Music magazine analysis 4

Denotation:

The magazine cover consists of a colour photograph of a man looking directly at the camera. It is a medium close up showing his head, part of his arms and up to his chest. He is in a still position, standing still and facing forward. The chest and below of the character is not visible. The background of the photograph is plain black and the photograph covers the whole of the magazine cover. Behind the man is a ‘Vibe’ masthead, and in front of him are six separate cover lines in yellow and white. The photographed man’s name is on the top mid, right of the magazine in big bold yellow letters. There is also a logo at the bottom right of the magazine front cover and there is a visible bar code in the bottom left corner.

Masthead:

The vibe’s masthead very plain but affective.  Just big plain, white bold letters with the affect of the black background contributing. The font used is a sans serif font, and each letter is on its own with a distant gap between each letter. The font used is a basic font with no related cultures behind it. The title vibe gives the impression that the magazine is modern and in a funky sort of style. The word vibe portrays rap, hip hop and pop artists which obviously makes it a modern magazine.

Character:

The cover photograph is of the successful American artist/singer ‘Drake’.

Composition: He is posed in a very suggestive ‘I’ unstoppable’ kind of way. His pose, body language and clothing all stereotypes the type of songs he sings and where he grew up from.

Costume: His clothing is of a plain black tank t shirt with the writing ‘UNSTOPABLE’ in the middle in big bold white letters. He is wearing a designed cap and has two different chains around his neck. This costume has been chosen carefully to appeal to the target audience of the magazine, who are most likely to be male. The type of cloths he is wearing can be stereotyped of being black cloths as black people tend to wear those sorts of cloths.

NVC: His non verbal communication also has that very stereotypical look look towards the artist himself. His head is tilted slightly to the right and is looking straight at the camera.                               

Lighting: The lighting is low key, even though there is no specific background image, the colour of the background makes it low key.

Setting: There is no setting at all the front page of the magazine. The magazine is obviously trying to focus on the main artist instead of any kind of location.

Cover lines

The main cover line that relates to his photograph says: “Drake, hip hop’s next religion” which is making reference to the type of music he sings/plays, that he done before this picture was taking and is probably still. People find Drake’s songs to be really unique, modern and a new form of rap and hip hop music. Some of his singles were: “Best I ever had” and “Successful”. Most of his songs tell the audience to appreciate life, there obviously other songs with different morals as well. Drake’s songs have hit the US and the UK charts in the number one spot over 10 times. Meaning that Drake is really successful in the music industry. The other sub cover lines show that the magazine is not only about him but other big name artists as well, such as ‘Lil Wayne’ and ‘Serena’. Part of the cover line, there is an official website attached to it which shows that the magazine is reliable and trustworthy.

Target audience:

Considering all of these points, the likely target audience would be people, who have a taste for rap and hip hop songs, which can be male or female, but the preferably male as males tend to listen to those type of music more and it relates to them more as well. The most likely age group would be between 14 and 45.