Kerrang Paper Anaylsis

Kerrang magazine Assignment

LIIAR

Language - Institution – Ideology – Audience – Representation

The magazine utilises many different fonts, colours and sized imaging and text to give us a unique and bold magazine which can stand out in a modern day environment. The fonts vary from dark and malicious looking to light and standard, the effect is to transfer the effect of the music that the reader might listen to only in a form of imagery rather than sound. By using fonts that relate to the sound of rock, metal or any other type of music that in generalised in this magazine.

The sub title on the magazine says “the 50 sexiest people in rock as chosen by you” the 50 is in a larger font and bold in red, this being larger and a different colour instantly draws the readers eye into the magazine. The photos are those of famous of musicians in rather unnerving positions or sexually appealing ones, this has two different effects on the reader. The first one being that a ‘rebel’ to society will find the unnerving images a interesting read, the sexual attraction with females on the magazine cover would also intrigue men into finding out more.

When you first stare at this front cover your eyes navigate the page by looking at the things that either, stand out the most are those which are vibrant colours or images of the unexpected. The images on this front cover are of artists and different coloured writing, the background consists of images relating to the text which sticks out boldly in comparison for example the word ‘sexiest’ can be related to a girl on the right who is posing in a sexual manor. The cover displays the best information that the rest of the magazine will contain, the less important things will be in a small print compared to a big front page title saying ‘50 sexiest people in rock’ this is directly foreshadowing the magazines contents to the reader.

Kerrangs main title and its subtitle ‘life is loud’ is directly imposing the main bands inside, and the genre in which those bands correspond with in this case this being rock, metal etc. These specific types of genre are often very loud, dark and gruesome. The title is referencing this and the label Kerrang is the brand name given to this type of magazine it makes it stand out and be original, allowing this makes it able to not get lost in a crowd of other magazines.

Each person posing in the images reflects differently on there gender, a female would be posing in a sexual manor to alert any male reader where as a male would be posing in a very ‘cool’ way as if he didn’t need the world, trying to be a rebel against society the usual teenage dream.

The magazine makes its money by drawing in a unique type of audience which relates to its magazine, using smart advertising campaigns and clever word layout the reader can be convinced on the first glance of the title alone if they are willing to buy it. The readers interest must be taken into account otherwise there target audience is lost along with any profit made.

The magazine on first glance appears to challenge the natural style of music along with traditional values, men wearing makeup and so forth. It seems to support a more dark and radical approach to music, it challenges traditional standards by having more heavy and dramatic music over slow and peaceful music.

The genres represented in this magazine are genres which involve a lot of rock and heavy instruments that cause a unique sound in the music industry allowing a outcast broad range of music known as metal. Sub genres are then created from this Genre allowing for even more unique sounds. This magazine focuses entirely on these Genres and not those of modern times or generalised mainstream artists. The other things that respond to this genre type are colours and symbolic meanings, for example depressing or dark images will inflict a lot of meaning into this music as it’s often fast and loud about a depressing matter. Colours like black like seen on the front cover are often used with these types of artists to yet again stand out from the crowd.

The target audience is those who often wish to stand out, or can reflect on the music. An example of this can be someone who finds being different a unique stand on society rather than following trends and fashion styles. Others may find its unique tone a interesting side or might find they can relate to what the style is giving off. A depressed person might enjoy the dark aspect of the music.

The magazine uses the genre to spark the colours, the dark images in our minds ‘sex’ for example is a word that wouldn’t openly be said to someone in public. It draws in our deepest thoughts and shows them to us on a page in order to draw us in. Using effects like this allows for us to be interested in the magazine, the colours and the wording will be a keen eye attraction for a passer by who might want to be drawn into reading it.

In these magazines are famous artists that correspond to the type of music they play or fall in place with. Artists like Cory Taylor from Slipknot would be seen here, but other Artists like Eminem or Justin Timberlake wouldn’t be seen on this magazine as they don’t refer to this type of music.

The magazine portrays men and woman is a very peculiar way, normally woman in a mainstream magazine would be made up or posing in some sexually revealing manor, this magazine whilst maintaining some of the original mainstream elements doesn’t contain as much as the above, it portrays woman as dark and not the clear sexual attraction. Whilst portraying men in a very sinister manor and rather ‘evil’, long hair and black to give a crazed look creating a sense of surreal coolness.

Race isn’t mentioned at all on the front cover, so it’s not made clear what there position is on the matter, although many different races play in metal bands. The social status isn’t revealed much either, it could be said that those posing are very low class due to their untidiness, but this again is just the style of the music.

Overall the magazine contains and reframes many elements in order to keep the audience happy; it’s a very dark and melodramatic magazine. It reflects on depression and dark colours with bold headlines of colours that we would often relate to danger (red in this case) or blood and so forth. It relies on the audience to read there magazines and with this it has to use a very original style. And we are then given this magazine in which is an unique take on society and its set of artists that play this genre of metal.