Magazine Evaluation - KERRANG!

This is the ‘Kerrang!’ magazine. It is a rock music magazine, which is well known and popular with its target audience. From the front cover we can see that there are going to be many interviews with famous rock bands, singers and rock legends. We can also tell which stories that are going to be inside by reading the secondary lead and the puffs. The secondary lead says (“I was at rock bottom!” Pete Wentz on life after Fall Out Boy). By having this as the secondary lead shows the audience that this is one of the main and important features of this magazine.
The target audience for this magazine are rock music fans. I think the age group are roughly 16+ years, both male and female. I think this because the main image is of a young male rock band who seem to be popular, trendy and well liked. By having this rock band as the main image gets the older teenage target audiences attention, as teenagers would notice a ‘cool’ band quicker, rather than an older age group audience. The target group’s interests seem to be mainly rock music, concerts and gigs. You can tell this by the menu strip displayed along the bottom of the magazine, showing all rock group names.
The central image is of the rock band ‘bring me the horizon’ with their clothes covered in blood, pale faces and dark eyes, giving off a vampire effect and theme. The band are standing either side of which seems to be the main guy in the band. The order in which they are standing is very organised and well ordered. The way they are ordered links to the image we have of ‘vampires’ and how we think of them as hunting strong in packs. This mimics the central image of the magazine.
The body language and facial expressions of the band shows us that they want the relationship with the reader is for readers to be like them. For example they want to make the target audience want to feel... strong, popular and well liked.
The anchorage text says “Exclusive! Reign in blood! Bring Me The Horizon rise again!” By using the words ‘rise again’ show us that they have came back stronger and better than before. This probably is that the band has come out with a brand new, better album before, therefore have ‘risen again’. The overall message that the band are giving out is that they are back even better than before.
The magazine is representing all rock bands as intimidating. The magazine does this by using dark colours and by using certain main images such as this one.
There are a few ‘buzz’ words on this magazine cover. The main effective one is ‘exclusive’. This has a big effect on the reader as it makes the readers feel as if they are being let in to something secretive, new and exciting.
The title of the magazine is bold capital letters which looks as if it has been slightly torn and riped. This shows us that the readers are a bit rugged, this links in with the rock genre of the magazine and gives it a rough effect.
There isn’t many ‘puffs’ displayed on the cover of this magazine, but there are a few. They are mainly shown alongside an image which makes the information of the puffs stand out and more noticeable. This grabs the audience’s attention more as they can see what sort of things will be in the magazine. The type of puffs shown suggests that the readers of this magazine are really interested about the facts of artists and what the artists are doing (gigs and concerts).
The dominant colours used for this front cover are red, black and white. All the colours used on this cover are linked together. For example the colours of the main image fit with the masthead, headline and cover lines. The fonts used on the cover are very bold, almost as if they are coming out and shouting at you. This is what they want the readers to feel.