Music Magazine Reviews

By Kyle Parkinson

Contents Page

The title “CONTENTS” is broken up into three pieces. This is good as it is unique, creative and stands out more. The connotation is that it is modern and made to look this way to be different and better than the rest. The denotation is that it is broken down into three parts to represent the three pages to the contents section.

The image is quite seductive, drawing you in with the sexual nature of her legs and heels. This will help draw the readers in by influencing that there contents is sexy so the rest of the magazine must follow in that style. The woman is lying down making eye contact which also is sexually suggestive and intrigues the reader to carry on. The colour scheme is black, whit and grey which is an olden times look which suggests that the magazine is retro and classic.

The article is written in calligraphy to give it a more authentic look to it. This is good as more people will be encouraged to read on as it has a professional look to it. The connotation is that the magazine is trying to bring the olden style back into fashion and influencing the reader to get into classic and old style clothes and hairstyles. The denotation is that they are using an authentic look to become more professional and serious to compete with other rival magazine.

The NME masthead has been used on the contents page to anchor both the front cover and the contents page. Bright, bold and red helps it stand out.

The main colours are red, black and white. The main image also follows the colour scheme being red, black and white. This show the magazine is a professional, organised and structured magazine which makes everything in order and in the same pattern. The subheadings are merged with the background to become more modern. The connotation would be that it is trying to blend in and fuse the magazine together showing and more smooth and relaxed magazine. The denotation would be that NME are going for the modern look to the magazine. The arrow shape has been used to help link topics back together.

All the band names written along the side with page numbers next to them making it clear for the reader to navigate. It is also written in red with black page numbers with a white back ground which again shows the magazine is a professional, organised and structured magazine which makes everything in order and in the same pattern. There is a subheading saying “PLUS2. This would instantly attract the reader as they will like to think they are getting extra and more for there money.

The bright yellow text stands out and it is very bold. This will guide the readers eye towards it. NME have purposely done this to gain more subscriptions to the magazine.

The Q masthead has been used on the contents page to anchor both the front cover and the contents page. Bright, bold and red helps it stand out.

The picture is quite peculiar as it isn’t a typical spruced up artist. It is an artist in his true form showing that his band is real and honest. The connotation is that Q are showing that the strokes music is speaking the truth and singing real things about what’s going on around them. The denotation is that he didn’t want to be photo shopped and made vivid, he wanted to be kept the same. At the bottom of the page there is a small caption of an article further inside the magazine to give a little snippet oh what your buying. This is good as it will let the customer know what they are purchasing even more.

The subheadings are bold, white capital on a white background. This is good as they are easy and clear to see with no hassle on finding them.There is a red background behind the features column and only this column because it is making the main features stand out more as they are more important to the other sections. The rest of the list is written in white to make it stand out from the picture more with ease of reading. There is a title “235 CONTENTS” this is to clearly show what you are reading and it’s for issue 235.