Music Magazine Research - Rolling Stone

Here is an issue of Rolling Stone. It is a very popular magazine with a very popular name. During my research into this magazine I found out things about the magazine I did not know. When you go to the shop and find the magazine you will see it in the music section; but, my research showed that despite it being very music based, it is also classed as a political and popular culture magazine, (http://www.wikipedia.com/). This confused me because when I went on their official website you immediately see a heading stating 'New Music.' Then, to the left it has the heading 'Latest News'; and there are seven articles all music based. When you scroll down, you then establish the other elements of the magazine such as popular culture etc., and at the top there is a slide of pictures which are mainly music based, but some contain things such as politics and popular culture. The fact that the magazine has multiple genres gives the magazine a wider audience, thus, giving it more selling potential.

I think that the magazine has Lil Wayne on the front will make this particular issue more favourable to people who relate to Hip Hop and R'n'B. The magazine doesn't always have someone of this genre of the front, giving it variation. Furthermore, the punchy red theme throughout this front cover has connotations of power, which relates to the genre of Hip Hop, with artists of the genre usually being quite strong, and also the music being linked with crime and gangs. Moreover, the typography has 'Lil Wayne' in front of the image, whereas the masthead is behind, showing that Lil Wayne is the most important thing on the front cover. I, however, could not include this in my magazine as the Rolling Stone is very well known, and it doesn't need to sell itself by showing its name because people already know what magazine it is just by seeing part of the masthead; all it needs is the main image and cover lines to sell it to give interest to the target audience. You also see that above where it says 'Lil Wayne' it says there is an exclusive first interview, and this is written differently to all other text on the front, giving the magazine itself a high status, and also that you can only buy this magazine in order to see this interview. But, the magazine does have other cover lines which give other contents of the magazine so it doesn't seem one dimensional, and will appeal to several other audiences.

Looking at other Rolling Stone magazines I noticed that the shot and the typography entirely depend on who is on the front. For example, an edition with Conan O'Brien has a lime green colour for the masthead. Moreover, his name is written in orange to give a humorous aspect to the magazine, and also because he is a kind of 'edgy' character. Moreover, this persona of him is coherent with the striking close-up of him which shows us his crazy hair style, which is the focal point of the image. Therefore, this shows that it entirely depends on the person, as they have only used a long shot for Lil Wayne in order to show us all of his tattoos and portray this 'thug' life style of his.