Music Magazines and their Genres!

After looking at a range of music magazines I have realised that the genre sometimes 'predisposes' the magazine to use certain codes and conventions as well as to appear to a certain audience.

An example to portray this would be a classical music magazine which after looking at the genre would most likely be aimed at more mature and older people.

Below are more examples that I have realised with the predictable and commonly used codes and conventions within the genre.

NME is often targets the more youthful audience which is mostly composed of six-form- to university students. The genre of music it entails can be from punk rock to 'indie', the market of this genre is usually dominated by the people like six-form and university students as well.

The codes and conventions that is often used within these magazines are:

* the adventurous and rebellious clothing that the artists usually where which is key as it helps relate to the audience.

*Teenager/student events are also issued within the magazine i.e. the V festival, which is what every student wants to go to.

* The bright colours, to attract attention.

*Another feature that needs to be mentioned is the cover issue titles which states "how three punks smashed mainstream" A sense of colloquialism has been used with the word "smashed" which is young adult slang.

*Although more interestingly the whole concept about individualism and individual artists, which normally belong to minor/independent record labels (back yard recordings) which most of NME's target audience follows, have become to dominate the mainstream music industry etc.

With popular album reviews and famous bands and other artists, it is obvious that this magazine is going to be successful. The conventions that it has used are excellent and successful in relation to communicating with the audience.

In contrast to NME, top of the pops, a pop music magazine is more suited to a younger audience. In today's industry the pop genre market is usually composed of much younger artists such as Miley Cryus, Ashley Tisdale and Justin Biber etc.

Typically this pop music magazine has used High school musical as its cover issue, which again is highly successful with a younger audience. The idea of gossip, makeovers, true real life drama stories, fashion and music etc which is what younger people are interested in.

The Codes and Conventions other if not mentioned above include:

* "Star style essentials" most small children like to dress up.

* "Stars in posters" another feature that is used- children having posters in their rooms.

*"OMG" again colloquial language.

Overall, both of these music magazine use predictable features but in different ways in order to capture consumers whether young, middle aged or old.

It is these that I will have to take into consideration when creating my own. For example I will be sure to use colloquial language as I want my magazine to appear up to date on current linguistic trends and be informal.