Analysis of magazine

A music magazine is mainly dedicated to advertising different artist’s music and their music culture. Magazines typically have a specific theme and layout that suits the specific style of genre, in my case it has a related layout to the style of Indie Rock Music.  As you can see below I have analysed two magazines that both link to the rock music that Is my focus for the creation of my music video. The research that I gain from the analysis of these two magazines will help me to produce a set of mise en scene; ideas; costumes; fonts; camera angles; shots; transitions themes and colours that I could use include. Also, giving me more information on what my psychographic audience is attracted to within the indie rock genre. 

Music Magazine is a magazine dedicated to music and music culture. These magazines typically include music news, interviews, concert reviews, ect.

Rock: includes articles and reviews of current and upcoming artists. My target audience is aimed at young adults, aged 18-30. Due to this being the main age group for this type of genre. The colours used, red, gold, silver, black and white, are more sophisticated.

Indie: Indie magazines are full of independent music, such as, rock and indie. It is more current and vibrant as it aims at a target audience with ages of 18-25 year olds. Indie magazines usually have a lot of red and black as it is a simple layout and there is a lot of writing on it which promotes inside content. It also shows the latest and best gigs to go to, the new and interesting upcoming artists with reviews and ratings.

Rolling Stones Analysis. 

Colour Scheme: As you can see in the examples, there is a link with the colours that have been used, the main colours that make up the image for the Rolling Stones magazine are; Red; Black; White; Yellow. These colours that are used such as the reds and blacks don’t connote the ‘indie rock’ music genre that we would assume, as they stereotypically give across the feel of romance and negativity, the colour black suggests that indie rock is more than just a genre, and that it has meaning and feelings, within the songs and there lyrics. However, the black and white background and photograph that is shown works well with the sub colours, red and yellow as it stands out and does create that ‘indie’ feel as it has that simple, edgy vibe. Which as an audience of indie rock we may use the colours in more of a deeper, thoughtful feeling towards it.

 Fonts: Rolling Stones is a very original and unique magazine. The fonts that they use are very connected and viewed as typical indie rock.  However, as you can see in the three examples; each one of their names has the font that would typically be used to portray them as an artist, their ‘title’- what we can assume is related to that artist only. I think  The Rolling Stones’ idea to do that was very clever, original and specific to the artist.

NME Magazine Analysis:

NME magazines colour scheme is very much the same as The Rolling Stones, with the blacks, whites, reds and yellows. There are small aspects of the Indie Rock genre. However the photos that are included are more or less all in colour which is in contrast with The Rolling Stones, by using colour on the images it creates a more happy feel, yet the aspects of the images like their facial expressions and costumes still give the feel of ‘Indie Rock’ I think that the reason the NME magazines are like this is because the artists that they show are more edgy, however, Amy Winehouse is portrayed on both and from looking at them both they give you a different feel towards her as an artist, one is original, meaningful and the other is more of a lively, less emotional vibe. The fonts that have been used in the magazine is quite similar again to The Rolling Stones, the artist type of music genre and feel that we should be getting across from them and there music is expressed through the fonts. I feel that NME magazine have tried to position the artist to a specific style that goes with the magazine rather than creating the magazine cover and then placing the image of the artist on.


However, I feel that The Rolling Stones magazine is much more relatable to mine and Jess’ music genre that we want.