Magazine analysis

General

'Kerrang!' is published weekly by Bauer Media Group, first published on 6 June 1981 as a one-off supplement in the 'Sounds' newspaper. The target audience for the magazine is niche as there is not a huge amount of the population who are extremely interested in rock music; readers include fans of British heavy metal and hard rock. A quote from Kerrang! describes its readers as ‘independent of thought and musically experienced.' It costs £2.20; considering it is a weekly magazine with the target audience being teenagers and young adults (13-25 years old) with 63 pages in this particular issue does not show outstanding value for money because the readers are people who don't have much money despite this Kerrang! is the world's biggest selling weekly rock magazine.

Circulation is how many copies of the magazine it sells. Results from 2012 showed that 42,077 (according to Wikipedia) copies are sold each month showing that they are successful with gaining their target audience by providing them with information they are interested in. The amount of copies sold times three will give you an estimate of its readership. http://www.abc.org.uk/ gives the following information on circulation figures:

If Kerrang! sells 40,203 issues each time for £2.20 each (if there was no subscription discount) then the income would be £88,446.60. However there will be a lower income due to the people who are subscribing and getting the magazine cheaper but it will also gain money from advertising. 

The cover

The title of the magazine is called Kerrang! This is the onomatopoeic word/ sound that is made when playing a power chord on an electric guitar. This connotes that the magazine is loud, electric and crazy.  By having an unusual word like that as the title, it could put off possible buyers because they don't know what it means but would encourage people who know what it means to buy the magazine as they are intrigued.

On the issue published May 19th 2012 it has the masthead hidden underneath the celebrities so that the title is barely recognisable; you can see part of some of the letters. In this particular issue the title is not visible enough to be so noticeable that it is the first thing people's attention is drawn to when they glance at the magazine. This could mean that only people who were looking for this particular magazine would take the time to look for it on the shelf. The effects on the letters make the title look messy showing informality which is continued further on in the magazine. 

'WORLD EXCLUSIVE! GUNS N' ROSES THE TRUE STORY' 

Most of the text on the cover is either yellow or white; this strap line follows this pattern (house style). The words 'exclusive' and 'true' draw people into buying the magazine because people are interested in knowing the truth and gossip direct from the artists before anybody else (exclusivity). Each section of the strap line 'world exclusive' 'Guns N' Roses' and 'the true story' are all written in different fonts giving a variation, only 'Guns N' Roses' is in serif font.

The main image consists of the members of Guns N' Roses who are the main celebrity endorsement of this issue. They are situated in the centre of the page and are the central image, they take up most of the page showing that they are dominant and important. This photo does not look set up in a photo shoot setting, it looks like they are preforming at a gig live on stage. As this isn't a photo shoot there has been no lighting effects that have been done for photo purposes but the photo is brightly lit so we can clearly see them both making them stand out even more. They are eye catching and are the focus of attention as the picture is what readers will be first drawn to when they glance at the cover. We can see that they are not staged for a photo because they are both not looking directly at the camera or smiling like most people would in photos. One of the members (the one on the right) facial expression isn't visible due to his hair covering his face. The part of his face that is visible shows him concentrating on playing the guitar (this is where his direction of gaze is), he is taking no interest in the camera. His body language continues the theme of him playing a gig, it is not posed. The other man is captured whilst he is in the middle of singing showing his facial expression to be focused. His direction of gaze is looking away from the camera (we can assume that he is looking into the crowd). Once again his body language is not posed for the photo.  Due to the fact that both the men on the cover are playing a live gig, they are bound to get hot, which is why they are both shirtless. You can see the sweat on one of the peoples chest.They are both wearing trousers which would not be worn out on a daily occasion to a shopping center, they are appropriate for the scenario they are in. The specialist music magazine genre doesn't have an airbrushed celebrity in a photo shoot on the front cover like a lifestyle magazine would. This picture reaches out towards to the ideal reader because what they see on the cover is something that they would like to see in real life i.e. going to a Guns N' Roses concert. Furthermore the characters on the cover are individual and 'independent of thought' which is similar to the characteristics of the reader.  

There are 6 other images of other artists that appear on the cover, this is done so that it will draw a bigger audience as there is a wider variety of bands that people on a larger scale will be interested in reading about. All these photos are staged, especially the photo of Danny Worsnop which shows him to be a confident and silly character by his facial expression which could be of a similar personality to the readers. 

The cover lines have to be the most interesting articles of the magazine so that people are drawn into buying it. The content promoted by the cover lines is all to do with the bands featured inside e.g. 'PARAMORE ARE COMING TO THE UK.' This teases all the information that the fans of the band will want to know i.e. the details of when and what they will be doing in the UK. Gossip is promoted by people who know first hand of what is happening 'Duff and Slash on what really happened' and 'Danny Worsnop lifts the lid on their new film'. 

With some magazines, the colour scheme goes with the seasons i.e.  summer issues will have bright bold colours - pinks, oranges and yellows, but in this case this May issue does not follow the spring colour scheme which would be pastel colours - pale pinks, blues and greens. The cover mostly consists of white, black and yellow which are bold  but dark colours, this can associate the magazine with being dark; the music genre of rock is not happy and pink, it is more serious therefore using cold hard colours.
The graphics used of the duck tape give a grunge feel to the magazine, it also makes it more masculine because stereotypically women do not do DIY. 

The text on the cover is minimal, there is mostly small bullet points which are short and snappy rather than sentences. There is not enough text there to give a friendly and chatty tone which is usually used for editor's letters or lifestyle magazines. Also there is no evidence of direct address which makes the reader feel personal, probably because the technique of direct address is usually used when an advisory tone is used. The magazine doesn't have a direct link with the reader due to the fact that it does not use any direct address. Despite all the language devices that it is lacking, there is evidence of colloquial language which shows the informal nature and relaxed content; meaning that this magazine is soft, there is no hard core information like there would be in a fitness magazine. There are no slang words present, it is all basic Standard English which makes it for educated people even though the language is easy.

The format of the cover follows the pattern of most other magazines; 

it looks similar to magazines as it has the celebrity endorsement photo in the centre taking up most of the space and then has all the cover lines surrounding it. It gets its individuality by the size of the magazine, it isn't a set well known size, it is slightly smaller than A4. This makes sure that the magazine will easily fit into someone's bag if they wanted to read it on their way to school or work. Another way it gets it individuality is by the use of duck tape looking like its been stuck on the page and then there is information on top of it. However this could just be a one off technique for this particular issue. The title also has random lines and random extra and missing spaces in the letters making the title more recognisable. There is no specific USP; it offers the same things as other magazines i.e. freebies - posters and tickets.The only thing that will help sell this magazine is the fact that Kerrang! has the 'exclusive' and 'true story' of which is not offered else where. 

Inside

Throughout the whole magazine there are 63 pages in total with 13 of them being adverts. This questions the value for money further, I would much rather more pages of interesting subjects I want to read about rather than adverts. Most of the adverts are music related, keeping the theme of music going and not advertising products that some readers would have no interest in e.g. new nail varnish from Barry M. The advertisements are listed below:

Music: Tours/gigs - Twin Atlantic tour                                Festivals - Slam Dunk Festival
                              - Blink 182 tour                                                   - Reading Festival

                              - Warped tour '12

                              - Forever The Sickest Kids tour

                              - I Killed The Prom Queen tour          
                              - Of Mice & Men tour

                              - Gojira tour

                              - Devin Townsend Unplugged tour

                              - Limpbizkit tour

                              - NOFX tour

                              - William Control tour

                              - Less Than Jake tour

                              - I'll Be Your Mirror tour

                              - Tenacious D tour

                              - 2:54 tour

                              - Forever Never tour 

                              - Kerrang! Awards 2012

                              - 02 academy Islington

          

Miscellaneous:   Anti-Flag animal abuse

                         - HMV new DVD out

                         - Kerrang! magazine subscription 

                         - Kerrang! download rock club

                         - Loudclothing.com

                         - 02 Priority tickets for 'Rush'

These are the articles featured in the magazine:

Music:                                                             

Festival season                                                   

Mini interviews with bands                                   

Gossip and gibberish in the rock world

Reviews of artists' gigs

Reviews of artists' albums

Gig guide

'The Ultimate Rockstar Test'

Miscellaneous:
Feedback
Agony Aunt 'Life of Agony'

All the advertorials look like adverts, they could not be mistaken for an article due to the minimal amount of font.

There are 10 double page spreads that appear and they are:

All Time Low interview - a band member discussing the new album.

Lost Prophets review - a review of their gig

Guns N' Roses (6 page spread - main article) - reminiscing over their past and their achievements.

Slash interview - a general interview.

Guns N' Roses reviews - other artists commenting on the band.

Kerrang! Subscription advertisement - this is encouraging readers to subscribe to the magazine as it will be cheaper.

Danny Worsnop interview - there was some speculation about his new music video and Worsnop is talking about it and clearing up the rumours.

Advertising the Kerrang! Awards 2012 - it is promoting the event and giving the opportunity for a reader to win tickets.

Beastie Boys - article on a review of when they last featured on the cover.

Meeting 2:54 - promoting one of Britain's new bands and having an interview with them.

The magazine achieves a house style by keeping the colour scheme (of white, black and yellow) continuous.This makes the magazine recognisable to readers.

Readers must enjoy the way in which the magazine is written for them to keep coming back and buying it every week. The language continues to be informal: "IT'D BE AWESOME".

with words such as K!ONFIDENTIAL, K! KROSSWORD' and 'JOSH-OMETER'

The font that the masthead is in is used continually throughout the magazine as titles for pages, this makes the font more well known and will be connected with the magazine.

This house style is appropriate to the target audience because it is informal, which is what young people enjoy reading as it is the language they use. Most young people do not want to have to use formal language all the time, only when in important situations i.e. job interviews. The language implies that the target audience have a relaxed personality.