Music Magazine Titles & Genre

 The genre of my music magazine is Hip Hop/R&B/Urban music in which I have come up with different titles for my magazine that have a high representation on the true meaning of urban music and what this type of music consists of. 

Here is the list of suggested names for my music magazine:

• Vybz
• Beats
• Echo
• Dynamite
• Urban 
• Ultra 
• Grime
• Soul

HIP HOP

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. This has as part of a native culture which is divided into 4 sub-genres which are MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching. Breaking/Dancing and Graffiti writing in which sampling and beatboxing are also included. While often used to refer to rapping, "hip hop" donates the practise of the entire subculture. The term hip-hop music is used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping is not a required component of hip-hop music. the genre incorporates other elements of hip-hop culture which includes DJing/scratching, beatboxing and instrumental tracks.

Much like dub music, hip hop as a DJing form started with no vocals and was purely of an electronic nature. The roots of spoken hip hop music were found in African-American music and ultimately African music. Soul singer James Brown, and musical 'comedy' acts such as Rudy Ray Moore and Blowfly are often considered "godfathers" of hip hop music.
Hip hop as music and culture formed during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, particularly among African American and Latino youth residing in the Bronx.

R&B

R&B, which is the abbreviation of rhythm and blues is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular.
The term has subsequently had a number of shifts in meaning. From the early 1950s, the term rhythm and blues was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the 1950s, after this style of music contributed to the development of rock and roll, the term "R&B" became used to refer to music styles that developed from and incorporated electric blues, as well as gospel and soul music. By the 1970s, rhythm and blues was used as a blanket term for soul and funk. In the 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as Contemporary R&B.

URBAN

Urban music is a category in which consists of R&B and hip hop music. This is basically the combination of both music types and they are both very similar along with drum and base, pop and possibly reggae music. Urban music is a type of music in which is very expressive and can attract many different age groups. Urban music is pieces of music composed in order for someone to either dance to or simply just sit down and quietly listen to and enjoy. It is of slow and fast tempo's and varies as each piece of urban music is different as it consists many different elements within it, which therefore attracts all types of audiences as people may be able to find the type of music that they enjoy most within the urban category. There are many "URBAN" legends as urban consists or Rap/Hip Hop and R&B Music.

Christopher George Latore Wallace otherwise known as The Notorious B.I.G or Biggie Smalls was a huge success within the hip hop industries. Wallace became a central figure after releasing one of his albums in 1994 called 'Ready to Die' mostly to the East Coast hip-hop scene and increased New York's visibility at a time when West Coast artists were more common in the mainstream.The following year, Wallace led his childhood friends to chart success through his protégé group, Junior M.A.F.I.A. While recording his second album, Wallace was heavily involved in the East Coast/West Coast hip-hop feud, dominating the scene at the time. Wallace was noted for his "loose, easy flow",dark semi-autobiographical lyrics and storytelling abilities and became legendary from that day forward and is still a legend to us now.

Beyonce Knowles, former member of "Destiny's Child", is a well known artist of today within the R&B/Urban industry, and a great example of someone who I would like to include in my own magazine. Beyonce is a very successful artist who has gained many Grammy awards because of her hard work, in which she is an inspiration for what will be included within my magazine.

Lil Wayne is also another artist who has been successful within the R&B industry, as he has had many successful records sold and attracts a wide audience with the type of songs he has created. Although he is a young artist and may not be 'legendary' as such, he has a huge impact on those who are interested in urban music and be considered as an idol towards them.

This is a perfect example of the type of artists and genre of music which will be included in my music magazine. 2pac, a legend in urban hip hop music has been an inspiration to many other artists of this genre. Heres a clip to give you insight on the type of genre and audience I am looking to attract with my magazine.

Magazine Analysis - NME

 GENERAL

The company which produces NME magazine is called IPC Media (owned by Time Inc.)

The target audience for the magazine is men aged 17-30, and according to the publisher's website:

•  65% of the readers are male;
• 50% of them are aged 16-24;
•  23% are aged 23-34

The cost of the magazine is £2.40 and it is published weekly.

The circulation is 29,020 and the readership is 266,000.

• The costs for advertising in the magazine are as follows:
• Inside front cover: £8,030
• Inside back cover: £7,980
• Outside back cover: £8,085
• Double page spread: £12,456
• One whole page: £6,920
• Half page (horizontal or vertical): £5,350
• Quarter page: £2,755

The first issue of NME was published on the 7th of March 1952. NME actually started as a music newspaper, but gradually developed into a magazine format during the 1980's and changed from newsprint in 1998.

THE COVER

• NME is called this as it stands for 'New Musical Express' because it expresses the wide variety of music types and genre's included within the magazine and also keeps the audience updated on all different types of music compared to "KERRANG" which is based on one genre of music (rock & heavy metal) in which its magazine title connotes the sound of a guitar attracting only one type of audience where as NME is used to attract a numerous amount of different audiences of different musical taste. 

• The masthead is 'NME' also accompanied by "COOL LIST 2011" as the issue is a special edition. The first mast head's font is plain and simple, with black emboldened lettering on the top left hand side of the magazine cover. It is dominant to the page as it stands out and is one of the first things that you see on the cover. This is also accompanied by the seconds heading at the top right hand side of the page, in which the font is also plain and simple but in red. both these headings allow the audience to establish the magazine type and also the recognition that this magazine is a special edition. The second mast head "COOL LIST 2011" is an immediate indication to the audience on what the content of the magazine will consist of. This compares to KERRANG as the magazine almost has a set layout with the same masthead at the top and no recognition of any special editions. Also KERRANG'S masthead is of one size and one colour, keeping its old traditional standard form.
• The magazine cover has no main image as its consists of 12 different images in line with each other and of the same size although you could argue that the photo's in black and white which are used to represent how legendary the artists are, could be the main images of the front cover. There is not one specific picture which dominates the page as each gains equal attention from the audience although the use of the black and white effect on 4 of the images help the images to stand out. Each picture consists of different music acts some in which are smiling, some with inappropriate hand gestures and some with plain emotionless facial expressions.
•  The cover does not look similar to other magazines, reason being because the front cover has Unique selling points that other magazines such as Kerrang doesnt have which is its unique house style. The use of fonts and colours differ from other magazines as NME is quite plain compared to many other music magazines.

Magazine Analysis - Kerrang

GENERAL 

The company in which produces the 'KERRANG!' magazine is Bauer Consumer Media. The target audience of the magazine 16-25 year old's and specific towards rock music fans but lately the age group of its audience has dropped to 14-17 as it has been proven that this age group read the magazine more often and enjoyed the content and featured artists more. 

The cost of the magazine is £2.20 which is cheap for the target audience (students, young people with low incomes etc..) and is published weekly. The total circulation sales are 52,272 (50,128 in UK and republic of Ireland)

THE COVER 

The magazine is called 'KERRANG!' which symbolises the sound that an electric guitars make. This shows and has been purposly done to attract an audience who have a high interest in rock and heavy metal music as this is the genre of music that an electric guitar associates itself with. 

The masthead/title logo is 'KERRANG!'  which is presented with a font that consists of jagged sides in order to give an electrifying tone or feeling which also contributes to the the audience that the publisher is aiming to target. The masthead/title logo also has straight white lines going through it giving it a smashed and possibly electricuted effect which further implies the heavy metal value. 

The Main image is a man dressed up in a clown mask, a red jump suit and black  

leather gloves. You can tell he is wearing a mask and not just painted his face because some facial features like his eyebrows and cheeks are exaggerated and look plastic. Also his eyes are black which shows his face is covered. The facial expression of the clown is happy/excited as both eyebrows are raised and he also has a big cheeky smile. The clown's direction of gaze and body language is facing forward towards the reader which shows interaction to the reader. Also he is standing up straight with his legs together which makes it look like he is watching the reader.Alot of people who are interested in rock and heavy metal music, ofter associate themselves with characters such as the one shown on the front cover, therefore this also contributes to targetting its ideal audience. 

Across the top are small images of various rockbands such as SUM 41, PARAMORE, BILLY TALENT and MANICS. This attracts their target audience because it shows a range of artists that are featured within the magazine and the fact that posters of each of the artists are available inside the magazine, attracts more people to buy it. There is also an image of a motorhead wine bottle. These images review, introduce and promote new or old bands and are included inside the magazine as well.

 

The typefaces, graphics and colours connotate the genre of the magazine. As discussed previously the font type for the masthead 'KERRANG!' gives an automatic recognition of what the magazine genre is and what it is most likely to consist of.

Also the font used for 'SlipKnot' is very sharp and almost aggressive, showing the intensity of the rock and heavy metal music which again contributes to the idea of targetting a rock/heavy metal loving type of audience. The colours used which are red, black, white, yellow and a hint of blue also contribute to the idea of rock and heavy metal music as the genre of the magazine as these colours have been used to present a electrifying effect and is used as a way that the audience will automatically know the consistance of the magazine. The way that the colours have been put together, for example having yellow text over a black background has a huge effect on which audience the magazine attracts as this associates itself with rockers, emo's and goths of which these subcultures are stereotypically attracted to dark and bright contrasting colours combined together therefore the publisher has used this in order to create a magazine which best suits them. 

 INSIDE 

'KERRANG!' magazine consists of 63 pages in which 19 of these pages are adverts. The categories in which these adverts are put into are games, ticket sales, clothing, CD/DVDs and clothing. The topics within the magazine include competitions, being able to win specific prizes or tickets to gigs. also it have double page spreads of posters of famous rock artists in which the readers may rip out and put on display. there are also topics such as reviews on different acts, with information on what their intentions and ideas are for the music industry and dates of their upcoming gigs if any. These can all be categorised into, feedback, news, reviews and posters.  

Within the magazine there are 14 double page spreads. The content of each double page spread varies, and have different topics covered on each. The first double page spread is used to advertise a new game for xbox in which it shoes the xbox logo and a car across the double page. This is then followed by numerous other double page spreads which talk about different rock artists, some of the things they have quoted in interviews, information about themselves and what they have been recently getting upto. This covers atleast 3 double pages spreads but a different artist is being talked about on each. This is then followed by another 3 double page spread based on live reviews from their live shows. This talks about the way in which the artists performed, where they performed and if their performance was good or bad. It then goes on to talk about 'SlipKnot' who is also the main image on the front cover of the magazine. this includes 3 double page spreads based on the same topic it talks about how 'SlipKnot' came about, a story about it and also a mini interview of one of the members.

Preliminary Contents Page

Here is my Preliminary contents page. I have desinged this in order to match my Preliminary Front cover as the two are designed to be of the same magazine issue. I used a matching colour scheme of YELLOW, WHITE and BLACK, the same logo used on the front cover, of the school which the issue belongs to (Wilmington Grammar School for Boys) and also the same fonts are used. This is done in order to establish the fact that both are from the same magazine and easy for the readers/audience to estinguish this fact. When composing and constructing my contents page, I had to make sure that there was ALIGNMENT, meaning that the headings and subheadings are inline with eachother along with the page numbers. I used my Prelimary Planning composed on bubbl.us in order to help structure my contents and help me choose which topics I wanted to include.

Preliminary Task

 

Here is my Prelimary task's front cover of a school magazine. I have used a colour scheme of BLACK, YELLOW, NAVY BLUE and white to match the logo of the school inwhich I designed to make the magazine for (Wilmington Grammar School for Boys). The title of my magazine as shown above as a masthead is 'WGSB NOW'. it was designed to be a monthly issue inwhich this specific issue was an issue of September 2011.

Preliminary Planning

 Here, I have used bubbl.us in order to create a structured plan for my Preliminary task. This helped me to combine and organise my ideas for my School magazine front cover and contents page and contributed to the ideas of the ways in which I wanted the layout to be.

AS BRIEF

Preliminary exercise: using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally you must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate your grasp of DTP. 

Main task: the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine (if done as group task, each member of the group to produce an individual edition of the magazine, following the same house style).