Music Magazine Research

Rock music mainly took it’s roots from the 1940’s-1950’s style type themes.

Cases in point could be “ROCK & roll”, “Blues”, “Country Music” or even “Folk” Music.

Whenever you question Rock music, you would mainly picture them playing such instruments like, electric or bass guitars, drums, keyboards, however Blues styles, such as Saxophone & Harmonica, can often seek their way into Rock titles too.

Rock music is known to air on some music channels, such as MTV (having it’s own channel in Finland), the Internet Channel, rocktelevision.com and an hour Block on the “Lava” channel.

In Magazine media, there are almost over a dozen Rock Magazines, some listing in the area of Q Music, Kerrang, Jukebox Magazine, Melodicrock or Rolling Stone.

There were even Websites such as Rock.com or Pure Volume.

Rock music can be shown to still be active.

Bauer Performance

The company, Bauer Performance, owns a majority of Music magazines, such as Q or Kerrang however, while Q has it’s own radio channel, Bauer is more known for making “Take A Break” magazine & Puzzle books.

When Q Magazine began, it was originally titled “Cue”, however had to change it, due to not wanting it mistaken for a Snooker Magazine.

While being sold for an average price of £3-£5 on a monthly basis.

The normal music magazine can consist of up to 150 pages worth of content.

These Magazines would often consist of Reviews of either New music or Re-Releases, Top Countdown Lists along with a Spine message where audience have to figure out what the message has to do with the magazine issue.

Artists can often be included in part of an Interview, if they are part of the Top Countdown or if they are doing something Prominent Lately, possibly earning them a spot as the Cover stars.

While the Audience is mainly addressed to a normal music going public, there are some certain areas in which a certain gender can be noted too.

In one case in the Gorrilaz edition of ‘Q’ (Issue 284) there is one subject which talks about Wayne Rooney, of football fame, beginning to hint the majority audience to be male.

Pages, to which I scanned, from this issue are shown below….

Another piece that hints that the Magazine is for Males is the certain aspect called, Disco Inferno.

This page consisted of a pretty much, naked, woman sitting, staring in an arousing type manner at the viewer.

This is bound to have some attraction from the male audience…

Like mentioned, this Magazine is meant to be about Music.

To tie in with the theme of Rock, I was able to find a page which not only had the Disco Images of ‘The Village People’, but along with the Rock legends of ‘Kiss’.

These images will appeal to the Audience because these groups are some of the most famous Music Groups known, as any regular Music going viewer, would easily recognise the area.

The Kiss image can help for my project because, their genre of music is mainly in Rock. This could help in showing, what the average Rock band group shot, should consist of.

The National Readership survey, is a site in which can be used to determine the viewer ratings of each Magazine.

'Q' magazine would possibly be high on the list, because according to the cover, it is "The UK's Biggest Music Magazine".

'Q' Magazine was originally meant to be called, just "Cue" in homage of a Performers 'cue' to come onto the stage.

However, because some issues and concerns that people might mistake the magazine for a 'Snooker' magazine, the title was changed to just 'Q'.

Another Music Magazine called "NME" (Run by IPC Media, See posts below) is in fact an Acronym for "New Music Express", possibly hinting to the Magazines theme of trying to find and express their opinions on new bands or music styles, along with the fact to technically being one of the first Music Magazines published.

For my Magazine, I would most likely need to come up with Multiple titles for it, however doing the best I can to make it music related.

One example could be for a Jazz Magazine, 'Coltrane' as in homage to 'John Coltrane'.

I will consider what titles I can use, before releasing a questionnaire, asking others which title they preferred most.

I shall continue my research and determine what genre and titles, I can use...

Today, I uploaded the second of my music magazine analysis, along with working on my research to music in the genre in Rock.

I should be able to post or continue the piece, next week.

Q Music Magazine Analysis

Upon the magazine cover, we have a cartoony type image to effect their exclusive story with the Gorillaz, which is advertised with a large stamp, just below the magazine’s logo (to which takes up roughly, one third of the magazine’s left hand side, with the boat featuring the main Gorilla members beside it, keeping it eyeliner in the rule of thirds.

The tagline, on top of the cover, also helps to demonstrate the popularity of the magazine by establishing it as the “Biggest Music Magazine” in the UK.

The wave, almost crushing the lower boat is made up of many images of popular music idols, possibly to foreshadow what also is in this edition of the magazine, hinted with the large sub titles, lining the bottom of the cover.

The font of the cover is bold, however a simple type of bold, making it easy to see and have it stand out from the other bizarre fonts appearing on other magazine covers.

The location of the text as well, could be set in those specific places, so that they don’t obstruct this possibly, original and specially made ton  image featuring the band.

Within the eye line of the rule of thirds, it is aligned to be set with the main band whom are riding on top of the wave of music. This can help with selling a magazine as the first thing the audience see of the cover is the presence of the band. Making the audience wish to buy the magazine.