Analysis of Classical Rock/Metal/Grunge Magazines

The magazines below are representative of the classical rock/ heavy metal type music genre.

Mojo's team had originally been involved in the launch of Q Magazine but MOJO's outlook immediately differed. While Q catered for the contemporary pop-culture scene, fitting music into a world that contained film, television, celebrity. Mojo is a magazine that has always been about music pure and simple. Since its first issue it has focused on music old and new and has always favoured the lost classics and ambitious artists, over the fads, starlets and best-sellers pored over by other magazines.

Kerrang! is one of the biggest selling weekly rock magazines. It was initially published as a one-off supplement in the Sounds newspaper devoted to the current New Wave of British Heavy Metal and the rise of other hard rock acts such as AC/DC, who appeared on Kerrang!’s first cover. During the early days of the magazine placed many thrash and glam metal acts on the cover eg Bon Jovi, but later discarded them when grunge acts rose to fame. Kerrang! features new musical trends that become popular focusing on a current emphasis of emo and metalcore music genre. The title 'Kerrang' is onomatopoeic resembling the sound of a guitar being smashed, this is suggested by the cracks amongst the text as if it had been smashed by something.

Both magazines employ a colour scheme made up of the three dominant colours, red, black and white to represent the nature of the music genre. By putting these colours together it gives the magazine a more dramatic outlook. The content represented in this magazine is simply music and artists that are popular in the rock/metal genre. For example on the cover of Kerrang is, '25 extreme metal anthems' and on the cover of Mojo reads, ' Rodger Waters the dark side revisited'.

Mojo is magazine that caters for those who have an interest in classic rock. It was first noted for featuring artists such as Bob Dylan and this particular issue has coverage on Bob Dylan. Also Mojo regularly includes a cover mount CD which ties in with a current magazine article or theme, in the issue above this is shown by a CD which inspired Bob Dylan.

The band 'Trivium' is the main image focus of the cover suggesting the main article inside will be about them. The band member third from the left is dominating the photo as he appears the biggest and is placed over the end of the masthead. This indicates he is the lead singer and also shows how popular and well recognised the magazine is. They are all dressed and appear in similar colour to the colour scheme of the rest of the cover to re-enforce the nature of the magazine itself. This is displayed in 'Mojo' magazine also as all men are looking directly at the audience therefore attract the readers attention as they can feel more involved already.

The music represented in these magazines have a big impact and this is emphasized by such features as the bold and strong words used in both headlines, 'Dylan blasts back' and 'new album will blow you away' and in Kerrang's slogan, 'Life is Loud'. Moreover Mojo's slogan is 'The music magazine', by using a definite article 'the' it suggests that Mojo is the best and the only one you need to read. In addition this is also portrayed through the big and bold text which is used throughout the cover.

In conclusion all the above features of these magazines work together to reinforce and represent the particular music genre of rock/heavy metal and grunge.