Music Magazine Deconstruction

Music Magazine Deconstruction from gaya_sri

This post is on depicting the different ways that music magazines portray their artists. I have analysed 3 different genres of music magazines, such as: R&B, Pop and Contemporary. This is because I am not yet sure which genre I will be focusing on for my own Music Magazine. What I mainly focused on was how the artists were portrayed, depending on their gender. For example, the female artists are portrayed in a sexual light, whereas the male artists are portrayed in a more serious one.

There were many conventions that I picked up from the different genre of music magazines I deconstructed. For example, I came to the conclusion that if I was to create a Rap/Hip Hop magazine, I would have to portray a female artist in a sensual way, however it would be as if they were rebelling against the way other female artists are portrayed on magazines. I would also have to include a few urban articles that link with the genre of rap. Another convention I discovered for a rap magazine, would to have the main artist being the mist prominent feature on the front cover, while having the masthead a secondary feature.

If I was to create a Pop magazine, I realised I would be using my front cover artist as a guide as to what my colour scheme would be - as you can see from the 'Top of The Pops' magazine that the pink and purple colours have been taken from Britney Spears' outfit. Also, my front cover artist would be portrayed in a way that would be suitable for its target audience, which would be young readers (perhaps 9-12 years old). For example, Britney has been positioned in a sightly sexual way, however it's not as explicit as other female artists. She's wearing a lot more clothing.

Finally, I deduced that if I was to create a magazine which focused on interviews with artists or a questioning magazine in general like 'Q', I would have to make the front cover mainly dedicated to the artist who would be featured. While I would have accompanying articles, they're slightly smaller to scale which means that the readers' attention most likely won't be fixed on them, rather than the article written in bold and LARGE letters.