Main Task Proposal (Music Magazine)

For my main task media product, I am required to create a Music Magazine, based on a genre of my choice. In order to research my chosen genre of modern, up to date music, I have carried out various tasks to find out which existing music magazine titles are the most successful and the presentational and content elements they use, in order to gain inspiration for my own magazine. Also, using my Preliminary Task materials, I can take the positive aspects of production and visual content, in order to make my production methods better for the main task.

After carrying out a research process and based on my own interests and knowledge of music, I have chosen to base my magazine on the genre of modern music; this includes a wide spectrum of music genres, but particularly focuses on popular culture music, along with any genres which are successful today. For example, country and rock artists are featured in the charts today, along with alternative, metal and indie. I have chosen this genre for numerous reasons, including;

-          This is the area/genre of music I am most familiar with.

-          I am a member of the target audience which are most interested in popular culture music.

-          I feel that there is a gap in the magazine market for this genre of magazine, as from research; I have found that most existing music magazines are specific to one genre, aside from NME and Q.

-          This area of music includes a wide range of genres, meaning a vast target audience, particularly aimed at 16 – 25 year olds.

-          I am able to gain first hand research, as I am part of this teenage demographic and I am able to find out information from this age group directly.

The History of Popular Culture Music

Popular music belongs to a number of music genres which have ‘wide appeal’ and typically is distributed to large audiences through the music industry. Popular music is a generic term for music of all ages, which appeals to popular music tastes. It is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often aimed towards a youth market. Pop music has absorbed influences from most other forms of popular music, but as a genre is particularly associated with the later rock style, along with RnB.

The modern day music charts focus on individuality; what makes the next big pop star famous is their angle on their music genre. For example, Lady Gaga has been the biggest pop music phenomenon of this year. She is widely recognised as being different and edgy, making her very successful. The genres differ a lot in the modern day; with the likes of Taylor Swift who focuses on Country genre music, Nickelback who focus on Rock and Metal music genres all topping the charts. This reflection of modern day music reflects individuals’ music tastes, not consisting of one particular genre; this is part of the reason that I chose this genre for my magazine, as it means that each issue will be different to the last. This will make it exclusive and exciting for readers, and also means that it will have a vast target audience; however focusing on the teenage and young adult demographic.

Existing Media Products for This Genre

There are a number of existing and highly successful media products for my chosen genre. These include NME magazine and it’s matching website. Also, there is Kerrang magazine, which also has an interactive website with the issue’s content and a music channel. Another widely popular existing product is Q magazine, which also has a website. From research, I have found that all existing music magazines of the popular culture genre tend to have a website, which is promoted a lot on the front cover of the magazine, to draw attention. MTV has to be the best known infamous music media broadcaster, which has numerous TV channels and websites. Other popular channels include 4Music and The Box. All the above media products can inspire me for the creation of my media product.

Existing Product Names

During my research of existing media products of the popular music genre, I have been able to find out some existing titles and names and the reasons behind them. For example, Q magazine was named with the intention of relating the to the term ‘cue’, which indicates the start of music. However, this name was changed to Q, otherwise the meaning could have confused with snooker. Q is an edgy and one syllable name, which provides a memorable title for the magazine and music channel.

Rolling Stone magazine relates to the ego of the music stars it provides articles about; it implies the reckless Rockstar lifestyle of modern music stars, and also directly links to the Rolling Stones, an iconic English rock band formed in the 1960s. This direct name link instantly creates a target audience and also reflects the music genre of the magazine effectively.
Another magazine I researched in detail was NME, which stands for New Musical Express. This name gives the sophisticated impression of a newspaper, but really it is a magazine. It also relates directly to imply the focus genre of ‘New Music’. It can also be abbreviated to make it memorable and an iconic logo.

Kerrang magazine’s name is onomatopoeic and refers to the sound made when playing a power chord on an electric guitar. I particularly like this name, as it is inventive and imaginative.

Taking this research into account, I have noticed that music magazines are named to directly link to the nature of music it focuses on and the names are also short and snappy, making them impacting and edgy.

Research into Producing Companies

Bauer Media Group

·         Worldwide circulation magazine titles amounts to 38 million magazines a week.

·         Includes Q magazine

·         Kerrang magazine – Rock music genre

·         Mojo – Originally by EMAP

EMAP

A British Media company (East Midland Allied Press) with a turnover of £1.1 Billion in 2006. It became a business magazine based producing company, however originally published music magazine Mojo.

Time Inc – Owns IPC Media

IPC Media is a London based company, whose large portfolio sells over 350 million copies of magazines a year.

·         NME: New Musical Express

·         Marie Claire

·         Nuts

·         Entertainment Weekly

Typical content of current publications – how much they cost and their frequency/number of pages

Latest exclusive stories – interviews with music stars

Photoshoots with music stars – attracts attention to the cover
Download charts and Top 40/10 charts
Music lyrics
Exclusive preview articles about new singles/albums
Concert ticket adverts
Product advertising – e.g. CD’s, vouchers etc.

Publishing Frequency Research
NME – Tabloid size, with glossy printed pages. It is published weekly and costs £2.20.
Q – Published monthly and costs around £3.50.
Kerrang – Costs £2.20 and is published weekly. Total circulation of 43,000.

Possible Names for My Magazine

Here are some of my own initial magazine name ideas, trying to make them reflect the content of new music I intend to include, and the features of existing successful titles:

Pulse/ The Pulse
Tune
Rhythm
Flame
Adrenaline
Launch
Platinum 
Raise The Roof
Tempo
Rock On
iLoveMusic

From this list of possible names, I will choose one that is most appropriate, by making a shortlist and surveying my media class to find out which name they think is the best and most suited to the genre and target audience.

Analysing a Recent Magazine Cover and Contents Page

After carrying out some internet research about circulation figures and popularity, I have decided to take a Q magazine front cover and Contents page, analyse them for stand-out features and typical content, to enable me to see what makes a successful music magazine media product. Here are my annotations, added to the original cover and contents page of the December 2010 issue of Q.

Magazine Popularity Research

In order to gain some background knowledge about the best selling, and therefore the most successful existing music magazines today, I have used the internet to find some news articles about the rise and fall in circulation figures this year for music magazines. Here is some of the information that I found -

Mojo overtakes Q as top-selling music magazine

Bauer monthly overtakes sister title, as weeklies NME and Kerrang! slide more than 20% year on year

Mojo has overtaken its sister title Q to become the biggest-circulation paid-for music magazine, while there were big drops for music titles New Musical Express, Kerrang! and Metal Hammer in the latest circulation figures out today.

Bauer Media's classic rock magazine Mojo had an average monthly circulation of 98,484 in the second half of last year, down 2% year on year but up 0.8% on the previous six months. It overtook fellow Bauer title Q, which fell 8% year on year and 5.4% on the first half of the year to 94,811.

IPC Media's Uncut held onto third place among the paid-for rock music titles, despite a 13.3% fall year on year to 75,518. It was ahead of Classic Rock, which was up 1.5% year on year and 1.3% on the first half of 2009 to 71,242. But there were big year on year drops for the other titles in the rock music sector. Future Publishing's Metal Hammer was down 16.9% year on year and 9.2% on the previous six months to 41,777.

It was just ahead of Bauer's rock title Kerrang!, which tumbled 21.3% year on year and 4.9% on the first half of 2009 to 41,125, while IPC's NME fell 20.6% year on year, and 6% on the previous six months, to 38,486.

This article shows me that in 2010, the most successful paid-for music magazine was Mojo, which is a magazine devoted to the genre of 'Classic Rock'. This indicates that all ages who are fans of the genre occasionally or regularly buy this magazine, with an average monthly circulation of 98,484. Q Magazine, the sister to Mojo magazine, has shown a drop in circulation, and this product focuses on the genre of Modern Music, giving reviews of new albums and such like. As this popular magazine's circulation rates are falling, I feel that I could create a magazine of a similar genre, in order to help boost the popularity of this music genre magazine. Based on this genre, NME is also a good example of a successful magazine which I can refer to.

Music Genre Explanation

Having chosen music genre for magazine, how does it represent anyone associated with the genre?

Music Genre Focus:

After researching some existing media products of the same kind (music magazines), I have been able to clearly see some successful examples of what makes them so popular, in terms of their target audience, elements used on the front cover and cover lines with images which draw attention. Taking this into account, and the experience I have gained from creating my Preliminary task magazine products, I am able to make a decision and proposal of what I will create for my Main task of a Music magazine cover, contents page and feature double-page spread.

From my own interests and most of the teenage demographics’ interests, I have chosen to base my Music magazine on the ‘Modern Day Music’ genre. This means that style models such as the Rolling Stone cover, which I analysed for research, provide me with some good examples and inspiration for my own magazine. I have chosen this genre of music, as it varies from day to day, making new and exciting and it also includes a wide range of music types, as the music charts today are diverse and range from hip hop, dance, and mostly pop.

Target Audience/Readership:

By including stories and articles about the modern music industry, I believe that the magazine would attract a vast amount of different age groups, as modern music is designed to suit everyone, but in particular, the teenage groups of society. I have found from research that teenagers buy the most magazines yearly, and so I have decided to target my music magazine directly at them. Also, as I am in that age category myself, I am able to relate to the modern music charts and also be able to design something that will attract my age group in content and appearance.

Representations:
The representations that the modern music genre includes tend to consist of the glamorous, typical music stars and also the alternative stars which get media attention by doing crazy or unique things. Also, the love of music tends to show with modern music stars, such as Lady Gaga, Leona Lewis and Michael Buble. They are represented as having great talent and also being very rich and famous, which some of the teenage demographic may admire or aspire to. As part of my magazine, I will represent modern music artists in a similar way, making them seem very relatable and real people, not the negative media attention where they try to make up harmful stories about them. I will design my magazine to focus mainly on the talent and personality of music artists, rather than their personal lives.

Looking at presentational elements, the modern music genre uses bold and contemporary typography and fonts in order to catch attention and give the appearance an exciting edge. Also, exclusive images are used to attract an audience of a music artist at a glance. I will use these two elements in particular, in order to target it at young adults and teenagers.

I will use some skills that I learnt on computer design programs such as InDesign and Photoshop for image manipulation in my main task products and also use my research to take inspiration for coverlines and the way that they use language and layout to also make a successful, exciting image for the front cover.

Magazine Names:

During research, I have noticed that most music magazines have names that link directly or vaguely to the content they include. For example:
NME – New Musical Express – Relates directly to the ‘new music’ of the time and includes chart coverage etc.
Rolling Stone – Reckless but good and talented lifestyle of music stars (particularly rock) and song lyric references.
MOJO – Relates to ego of music stars and in this example, rock music artists.

After this research, I have decided that most of the existing names are short, punchy and easy to remember, meaning that they can have a big impact amongst other magazines of a similar genre.

Here are some of my own initial magazine name ideas, trying to make them reflect the content of new music I intend to include, and the features of existing successful titles:

Pulse/ The Pulse
Tune
Rhythm
Flame
Adrenaline
Disco
Launch
Platinum
Raise The Roof
Tempo
Rock On
iLoveMusic

From this list of possible names, I will choose one that is most appropriate, by making a shortlist and surveying my media class to find out which name they think is the best and most suited to the genre and target audience.