Analysing a Music Magazine

Analysing Kerrang! magazine.

Kerrang! magazine is a popular music based magazine which is published in the United Kingdom by Bauer Consumer Media. The magazine was first published on June 6th, 1981. Kerrang! is a weekly magazine that is highly acclaimed for representing many 'emo' or 'metacore' music.

Iconography is important for any magazine that wants to publish itself on a routine basis. The Title Kerrang! is iconographic as it unique and features the same in every issue. In the example issue above part of the title has been covered up for the celebrities head however due to iconography and recognition the audience still know that it is Kerrang! magazine; even though only the first three letters are eligible.

The colour black is a distinguishable feature of Kerrang! magazine. Black is used in every issue that I have researched and come across. Other features are also consistant throughout every issue such as the barcode being on situated at the bottom of the page, on the front page, in every release. Another feature of Kerrang! is that they have celebrity status on the front page, situated centrally and filling most of the page. The celebrites are usually solo performers or group bands such as 'Greenday', 'Paramore' and 'YouMeAtSix'. In the photo above the main person represented is the singer who is in the front out of the four band members. He is pointing at the front, towards the reader, which involved the audience in the magazine, including them in it.

The tagline "Panic At The Disco" is another popular band. The word 'Panic' is written in red. Red has connotations of anger, panic, blood and pain; these are all features of metal and emo music. The word 'panic' also stands out more than the rest of the text.

The background is white and therfore suggests blankness, clearness and stops the page from looking crowded and overfilled. Both male and females have been placed onto the front cover to reinforce that the magazine targets both males and females. However, the magazine rarely features black song artists or anyone other than white english or americans. The magazine generally targets an English audience by using American ideologies. The magazine is based in the UK however represents mainly American singer/song writers such as My Chemical Romance and Greenday to target other audiences.

In the front cover above you can see that Kerrang! have used 'Plus!' and 'Inside!' to entice the reader into buying the copy and seeing what is inside the issue. Plugs, side photographs/imags and sublines are an effective method of doing this.

The image is a medium shot of the band.

The largest text on the page is the masthead and the headline, both include block capital text to make it stand out as if the letters are screaming out at you.