I would like to base my music magazine on Q magazine, a popular UK-based monthly music publication. Q magazine was founded in 1986 to cater to older music buyers interested in CDs. It focuses on in-depth album reviews, interviews with popular artists, and compiling lists about music. The magazine also provides promotional gifts and keeps readers engaged with clues on the magazine spine about its contents.

1. Task 5
Research into similar music magazines on which you
could base you magazine. Map out possible ideas for
your music magazine including names, possible
musical genres and ideas for articles
I would like to base my magazine around Q magazine.

2. Q Magazine

3. About Q Magazine
Editor Andrew Harrison
Categories Music magazine
Frequency Monthly
Publisher Bauer Media Group
Total circulation 80,418[1]
First issue October 1986
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the
time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying
CDs — then still a new technology. Q was first published in October 1986, setting itself
apart from much of the other music press with monthly production and higher standards
of photography and printing. In the early years, the magazine was sub-titled "The modern
guide to music and more". Originally it was to be called Cue (as in the sense of cueing a
record, ready to play), but the name was changed so that it wouldn't be mistaken for a
snooker magazine. Another reason, cited in Q's 200th edition, is that a single-letter title
would be more prominent on newsstands.

5. Content
The magazine has an extensive review section, featuring: new releases (music), reissues
(music), music compilations, film and live concert reviews, as well as radio and television
reviews. It uses a star-rating system from one to five stars; indeed, the rating an album receives
in Q is often added to print and television advertising for the album in the UK and Ireland. It
also compiles a list of approximately eight albums, which it classes as the best new releases of
the last three months.
Much of the magazine is devoted to interviews with popular musical artists.
The magazine is well known for compiling lists. It has created many, ranging from "The 100
Greatest albums" to the "100 Greatest '100 Greatest' Lists". Every other month, Q — and its
sister magazine, Mojo (also owned by Bauer) — have a special edition. These have been
about musical times, genres, or a very important/influential musician.
Often, promotional gifts are given away, such as cover-mounted CDs or books. The January
2006 issue included a free copy of "The Greatest Rock and Pop Miscellany … Ever!", modeled
on Schott's Original Miscellany.
Every issue of Q has a different message on the spine. Readers then try to work out what the
message has to do with the contents of the mag. This practice — known as the "spine line" —
has since become commonplace among British lifestyle magazines, including Q's sister
publication, Empire and the football monthly FourFourTwo.
Usual features include The Q50, wherein the magazine lists the top 50 essential tracks of the
month; Cash for Questions, in which a famous celeb/band answers question sent in by
readers — who win £25 if their question is printed; Ten Commandments, wherein a particular
singer creates their very own ten commandments by which to live; and Rewind, in which they
take us back in time through the history of music via archive issues of Q. On March 4, 2007, Q
named Elvis Presley the greatest singer of all time.

6. Other Q brands
There is also a Q TV television channel in the UK, It closed on 3 July 2012. Q
also holds a yearly awards ceremony called the Q Awards.
Criticism
Some critics and readers of the magazine have believed that it has lost its
edge, and is now opting to play safe with who and what it covers, focusing
more on the popularity of bands rather than their music. The award of five
stars to the 1997 Oasis album Be Here Now (widely criticised elsewhere and
subsequently dismissed as self-indulgent by the band's songwriter Noel
Gallagher himself) has been seen as a turning point.
Bad reviews on one edition which lady gaga featured on
The Lady Gaga cover of the new Q Magazine has been banned in it's full visual form in the U.S.
due to what Janet Jackson's PR firm would possibly have called a 'glove malfunction'.
In the land of the free it seems there's allowable boob and non-allowable boob and Q285's
cover is a textbook case of too much lower boob. Certain U.S. chains have said they will stock
Q285 only if the offending area is covered up, also expressing some concerns over "crotch
grabbing". New York State law also doesn't permit showing anything below the nipple.
Q have also been asked to ensure the imported issues are sealed in a bag due to the contents
of the 100 Most Shocking Moments in Music feature, whilst other chains are yet to give their
approval to stock the issue. Some independent magazine stockists have been happy to run with
the cover in it's full glory.
We can't help wonder what Lady Gaga herself would make of this turn of events, given her
prophetic quote, standing at the start of the Q photo shoot with a dildo in her hand "It'd be a
real f**king story, right"...

7. Q Magazine’s Favourite Artists

8. Articles