Research For Music Magazines

Layout:

There is only one image on the front cover and it takes up most of the space on the R&B cover of VIBE magazine. The image is of famous R&B male singer Trey Songz, it is a medium shot, with a dark black tiled effect background. This is important because the image relates to one of the stories on the cover, also because it attracts the audience’s attention as Trey Songz has a wide fan base. The front cover is balanced with the image in the middle and the masthead at the top, in bold writing and the text and the right and left of the image and the image in the centre, making the front cover balanced, however the image does cover some of the masthead, but this shows it is a well known magazine. Also the alignment it left and right, which makes the cover balanced and emphasis the image of Trey Songz. The contrast of the clack background makes Trey Songz stand out and the colouring of the text is white and red which stands out in the background, also the colours and background show a small amount of aggression. This goes with Trey Songz facial expression and the text, this affect the reader to want to read more, draws attention and makes it obvious the genre is R&B.

Image:

The main image on the front cover of VIBE is a medium shot of Trey Songz a famous R&B male singer. The image draws a lot of attention because it is a sexy image to go with the male R&B genre of strong, sexy and tattooed men. So it shows the reader the magazine is an R&B magazine and Trey Songz is the main feature, which will attract his wide spread fan base. The image also relates to the main story “Trey Songz, The Hardest in R&B” and the image he has no top on showing his abs and body and has a serious face, which refers to the text suggesting that his the hardest in R&B. In this medium shot of Trey Songz, you can see his Calvin Klein boxers and his body as he is topless, showing his abs and tattoos. This gives a sex appeal to the audience and refers to the text and also refers to the R&B male stereotype, of handsome, strong, sexy great body and tattooed. The colours that have been used are black and red which goes with the mood of seriousness and allows the stories to stand out on the black background. The image does not relate to the audience as it’s a serious image and none of the text relates to the readers. However the image relates to the genre and target audience because, it is an image of Trey Songz a famous R&B male singer and through the appearance of the image. So it is a good image to represent the R&B genre.

Language:

The language used on the magazine cover is used to represent the genre R&B. The magazine does not use linguistic devices on the front cover; however there are many stories on the cover. The language used on the front cover of VIBE is informal and slang “hardest in R&B” and “ways to rock a suit”, this type of language is common within the R&B genre. The text relates to the image as it’s the main story in the magazine even though there are other main stories to. It says “Trey Songz The Hardest In R&B” this relates to the image because in the image Trey Songz is portrayed as strong, hot, bad boy stereotype, with his top of and body wet and his tattoos and serious face. The typeface used on the magazine’s cover is bold, blocky and capital letters. The masthead is, red and capital and bold and some of it is covered by the image. Also text has been placed around the image equally to make the image stand out. So the language draws the readers attention to the magazine as well.  

Genre:

The genre of the magazine is R&B and this is represented through the outlook of the magazines front cover. This is obviously seen through the name of the magazine “VIBE” which is a world known R&B magazine. Also the genre is shown through the image on the front cover of Trey Songz a well known R&B male singer and the way he portrayed through the bad boy look. Also the text is related to other famous R&B singers or rappers such as “Young Jeezy”. So the genre of the magazine is represented the through the text, image and name of the magazine on the front cover, so it’s obvious it R&B genre.