work

1. Task 6: metal magazines
The target audience for these magazines include an age
range of predominantly 15-25 year olds, so are young
in this way. The gender is largely made up of males, as
will be discussed later. The audience consists of the
type of young man who has a slight hatred or grudge
against mainstream media and society in general, and
chooses to live an alternative lifestyle, embracing
strange items of clothing, vocabulary and music taste.
Of course the favored music task of these magazines is
metal, heavy rock and generally dark music performed
by bands, often with shouty lyrics. There are many
consistent themes that run through these magazines
that i will goon to talk about.

2. Rock Sound
Content: style, characteristics, cultural, technical,
The Rock Sound music magazine cover has addressed the anti
establishment social group which adheres to the genre, through choice
of wording, slang, imagery and color schemes. The colors dark is often a
color that represents pain, despair and hatred, and the magazine ha
used this as it’s primary color in order to give off the idea that it’s
audience can sympathize predominantly with these sort of emotions,
which highlights the magazines ability to reflect on social issues related
to its audience. To add to this, red is a color often associated with death,
pain, defiance, danger and violence, helping to further connote this
idea. Phrases used such as ‘explosion’, ‘pain’ and ‘wild’ help to further
reinforce this idea, and also help to make the cover appropriate to it’s
male target audience. A lot of stereotyping has been used on this front
cover example, and this feeds into what I’ve already said about the idea
of pain an anti-establishment tendencies. It plays on the fact that these
are often stereotypes associated with the genre. From a technical
standpoint, everything from fonts used to colors has been used in order
to reflect the heavy metal style. The font used on the slipknot text has
very jagged edges which is something commonly seen on metal
magazines and is used to give a masculine aesthetic. Sharp edges
resembling spikes, giving off an aggressive feeling to the text rather than
a feminine and calm feel. Everything is also laid out in a very ‘in your
face manner’, with visual hierarchy being used to make masthead, title,
and pull quotes all stand out.

3. Big Cheese?
Age:
Representation:
Social groups, age, gender, social issues, presence and absence,
sterotypes,
Content: style, characeristics, cultureal, technical,
Despite having a title which doesn’t particularly adhere to the death
metal genre, this ‘big cheese’ cover is another great example of
representations being used within a magazine. The magazine targets
itself at a similar age group to that of ‘rock sound’ one would
presume, around the age of 16-30, again being a young audience who
tend to be the main consumers of this genre of music. In this example,
the artists on the front of the cover is made to stand out lots, and
even covers the masthead, placing it at the top of the cover’s visual
hierarchy, meaning that its’ the first thing a reader looks. The artist
(who I am not familiar with), is dressed in all black. This is important,
as again, it is used as a representation of death, destruction and
hatred (all stereotypically linked with the genre of music). Notice that
technically it’s all pretty similar to the previous magazine I analysed,
with reds, blacks and whites again making up for 99% of the cover.
The text is also layed out in a similar way, with a set of artists featured
I small subheadigns across the right hand side of the page. I would
however, argue that this cover doesn’t represent in such an ‘extreme’
way, the genre of death metal as perhaps the rock sound cover does.
The same style of don’t has been used for the ‘my chemical romance’
text, again feeding into that sterotype of pain and hatred. There are
actually one or two examples of vocaubualry which seems out of
place though, for example ‘romance’ and ‘superstar’, giving it a
slightly more glamourous feeling than the previous magazine. Again,
there’s an absence of any gentle colours, and notice how the cover
seems to be very full on and doesn’t have a great deal of spacing,
perhaps being used as a connotation for the extremity of the death
metal genre of music.

4. Revolver‘Revolver’, the title of the magazine says it all really. This death metal magazine
aims to be aggressive and in your face from the very start simply after reading
the masthead, representing and connoting the violent tendencies often
associated with the genre. In terms of visual hierarchy, a large picture of some
band, presumably ‘Slayer’, is the first thing that jumps out at you, and even
overshadows the masthead slightly just as we saw in the previous magazine.
The men in the band are not only dressed aggressively and in a way which
contrast’s with society’s ideology of what an upstanding male citizen should
dress like, but on top of this, the way they are actually stood is very aggressive
and masculine. This applies especially to the man at the top, who is spreading
his arms and opening his mouth in an angry sort of manner. The spreading of
the arms is often associated with male dominance, and this is something that
we could even track back to animal behaviour. All of this feeds into what I’ve
previously said when analysing the other two covers, giving the representation
that this is what metal music is all about. Again, for the third time running, we
can see that very harsh looking fonts have been used, giving an almost
unwelcoming aesthetic to the magazine cover, something which is very often
found in this genre of music magazine. Notice how words such as ‘thrash’ have
purposely been placed higher up in the visual hierarchy scale in order to make
eveythng look that little bit more ‘in your face’ like I’ve mentioned before. By
this point, it’s becoming extremely clear to see patterns forming in terms of
technical and representational qualities that can be found within the
magazines. Red, white and black dominate the cover, with only a vague smidge
of blue being splattered across the front, feeding into the idea that these are
the colours ‘metal heads’ respond positively to. The word ‘death’ appears twice
on this cover, in two different contexts, and this is a great example of how
choice of words can further boost the representation of hatred and general
negativity.

5. Changes over timeThen…
Now…
Metal is a fairly new genre, meaning it hasn’t been around for that long. It rose to mainstream presence in the late 1970’s, with
bands such as ACDC and Led Zeplin, and considering it’s only been around for about 40 years, it’s changed quite considerably.
Before, metal magazines didn’t look quite as intense. Colors were more varied, with less blacks and reds, and the imagery wasn’t
quite as grotesque and ‘in your face’. As times have changed, technology has changed, and for this reason the older metal magazines
adopted images physically stuck in place and photocopied to make up the covers, and this contrasts against modern magazines,
which of course are all digitally produced, giving them a more clinical and professional aesthetic. As culture changes over the years,
different genres change slightly in order to adapt to the progression of culture, and metal magazines are no exception. Like
mentioned, the whole metal music scene has become a lot more intense and anti mainstream than it used to be when it was
birthed.

6. Niche
• As mentioned before, metal music as a genre is a very niche one. In terms
of what it is as a culture, the sound of it’s music and it’s visual style, this
can be observed throughout metal magazines. This ties in with what I’ve
already said about the audience being largely anti mainstream, and having
a general dislike for popular culture and media. Due to being a niche genre
as opposed to a mainstream genre like pop music for example, it makes it
easier for editors and journalists of this genre of magazine to highlight
certain representations, and it’s all a lot less watered down than other
more generalized music magazines such as NME or Billboard are.
• There’s an element of ‘I’m going through a phase’ for a lot of metal music
fans, especially teenage metal fans, and this really dates back to metal
music originally symbolizing rebellion from parents, and having anti
religious values, and this is something that adds to the niche style that
metal magazines push for and represent via their imagery and choice of
words. The presence of angry and aggressive looking male artists is a
frequently reoccurring feature for example, that symbolizes the anti-
establishmentarianism of the genre.
‘Dark Nemesis Rising’, looking angry at the
world they live in, and fulfilling their
chosen genre’s niche representation.