Hazel DoyleAS Media – Music Magazine Research

This is my montage of some of my favourite music magazines, all the magazines are aimed around the rock/metal genre of music and all are presented in a fairly similar way although

they are from different companies.

Kerrang!

I chose Kerrang magazine as one of my research focuses as I like the cover designs and think they work well.

The bold masthead on the magazine is clearly visible and identifiable to the reader. The covers use a wide range of colours but initially come across as quite dark and usually have quite a lot of use of black on the background. The images are quite busy and although they are all organised the way the image overlaps covering some of the masthead in most cases gives the impression of not having constrictions.

The attitudes of the magazine are to have fun, the magazine contains a large section on gigs in the area and a large percent of the readers attend gigs and festivals. Kerrang! is a magazine mainly based around rock music and looks at a wide range of bands within the genre.

Kerrang! is aimed mainly at teenagers upwards from around the age of about 14, its readers are fans of the bands the magazine reviews albums or gigs of and interviews. Kerrang! gives its readers chances to be part of the magazine itself, with sections for unsigned bands to advertise their websites and sections for readers to write in to the magazine about previous articles or gigs they have been to.

Kerrang!’s average number of readers per issue is: 43,253.

Rock Sound

I chose top look at Rock Sound magazine as part of my research as it has a different layout to Kerrang and has a more serious feel to it. The cover images are often quite serious images of bands either in full body shots or medium close ups. The layout is often similar for each issue and often contains the same types of features. It is easily recognisable to the reader and the bold masthead and cover images attract your eyes to the magazine itself.

The attitudes of Rock Sound are fairly serious, it does contain some humour in it and the “Corey’s column” section of the magazine is a kind of gossip column written by the front man of a band often featured in Rock Sound and other music magazines, It shows a more amusing side of the otherwise serious music magazine. The article’s featured are serious interviews with bands and solo artists.

Rock Sound’s main audience is fans of rock and indie music, however the reviews section of the magazine also covers other types of music such as, Metal, Punk and Hip Hop.

Average number of readers per issue: 20,011

Metal Hammer

The layout of Metal Hammer was interesting to look at during my research as it is quite different from other magazines. Its use of large cover image often overlapping the masthead is quite common of this genre of magazine, however it has a minimal use of cover lines on it, just a few that run along the top of the magazine and a main cover line usually stretched across the length of the magazine under the cover image. The covers interest me as the images are bold and the backgrounds are quite dark and this follows the stereotypical idea of Rock and Metal being quite a dark genre of music. The cover images are often action shots or posed either angry or powerful looking images.

Metal Hammer’s attitudes are those of a fairly serious music magazine, it uses humour in its articles but tends to have serious interviews and articles.

Its audience is mainly older people who are Metal and Classic Rock fans, mainly adults and Metal Hammer has a wide older male audience.

Average number of readers per issue: 46,004