Deconstructing a rock star - Synyster Gates

Synyster Gates is the lead guitarist of Avenged Sevenfold.

Firstly, his stage name makes him seem instantly more popular as opposed to his real name (Brian Elwin Haner Jr). His tattoos and muscles give the impression he can be quite dangerous - this links with a Kerrang! OFC that I posted recently, where it says "Avenged Sevenfold - The Worlds Most Dangerous Band".

He conventionally has black hair - in this photo, his hair is mid length, whereas now he has it gelled up in spikes:

This adds to his dangerous look. He also ALWAYS wears 'guyliner'. This shows that he does care what he looks like, unlike some rock stars.

Deconstructing a rock star - Gerard Way

Gerard Way is the lead singer of the rock band My Chemical Romance. He follows a typical convention of having black hair and wearing stage makeup.

Although he is breaking the convention by wearing a uniform. The rest of the band are also wearing a uniform togive themselves a sense of identity.

My Chemical Romance have changed their attire throughout the years, during the Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge era, they wore suits and bulletproof vests as a uniform.

The constant idea of a uniform gives off the impression that they are not separate people who happen to be in a band together - they are one.

Summary Post

I have done some research on music magazines. The research I have done is helping towards making my decisions on my magazine.

Music magazines always have a title that is music related, for example: Kerrang! is supposed to be the sound of the feedback of a guitar. Q is also another example, it was going to be called "Cue" but reader's would've related that to snooker instead of music. I will make my title music related.

Usually, the main image is of the main band featured in the issue. The conventional style of shot is a mid close up, but some magazines do tend to use long shots and close ups. For my magazine, I'm going to do a live review, so one of my better photos will be presented on the OFC. This would mean breaking the convention of mid close ups, it'd be a long shot.

The colour palette is usually limited to 3 or 4 colours, if there were more it'd look extremely cluttered and unorganised. Although some magazines can use more colours, for example, NME used more colours to emphasise the main theme of that weeks issue: it was a issue with the Top 50 Druggiest albums - so it suited the theme. For my magazine, I will use the conventional amount of colours.

The selllines are also music related, for example Kerrang!'s sellline is "Life is Loud".

Inside the magazine, the interviews are posted in columns with photos supporting the text. Sometimes there are extra boxes with text that isnt related to the same topic as the interview, but with the same band.

NME Textual Analysis

Like I said before, the logo is in the top left corner of the OFC. The colour palette has stuck to red, white and black. The main parts of the magazine have been written in white to contrast with the black to stand out and grab the reader's attention. The photo on the OFC doesnt follow the conventional style of a magazine, because the OFC normally has a mid close up shot of the band featured, whereas this is a long shot.

NME Research

This information was found on Wikipedia. (not copied and pasted)

NME (New Musical Express) was first published on 7th March 1952 as a weekly magazine. In the 1970's it was labelled as the best selling music magazine. Krissi Murison is the first female editor of NME and took up this role in 2009. During the 70's, it became Britain's best selling musing magazine. In the period 1972 - 1976, NME was associated with "gonzo journalism", then later became closely associated with punk rock.
During October 2009 and September 2010, NME was read by 333,000 people, 257,000 were men and 76 were women.
The house style has stuck the same over the years, the logo is always in the top left corner of the OFC and is normally red. The colour palette usually sticks to red, white and black.

Examples of NME OFCs

Kerrang! Textual Analysis

On the OFC, the banner is always in the same place and the same size. The house style usually uses the same style, the colour scheme uses red, yellow and black. No pastel colours are used because that would give an impression that the magazine is 'friendly'. On every issue, the artists are looking directly at the camera and it is normally a mid close up. The red on yellow clashes to grab the readers attention.

To prove the point the house style is the same, including the same colour schemes, here's another example:

The contents page also follows this house style:

The contents is always down the right hand side, with photos on the left side of the main article.

There is normally a little note from the editor explaining the issue.

The contents page used to have a black background with the contents down the left side with one main photo on the right.

The contents page has changed recently, now the contents are on the bottom half of the page with the photos at the top.

This is an older contents page:

This is the newest version of the contents page: