Analysis of a magazine cover

The NME is a British weekly music magazine otherwise known as the ‘New Musical Express’. Featuring agenda-setting news, the UK's most comprehensive gig guide, definitive reviews of the week's hottest gigs, tracks and albums, and fiery comment from the nation's most opinionated writers, it's the essential guide to the week in music. The NME magazine is published by IPC media which is one of Britain’s biggest publishing companies.
The NME comes out every Wednesday, is priced £2.30 and is available in all good newsagents and its main target audience is of Caucasian males between the ages of 15-30,

My initial impression of this magazine was that it was mainly intended to aim at the older male generation. Having analysed the magazine in detail, I have slightly altered my opinion. I noticed that the sell line in the circle has recent generation band names inside allowing them to target the younger generations. ‘Manic Street Preacher’ is a band that was born around the late 80's, and is still producing music. This suggests that their target audience is not only the middle aged people, but the much recent and younger generation too.
In this issue of the NME, a variety of fonts have been used in order to stand out and make it attractive. The writing is written in either: white, red or black. ‘Red’ suggests peril and threat and it has been used very wisely in order to make the magazine sensible. The colour ‘red’ also allows it to abide by its genre, which is of course rock. The positioning of the three members on the cover is very confrontational; the red haired artist has an emotional facial expression, facing towards the audience with a direct mode of address. The main singer in the centre has the Welsh flag on his cheek as Wales is where he was born. This implies representation of battleship as in medieval times when men on horsebacks would imprint their flag on their cheek. The other two members are wearing a type of military jacket in order to represent and support the ‘medieval’ times, and possibly to show ‘teamwork’ too.
The masthead The ‘NME’ is bold, direct and is in filled with sharp red colour in order for it to stand out. It is outlined in the two colours; white and black, against the icy white-blue background, making it even more outstanding and suggesting some sort of importance.

The NME does defy some of the conventions of a music magazine cover; the strap line on top of the page saying ‘BIG GIG SPECIAL ISSUE’ covers only three quarters of the page, whereas normally the strap line would cover the whole page. It also has an image of a rollercoaster saying ‘Shock Waves, NME Awards 2008, Big Gig.’ This graphical image is advertising the event and also implying that the NME will be consist of more information on the event.

In addition, the NME does follows a few the conventions of a music magazine such as, they have a photograph of a well known band, it also consists of a large masthead, it contains sell lines and slug advertising the famous artists featured in the magazine, they have a strap line saying; ‘Big Gig Special Issue’, a barcode, website details, and the price is also indicated too and of course, a close up image of a famous band group. The picture suggests their target audience is of middle aged white men. The band members have a ‘macho’ sense as they are not smiling and have a rather emotionless look. The band member on the right has also got his eyebrows raised. This signifies the genre and maleness of the magazine. The main band member has apparent make up on, red hair and a few rock-like badges on his blazer. This suggests his genderless sense of fashion. Whereas the other two members of the band are a lot more simple looking. If you notice carefully, the main band member has his hands folded together, providing to a more manly effect.

After analysing the NME cover I have come to the conclusion that NME features to cater for a fairly wide rock/indie audience and also report on new trends. They do this by including experienced bands and more recent bands. In my opinion they have succeeded very well by establishing a clear target market.