magazine and then had it published.

At the top of the contents page it just says “Kerrang! Contents” which is conventional for a

contents page, because it has the name of the magazine and then states the fact that it’s

the contents page.

Conventions

The contents page for this magazine is very

conventional because it is laid out very neatly and tells

you where everything is.

It also uses dark colours to represent the genre, so

aggressive, loud, violent, etc. It’s also consistent

throughout the cover and the contents page because

they both use the same colour scheme.

It tells you at the top of the contents page that it is in

fact the contents page. It also has a main image on the

left third of the page, which most contents pages have

so the contents aren’t so boring and full of words.

They also used two smaller images in the bottom

corners, so it isn’t as plain and boring.

The main sub-headings telling us what is inside of the magazine is also very conventionally

placed in rows, so that it’s easy to see what you want to find, and there’s not too much

going on, so it’s not over-powering.

Typography

The type of font used in

this double page spread is

sans serif. For the pull

quote, you can see that

they used the same font

that is used for the

masthead of Kerrang. This

is effective because it’s

consistent, and we can

identify that the same

font has been used, so we

know that it is Kerrang.

They also used white and

red for the font colour of

the pull quote, which creates a house style effect because it’s consistent throughout the

whole of the magazine, e.g. the cover, contents page and double page spread. These are

also good colours to use because as I’ve said before, they relate and link in well with the

genre, and they also contrast nicely against the black background.

For the kicker, they used a different font style and colour to the main text of the article, so

they used a red “M” in the same font style as the pull quote, which is consistent, and the

rest of the font for the main article is white, and a sans serif style, which is much less

distorted compared to the kicker and pull quote. The white of the font works well because it

contrasts well against the background, so it’s easier to see.

For the little strip of writing down the right hand side of the page, it uses sans serif again,

which is good because it creates masculinity and the font colours all contrast well against

the background and each other, and it is consistent throughout the whole of the page itself.

The captions on the pictures are also in a sans serif font, and the colour used for the font is

white, because it contrasts well against the pictures, because the pictures are in black and

white, and so they’ve placed the white font against the black/darker parts of the image.

Layout

The way this double page spread

is laid out is very clean and clear.

On the left hand side of the page,

you have the main image, which

is very big and clear. It’s also an

image of the lead singer of the

band. On the right had side of

the page, there’s the feature and

another strip of information on

the right hand side. On the

bottom of the page on the right

hand side, there’s pictures of the other members of the band, showing them recording in

the story, which relates to the feature because it talks about them recording a new album.

On the right hand side of the page, you can see it uses route of the

eye very clearly.

At the top of the page on the top line of route of the eye, it has the

pull quote, which is used very effectively, because it’s very big,

bold, colourful and right at the top of the page, so it draws your

eyes towards that section of the page.

Down the middle of the page going across the diagonal line of

route of the eye, you have the main article (feature). This is placed

effectively because it follows the route in which your eyes would

take when scanning a page, it’s very clear to see because of the

way the colours of the font and background contrast against each

other, and there’s also a lot of font, so that makes it easier to see.

At the bottom of the page across the bottom line of route of the

eye, you can clearly see two very well placed images. These are placed effectively because

they’re quite big and they stand out well against the black background, because the pictures

are also in black and white. It also draws your eyes towards this section of the page because

it’s the only section of the page where there are actually images.

The left hand side of the page is laid out very well because it just features a little block of

words at the top of the page, and then the main image underneath it, which stands out well

again because the image is in black and well, which contrasts well against the black

background.

Colour

The colours on this double page

spread are used very effectively

because they are used

consistently throughout the

whole of the three pages I’ve

analysed, the cover, contents

page and then this page.

The colours all contrast well

against and with each other.

You can also see that the

images are in black and white,

which is a good effect to use

because then it blends in with the rest of the page and so, is used effectively. The colours all

relate and link to the genre well because the black of the page signifies darkness and

sadness, which relates well to the genre, because people relate rock music to darkness and

sometimes the songs can be quite saddening. Red relates to the genre because the red

connotes anger and aggression, and could also be used to represent blood which is linked to

violence and aggression.

Images

The images used in this double

page spread are all in black and

white. There is one very big

main image taking up most of

the left hand page, and the rest

of the images on the bottom

right are quite small.

The main image’s shot type is

mid-long shot. This is an

effective shot type to use

because you can see the

drummer in the background and

the singer of the band is looking down, which creates a mystery effect, because we can’t see

his face so we can’t see the emotion in his face and so we can’t analyse what effect it has.

He also uses a microphone stand and a microphone to create the effect and excitement that

they’re creating a new album, and from the way he’s posed, it looks like a very dramatic,

emotional but mysterious album.

The bottom three images all use different shot types. The first image (going from left to

right) is a mid-shot. This creates effect because it allows us to see the emotion on his face,

but isn’t too close so that it’s uncomfortable. They also used a spotlight to shine on him,

which makes him look important and like he’s a good person. He’s also holding a guitar so

it’s another good shot to use because we’re able to see the guitar but still be close enough

to see his face.

The second image’s shot type is a wide-shot. This is a good shot type to use because it

allows us to see the rest of the band members, and also we can see that they’re in a studio,

which signifies that they’re recording which relates to the article. You can also see they’re

standing over a mixing panel, which also shows that they’re recording. You can also see that

they’re all talking to each other, so it shows that they communicate well and so it’ll be a

good album.

The third image’s shot type is a close-up. This is a good shot type to use because it allows us

to see the emotion and expression on his face, but it’s not so close that it’s uncomfortable.

We can see in the image there is a microphone stand that he’s singing into, so it also

connotes that they’re recording, which once again relates to the article.

Language

The pull quote says “We’re

being the best MCR we can be!”

this shows that they’re very

ambitious and are determined

to be good and get lots done.

The caption of the third image

on the bottom right says “Oh

no! I’ve forgotten to lock the

bloody front door….” This shows

that the magazine is quite

comical, and quite playful, and

don’t mind making themselves

look silly or funny.

Conventions

This double page spread is very

conventional because on a

double page spread, you

normally have one page

covered in an image, and the

other with the actual article

itself.

You also have images relating to

the article itself placed around

the outside of the article.

It has a pull quote, which can

also double up as a headline,

and it also has a kicker, standfirst, a box out and captions.

It’s also conventional because the colours relate to the rest of the magazine, and are

consistent throughout the whole magazine. This again creates a house effect, and makes the

magazine relate more to the genre and look cleaner and cut.