music magazine - codes and conventions

Music magazines always follow the same codes and conventions, which I am now going to analyse.

The masthead is always at the top of the page as its main job is to draw in the audience’s attention and suggest the genre and target audience, it is normally very short and snappy, and uses a bold and strong font, relating to the genre of the music, which acts as a recognisable logo. Then there is always a main image used, which is of the main band or artist, when it is a band it's usually a long shot, taken with a dynamic angled shot, however when it is a solo artist it is usually a mid-shot or close up. Both techniques use direct address, which consist of the artist(s) looking at the camera in order to connect to the audience, to portray an ‘attitude’ and to represent their music, with their body language and facial expression. Subsidiary images are also used, which may also get you to look at the magazine, especially when well-known images are used, and can be used to give them a little snippet in whether they will like the contents of the magazine to buy it, and so that they include more well-known faces to appeal to a broader audience.

The masthead and picture sets the colour scheme and theme which then creates the style for the headline and cover lines. Most music magazines have a colour theme of two main colours; these colours are usually from a limited range as this makes the magazine stand out more to its audience. The Headline matches this theme and is big and bold to attract attention and make the main image relevant. A tag line is then used to attract attention and give the headline relevant content, adding another colour and size font. For the cover lines, there are always normally around 5 cover lines which relate to the singer, or other big artists, or genre of music covered, and uses as little words as possible so that they make the audience intrigued, without a big section of text. In these cover lines buzz words, promotion or a ‘puff’, are normally used to attract attention for example "plus" and "free” as these get the reader to want to buy that magazine even more. Basic information is also featured on the front cover; which is needed for most magazines in general like a bar code, price and issue date. If the magazine is more expensive then this price tends to be smaller so that it isn't the first thing the audience see and get put off by. On the other hand if the magazine is cheap then the price is usually bigger and bolder, or presented in a badge, in order to quickly draw in the audience’s attention.

There is an organised layout to music magazines, which suggests a more mature and adult audience, as it is formal, which is appropriate to the genre and the target audience, this is achieved by limited ranges of font, grid system for the layout, and simplistic colour scheme and main image. For example Q magazine looks more serious. If you can see the background on the magazine, normally it’s because it’s a band, but there is normally a plain background, making the look more formal, and other features stand out.