Examples of music magazine front covers.

Alternative Press Magazine.
http://www.altpress.com/

Big Cheese Magazine.
http://www.bigcheesemagazine.com/





Kerrang! Magazine.
http://www.kerrang.com/







Alternative Press, Kerrang! and Big Cheese Magazine all serve as magazines for the same variety of genres, including rock, pop punk and metal. A wider variety of genres are covered though, and Kerrang! and AP tend to cover the more rock and pop punk bands, although metal genres are covered, but usually more so in Big Cheese Magazine.

Pictured aboce is an example of a front cover from each of the three magazines, and show two pop punk/rock bands in the form of All Time Low and The Maine on AP and Kerrang!, whereas Big Cheese shows rock band Fall Out Boy, but also covering heavier bands such as Underoth and Dragon Force.

Types of bands my magazine would focus on.



In this picture, the 5 members of Paramore are seen posing on a road, in a black and white picture.

In my opinion black and white is used to show the band in the same light and colours, because

Paramore in particular are stereotyped as a band consisting of the lead singer Hayley Williams,

and 4 of her band mates who don't play as big a role, which is obviously untrue. So this picture has connotations of strong friendship and suggests they're proving the stereotype wrong.







 

 

We The Kings, as shown in this picture in front of a wall and drawings of crowns they appear to have jokingly drawn themselves with annotations, are your typically fun loving, pop punky band, with a lot of songs talking about successful love and fun lives. The fact that they are all smiling and all seem to have had fun drawing on the wall just strengthen the fact they are a fun loving band, and really tells people just what they are like as a band.

 



All Time Low, as seen here in an older photoshoot, are your typically funny, like to mess around type of band. Although this is an older photo, All Time Low have always had great photoshoots, always doing something different, which coincides with the fact they are always having fun with the songs they sing as well. One particular photo that started an internet phenomenon and particularly boosted ATL's popularity was a photo depicting the band in nothing but underwear, eating bananas. Although a lot of people disagreed with the photo shoot,  I personally believe that it was a brilliant way for the band to let people know that they are not afraid to express themselves, be it through voice or media.









Blog Intro.

This is the first post of my AS Media blog, and will be documenting my progress over the course of the year. During this year I will be constantly updating my blog with new posts that will hopefully culminate in my completion of the main task, which is of course to complete a front cover, contents page and a double page spread for a music magazine. But first as a preliminary task I will be creating a front cover and contents page for a college magazine.

I personally listen to an extremely wide range of bands and genres, but artists I find myself particularly listening to include Paramore, Mayday Parade, Bring Me The Horizon, All Time Low, We The Kings, and more along the same lines. Although my music magazine will be aimed to a market of fans of those types of bands, I did consider doing a classical music magazine as I find I enjoy the genre.

Over the course of the year, my focus will be on Kerrang!, Big Cheese magazine and Alternative Press, as they feature the same genres of bands, and I find it would be better to draw influence from both magazines, rather than just one. Both of these magazines focus on the pop punk/rock genre, among other. This gives enables me to look at a variety of different bands.

Kerrang! magazine still holds out well against other competing music magazines like for instance NME Magazine, enjoying annual sales of 421,000, as of july '10, whereas NME only managed 325,000.

Other webzines, magazines and music sites include, Rolling Stone, Q magazine and RockFeedBack webzine. A music sharing site I personally have used for around 3-4 years is Spotify, which is an incredibly large source of music of all genres, and is updated daily. Many bands also still use MySpace as pages for their band, and to put their music out. Myspace has always proven itself to be very reliable when it comes to music.

Links to any bands, magazines, webzines or websites referenced in my intro can be found here:

Bands:
www.alltimelow.com
www.paramore.net
www.maydayparade.com
www.myspace.com/bmth
www.wethekingsmusic.com

Magazines/Webzines:
www.kerrang.com
www.bigcheesemagazine.com
www.altpress.com
www.nme.com
www.rollingstone.com
www.qthemusic.com
www.rockfeedback.com

Websites:
www.spotify.com/uk/
www.myspace.com