Music Magazines Front Cover Analysis

Vibe Magazine - The genre of this magazine is a kind of hybrid of hip-hop, RnB and pop. The bright colours of the magazine draw your attention immediately. With Nicki Minaj being in such a powerful stance with the camera angle being slightly tilted up makes her look superior and dominant of the cover of that magazine, she also is in front of the masthead this is making her stand out further. The colours used have a consistent flow of similar bright, loud colours, making it stand out, the cartoon like features such as the flowers and flying frogs give it a unique feel and a different side of what you may usually see on this type of magazine as this is what you would expect of the artist on the cover, in a way they’ve brought her personality onto the cover.

Q magazine -  - The genre of this magazine is more rock even though the artist on the cover, Lady Gaga, is a pop artist. The way she is dressed appeals to the audience of the magazine with black spiky leather trousers and a leather glove with a kind of ‘Edward scissors hands’ feel, creates a rock chick feel. She is also posed in a seductive way making it appeal slightly more to a male audience than to females. The masthead is a reversed out ‘Q’ against a red panel, this makes it stand out more than a standard positive print. The colours of the masthead then follow on into over texts on the cover to create a consistent flow of blacks, reds, whites and greys. The way the subtitle of ‘Lady Gaga’ goes behind her back and over her stomach makes it look like the text it holding her, which also adds the seductive feel as it draws more attention to her body.

The genre of this magazine is a hardcore, gothic, punk rock. It is dark and scary and the artists on the front cover ‘slipknot’ are a hardcore rock band that wears scary masks to complete their gothic look. This relates to the genre of the magazine therefore Slipknot are the perfect fit for this magazine. The masthead of this magazine is black and looks like it been smashed this seems like it has been smashed in a typical rock and roll style, for example when rock bands smash musical instruments etc during or after a performance, this adds the type of mania of the genre. The band are slightly in front of the masthead, but as they are a large band they cannot be completely over it as they name of the magazine would be unrecognisable to potential targeted audiences. The font colours and the overall appearance of this magazine are dark and dull but with the contrast of a blood red and bright white.

The genre of this magazine is a mix of all genres as they have many different artists starring on their covers.  This particular issue of this magazine would be a pop genre as it is a dedicated issue to the late Michael Jackson ‘King of Pop’. The colours of this magazine make it stand out as there is only black and white, his clothes are black and white and so is the text. There is little text on this issue making stand out further as there is only his name, the masthead and an extremely brief description of what is inside this issue. The pose of Michael Jackson is powerful and is one that you can relate to him anywhere all over the world, the way he is over the masthead makes it clear that this is his issue dedicated him making it powerful and unique.

The genre of this magazine is also a mix as it covers a wide range of types of genres of music. But for this issue I would say this is a indie/pop issue as its featured artist and main article is about Florence and the machine. The colours are kept simple in the text of just mainly white and the artists name in capital, bold, black letters. This contrasted with the bright red of the artists hair helps for this cover to stand out on the shelf. The masthead goes over the top left corner of her head but still takes no attention away from her as the close up shot of her face makes it stand out as well as her red hair.