2. For my magazine, “Indie-vidual”, I am aiming to appeal fans of
the Indie/Alternative rock music genre. Indie and Alternative
Rock are genres which have become popular over the past
decade or so, but with more groups than ever before emerging
from absolutely nowhere, different fans of different artists are
becoming increasingly more common.
My magazine does not highlight or represent one particular set
of fans. It represents the whole of the Indie/Alternative rock
world as a whole, covering bands like Bastille, Two Door Cinema
Club and Stornoway. The news, articles and quizzes that the
magazine features are all related to the Indie genre itself.
To the right is a screenshot of my contents page “featured”
section. As you can see clearly, there is a range of different
artists/bands from the Indie/Alternative genre. As I
mentioned, there are many up and coming artists as well as
already established, successful ones too. There will be a mix of
old and new Indie/Alternative fans, so it is vital that I include
bands that all types of fans will be interested in and will read
about.
3. But the first question lies with how my musicians are
represented.
For my feature article of my magazine, I came up with
the band “RoodePelikaan”, who are a new Indie band
from Eastbourne. The band consists of five members: A
main singer, a bass player, a keyboard/piano player
and a drum player. All of these instruments or roles in the
band are stereotypical of the Indie/Alternative Rock
genre. So that immediately establishes them as an Indie
band.
The next thing that I have done to represent them as
the stereotypical Indie band is naming the location in
which they started. Universities seem to be an incredibly
common place for Indie bands to start. An example is
Stornoway, who met at Oxford University. This also
represents them as intellectual and intelligent, which is
something that a lot of Indie Bands are. They tend to
write songs based on things that are almost unheard of
in mainstream music. These tend to be subjects that are
random and slightly odd – for example Bastille’s song
“Icarus”.
A guide to who is who in the band.
The picture above gives evidence of the band members and their roles, their names and the place of their
formation.
4. I have represented all of my band members as people who are
very humble and respected. Indie/Alternative Rock artists never
tend to be cocky or arrogant. They are aware of their talent but
only choose to show it when performing. Away from
performing, they are honest and very professional in their
work, whilst artists in mainstream music, i.e. rappers tend to write
songs about how rich and famous they are. I am yet to witness a
case where an Indie artist has been arrogant or rude.
Another thing that makes my artists stereotypical to the genre of
music is their clothes, the mise-en-scene, the props and their
body language in the photographs that I have taken to use in
my featured article.
The screenshot to the right is taken of a particular section of my
article. The text informs the reader of how the band feel about
their recent success in the music industry. They claim that the
success hasn’t changed how they act or who they are, at all.
5. Firstly, are the clothes. Indie artists are well known for dressing well and in
styles that seem to tilt away from the mainstream idea of fashion.
However, the way that they dress is quickly becoming the new idea of
fashion – especially with young adults and teenagers. A lot of the clothing
that Indie artists tend to wear is slim fitting and smart casual. Items of
clothing such as skinny jeans, button up shirts with strange patterns and
suede shoes tend to be the main sort of attire that Indie artists wear. Very
few of these clothing are specific or famous brands either – so we don’t see
much Ralph Lauren or Fred Perry. Indie artists tend to wear clothes which
represent them as a person, or at least their social feelings. Individualists and
“Hipsters” are well known for wearing clothes which they feel shows off their
social ranking in the best way as possible.
The picture to the right show us how the band are dressed. Indie
bands/artists dress smart or casual depending on the kind of
music they make. My band, Roode Pelikaan, make modern day
music which is stylish. Their clothes match the music that they
make and the stereotypical image that Indie/Alternative bands
have.
The location of the photo shoot is what I have picked as my main
stereotypical feature when representing my magazine.
