Music Magazine Genres By Erin Harper

R&B magazines R&B magazines tend to portray a set of common conventions, for example the cover star is always in the form of a medium close up image, this conveys their serious expressions which links to the often serious messages shown in R&B/ rap music. Also the main image overlaps the masthead of the magazine to give a ‘3d’ effect, all three of these covers use very bold straight edged font to indicate that this genre is not to be messed with; i.e. it’s not airy fairy. All three covers also use a bright red or yellow in the font to highlight important headlines or tags.

POP magazines Pop magazines are very different to other genres as the use of colour is very unusual, it’s a mish-mash of bright ‘funky’ colours that are really eye-catching. For example pink is the most featured which links to the target audience of girls between 8-13. This genre uses A LOT of tags such as “unleashed” or “win” to persuade their target audience to purchase it (serious waste of money in my opinion) . This type used photographs in a medium close up format and the models are famous celebrities connected with that genre. This type of magazine uses a lot of cover lines to preview the articles inside, different sized fonts are used to highlight the important articles. In these magazines the mode of address is the model looking directly at the audience, this establishes coherence between the reader and magazine

ROCK/ALTERNATIVE magazines Rock/ alternative magazines are different because of their use of colour, they tend to use a similar palette of red, black, white and yellow; these are the most bold colours and make the text stand out. The font is a well balanced mixture of straight, thin letters and round, large text, this creates interest and adds quirkiness. Rock magazines use medium close up or extreme close up to add detail and focus, the mode of address is where the artist is looking directly at the camera, however in Q magazine the artist is not always doing this, this makes the cover more unusual. This genre uses a lot of puffs (that draw attention/ promotion/ freebie) around the cover to promote something, it is usually shown in a box out.

What am I going to do?....

• I think I will go with the genre of rock because it is the most adaptable in the sense that there are lots of sub genres. Also, rock music is the type I listen to most therefore I have a greater understanding of the genre. The covers are often playful, bold and unusual so I will have a great window to experiment.