Indie music magazine features and sales techniques

1. Researching my chosen genre
(indie)
By Ben Hunt

2. Genre definition.
• The direct definition of genre is: ‘the style or category of art music
or literature’
• In terms of music this can identify both the record labels that are
producing the music and the artists music itself.
• Music genres are always expanding as there is many different types
of artists and therefore different audiences available.
• Many different artists attempt to fit into more than one genre and
therefore this will increase their audience availability.
• Different types of genre (in music) include: rock, pop, hip hop, indie,
classical.
• However there is then sub genres of already established genres that
target more specific audiences.

3. Indie.
• Indie music originated from the united kingdom and is a more
individual type of music with a more niche target audience.
• Indie music often uses very different style as well as different ways
of marketing and thus would therefore be in a very different type of
magazine, this is because the target audience is specific and the
magazine must understand the audience that will be reading the
magazine.
• The magazine originates mostly from alternative rock music.
• Indie music was originally linked with the producers/ record labels
of music however the term started to be used to describe the music
produced by these record labels.
• The use of the internet was what allowed the indie music genre to
break through into a larger target audience and away form the
‘underground music’

4. Examples of Indie music magazines.
These are examples of the indie music genre magazines, and are
some of the major ones. As you can from the images the indie
magazines often have a very small colour pallet (in most cases a 3
colour pallet). The most frequent colours used by these
magazines are red black and white and these therefore are the
key colours that would be used in my own magazine to stick to
the conventions of the music. Another major feature of the
magazines is the use of the main image. The main image takes up
almost all of the page and is always an eye catching image that
fits in well to the genre of the music made by the artist. A main
focus for me would be ensuring that the main image fits in to the
music genre and doesn’t go against conventions. Another main
feature of the magazines would be the use of a ‘promotional
sticker’ which is featured in 3 of the 4 magazines, weather it is a
‘WIN’ type in which is would attract people to buy the magazine
to attempt to win something or something that promotes
something inside the magazine because it is in a different way it
attracts the eye of the audience and therefore this would be
something I would use in my magazine. Finally the main article
headline is very big in the page and is normally promoting the
band and is fairly simple rather than trying to do something
clever, this is shown in all of the magazines and thus should be
used in my own magazine.

5. Clothing and colours
• The clothing and the colours of the artists is key in the sale of both the magazine
and the artists. The colours of black and red are what are worn by the artists as
well as shown on the magazine. Specifically shown in the Q magazine the artist
from muse is wearing only black and red. The black clothes fits well with the
clothes that is related to that of indie clothing.
• This as well as the use of sunglasses reflects the rebellion dark colours that are
related to the indie genre.
• One of the main features of the indie genre is the idea of rebellion and this is
shown with the facial expressions specifically of Jake Bugg and Alex Turner shows
this rebellion attitude.
• Props are another key feature of the music magazine, due to the fact that this is a
music magazine this therefore needs to be demonstrated on the front, this is
shown in Kerrang and Q and this is shown with the use of guitars (Again rebellion
is shown in the Q magazine with the idea of smashing a guitar, going back to both
original ‘rock’ theme in which people would smash guitar on stage as well at the
rebelling idea using aggression). However the mise en scene on the other two
magazines are very minimal, especially in the NME with Arctic Monkeys on. This is
to try and show the quirkily side of musicians.

6. Headlines
• Headlines used in the magazines are often placed in well chose places.
They never interfere in the main article image as shown by the examples
above.
• There is a lot of headlines dotted about all over the page as this shows
that there is a lot available inside the magazine and there is a lot included
in the magazines, the secondary stories also fit in well with the colour
pallet of the magazines, often red or white text with a border of the other
colour. The yellow is also used to add a burst of colour to some of the
magazines to try and add colour to a dull cover.
• NME and Q have a very well laid out scheme to the front cover of the
magazine and both NME magazines have synergy between each other not
only through the colour pallet but also the layout.
• On the other hand there is the Kerrang magazine which is a more messy
laid back approach which I don’t feel would be good to use in the
magazine.

7. Reflection.
• On reflection the key themes of magazines are highlighted very well and therefore the themes and
ideas that I should use in my own magazine have been highlighted.
• One of the most important features of the magazine is the colour pallet, the colour pallet in all of
the magazines is almost always 3-colour and sometimes includes other bright colours such as
yellow to add a bold side to the magazine. The 3 colours used are usually black, white and red and
therefore these will be the colours that I will use in my own magazine.
• The key part of the sales and gaining audience of the magazine is through the use of the main
image, this therefore means that it is something that I need to focus on doing successfully. In my
main image I should focus on the facial expression of the model used and this should be very bland
and almost on the edge of angry, this is because this is how almost all of the artists appear on the
fronts of the magazines that I focused on used.
• The props used in the magazine should be something else that I should focus on getting done well,
this should be minimal as it is used in many of the other magazines, the main use of props should
be musical instruments as this is the focus of the magazines i.e. guitars or drums.
• For my choice of what to include for headlines I would want to copy that of the NME magazine, I
want the magazine to appear very well organised and I therefore want my headlines and sub-
headlines to be well placed and out of the way of the main image of the magazine.
• The use of the promotional sticker will be useful in my magazine and I will personally use a
promotional ‘win’ offer as I feel that this attracts an audience more than an article promotion.