Semiotics

All around us are signs- things which communicate a message, that give you information. The more aware we are of our society and world, the most signs we are able to recognize.

   A sign comes in two parts: the signifier- what it actually is, e.g. a dog is a small animal (denotation), and the signified- what it suggests, e.g. man’s best friend, loyalty, et cetera (connotation). The signifier is the same for everyone; the signified isn’t.

   The signified can be based on:

-          Age

-          Cultural background

-          Knowledge

-          Personal experience (e.g. planes, dogs)

-          Gender (e.g. page 3 models)

-          Time (e.g. Burberry)

There are three types of sign:

-          Iconic sign

-          Indexical sign

-          Symbolic sign

Iconic sign: looks like what it represents (is), but has added meaning, e.g. a crown or a cowboy. In media these tend to be costumes, settings and props.

Indexical sign: is a sign which points to something we cannot or haven’t been able to see, e.g. smoke (fire), scars (fight), tears (sadness). In media these can be facial expressions and body language.

Symbolic sign: is a sign that has no logical reason for what we see it as- we have been conditioned to think that it represents a certain thing, e.g. a dove (peace), pink (girls), <3 (heart). In the media this is often colours.

Polysemic signs that have lots of meanings. Red is polysemic, as it can represent love, anger, danger, blood, et cetera.

Monosemic signs have only one meaning.

Mock magazine cover

Question 2

I agree that music magazines do, in general, tend to appeal more to a male readership (a good example of this being the well-known Q magazine), however, I also recognize that there are music magazines which heavily target girls- a prime example is Top of the Pops. There are also magazines such as Kerrang!, which split the audience.

   Q magazine claims to be read by a 75% male readership. Aspects of the magazine which clearly appeal to men include the fact that most of the cover stars are male, presented as brooding, incredulous, or even aggressive, all traits that are commonly associated with the male gender. Rare female cover stars, on the other hand, are often sexualised in order to appeal more to men.

   There are also many more male artists mentioned in the magazine. On the front covers alone, approximately 90% of the artists mentioned are usually male, implying that men hold a greater importance.

   Even the colour scheme is more appealing to men, seeing as it consists of red, and varying monochromatic shades. Red signifies blood, violence, and aggression, while the latter colours connote gloominess and disdain, all of which are related more to men than to women.

   On the other hand, Top of the Pops magazine claims to be read by an 85% female readership, Aspects of the magazine which clearly appeal to girls include the colour scheme, which contrasts with one of Q magazine greatly. Consisting of light colours such as pink, purple, and white, it gives the magazine a playful, innocent look that appeals to the target audience of girls up to twelve years old.

   The cover stars on the magazine are virtually equal parts male and female. However, rather than objectified, the women are given ‘big sister’ status- they look like idols, glamorous and trustworthy. Male cover stars, on the other hand, are presented as objects of attraction, and are usually tween idols. Cover stars are usually also referred to by their first names or various nicknames, creating an insular feel that only young girls will be able to relate to.

   Kerrang! appears to be  mix of the two genders in terms of readership, with 57% readers being male. Evidence that this appeals to both genders includes the scruffy, distressed masthead that gives the magazine an edgy look, thus appealing more to men. However, Kerrang! also advertises the fact that it contains posters, which tend to appeal more to the archetypal female audience (decorating, et cetera). Furthermore, the poster artists are often either fully-clothes women, or men (presented as attractive, much like in Top of the Pops), which appeal more to females.

   However, it is still evident that Kerrang! is aimed more towards males: the covers stars often look menacing and aggressive, covered in tattoos, blood, or smoking, swearing, et cetera. All of this creates a rebellious image, which resonates more with men.

Top of the Pops:

-          Colour scheme consists

mainly of light colours (e.g. pink, purple, white) that are associated with girls and connote playfulness and innocence.

-          Equal amounts of male and female cover stars: males are presented as attractive, idols, women presented as ‘big sister’ types- friendly, glamorous, approachable

-          Masthead is written in soft, curvy bubble writing, which makes it look fun and appealing to young girls.

-          Appearance-oriented features that focus on clothes, make-up, et cetera.

-          ‘Inspiring’ stories aimed at school girls (focussed on bullying, et cetera) from idolised stars, using insular, colloquial language.

Kerrang!:

-          Masthead looks rough and distressed, scruffy, which gives the magazine a rebellious, edgy look. Colour scheme is dark.

-          Cover stars usually male, but females are not objectified; more so presented as rebellious (see Hayley Williams cover- swearing gesture).

-          Cover stars: covered in blood (see Bring Me the Horizon cover), smoking (see Ville Valo cover), swearing (see Hayley Williams cover), tattooed (see Gallows cover). Often look angry, rarely approachable or smiling. All make it look edgy, aggressive, in-your-face.

-          Issues include free posters, which makes it appeal to females (decorating, et cetera).

Q magazine:

-          Mainly male cover stars- often appear incredulous, threatening (see Kasabian cover), aggressive (see Dave Grohl cover). Rare female cover stars are sexualised (see Lady Gaga and Lily Allen covers) in order to appeal to male audience.

-          Colour scheme consists of red, as well as monochrome shades. Red connotes violence, blood, rage, while monochrome shades are gloomy, all been associated with males.

-          Cover stars wear dark clothing, which gives them a rebellious look.

-          More male cover artists than female, using aggressive in-your-face language: “this will kill me!” (see Dave Grohl cover), “it’s over!” (see Kasabian cover).

Music magazine pitch

   Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to present my pitch to you- I believe that I have the perfect formula for a magazine that will be one of the best out there, if not the best!

Title

   My magazine will be called, simply, Uproar! (stylised as UPROAЯ! to give it that little bit more edge). I am sure that you agree that ‘uproar’ is an edgy, symbolic word, connoting rebellion and even self-expression, which are all very important to my target audience of 20-30 year old males.

House style & regular features

   Uproar! will contain a whole plethora of unique, interesting regular features, including gig (we will, of course, refrain from referring to them as ‘concerts’ in order to appeal more to our young audience)  and festival guides, artist and band quizzes, exciting competitions, ‘top 20 downloaded singles/albums, etc’ articles, and interviews of musicians about the most weird and wonderful concerts. To go into a little more detail about two of them, namely the quizzes and competitions. For the former feature, audiences will be able to tweet in questions for us to ask the artists (they will be told who will be interviewed next week in the current issue of the magazine). We will encourage them to come with the most bizarre and funny queries they can in order to make the quizzes particularly exciting! Having this feature will be a definite win-win situation for us and the audiences. More people will buy Uproar! in order to see if their question made the cut, and if it did, those people will get a lot more internet publicity! Research has shown that our target audience is very tech-savvy, being the internet generation, and encouraging them to tweet questions will be much more effective than asking them to mail them in.

   As for the competition… the main, regular one will be a sort of ‘journalist competition’, or more-so draw. It’s simple: you write (or tweet) to the magazine, and are automatically entered into a random weekly draw. Five people will be picked, and will be, in the course of one week, be given free tickets and backstage passes to any three concerts of their choice in the next week. Once they have come back from the concerts, they have to write brief, heartfelt reviews of those gigs, which will then be published in the magazine. Not only will this draw provide people with fun opportunities, but it will also help young, budding journalists with their publicity and portfolio.

   All of these features will make the magazine highly entertaining to read, as well as helping people build social relationships- the latest bizarre questions will be a great ice breaker for mutual fans of the magazine.

Audience

   As I have mentioned, my target audience consists of young adults. As I’m sure you know, young adults do not often have very well-paying jobs- thus, my magazine will cost only £2.00, less than its leading competitor, NME, to make it even more enticing.

   Now, NME has a circulation of about 24,000. Because Uproar! will cover rock and all its sub-genres (and there are many, making the magazine appeal to a wide range of people), I aim to have a circulation of about 25,000.

   NME’s website has, on average, 5.3 million visitors, and I aim to beat that too, setting my goal at 5.7 million. In order to convince audiences to visit the site, I will advertise it in the magazine. The website itself will contain previews and snippets of future articles, a forum for music fans to find like-minded souls, video interviews, a band archive, merchandise sales, and brand new music videos! The magazine will also have several social media accounts (e.g. Facebook) to really appeal to the internet generation.

   Let’s hope Uproar! makes an uproar!

  

Why do music fans purchase music magazines?

Despite a wide, arguably more up-to-date range of information available on the internet, music magazines still remain fairly popular. A possible reason for this is simply a penchant for the traditional- several music magazines (e.g. NME) appeal to an older audience given the artists written about. This audience will have grown up with printed publications, and may be unwilling or unable to pursue the same information on digital appliances. A lot will also be encouraged to buy magazines by nostalgia. Furthermore, fans may feel a certain loyalty to the magazines that they read on a regular basis, and will continue to purchase them regardless on any developments that may allow them to find out the same information, free of cost. Admittedly, there are those who do not necessarily purchase magazines for the articles and reviews. Publications often include full-bleed posters of certain artists, or particular iconic images regarding the music industry. Magazines such as Kerrang! have varying themes every week, often seasonal (i.e. Halloween themed photographs of musicians in late October, images taken at popular festivals). Aside from posters, magazines also sometimes include other free paraphernalia, although less often than posters, given the fact that it is more expensive. Such paraphernalia includes: calendars (included particularly during the New Year period), stickers (particularly in magazines that are aimed towards a teenage audience), and promotional vouchers. Although posters and calendars are the things primarily used to decorate walls, pictures cut out from magazines are also sometimes utilized. Many readers prefer them to simply printing the desired images off the internet due to their glossy quality. Magazines are also much more portable- they can be easily folded up and carried in a bag, and are not much of a loss if stolen, damaged, or left behind, like computers would be. Although the internet can now be reached through much smaller devices such as iPhones, et cetera, it is generally considered easier to bring along a magazine as its owner does not have to worry about a lack of internet connection or the battery running out.

Cover Comparison

Eugene Hütz

Old Gods of Asgard review

For a band that's purely fictional, exists only in the universe of a video game, and has about three actual songs, Old Gods of Asgard are remarkably good. Played by Finns Poets of the Fall and presented in the Alan Wake franchise as a team of Scandinavian mythology-obsessed rockers, they released six albums over a period of seven years, in the process of which losing all their members but the original founders- the Anderson brothers. Two of their songs- Children of the Elder God and Balance Slays the Demon respectively- are classic seventies epics, pretentious guitars solos and all, whereas The Poet and The Muse is bittersweet acoustic piece until Odin Anderson finally finds his guitar lead, around three minutes in. The lyrics of said song seem almost too much like a narrative to those unfamiliar with Alan Wake. However, those who have played through the game will have realised that it was not an accidental feature of the song, given that it is one of the key elements of the plot. Children of the Elder God, on the other hand, is just used as backing music for shooting creepy possessed guys in the face.

Musical Genres

AQA Exam Guidance

Music Press

Clumsy (Our Lady Peace) Review

   Clumsy, perhaps the most famous album of Canadian alternative rock band Our Lady Peace, kicks off with a bang: "but ordinary's just not good enough today" wails vocalist Raine Maida in his signature falsetto, before launching into the chorus of Superman's Dead. The call out on media is followed up by the eccentric Automatic Flowers- much like almost every Our Lady Peace song, it has a curious plot to it, with Maida describing an unnamed woman taking solace in a pop-up book of flowers from her childhood.
   Seven songs in the title track is finally revealed. Emotional, even for something written by Our Lady Peace, Clumsy is said by Maida to be: "about making decisions. There is a connection between the song Clumsy and it being the title of the album. The lyric; 'I'll be waving my hand/watching you drown/ watching you scream' is about seeing something, but not seeing it for what it really is. You may decide to help... or to just wave back."
   The song following Clumsy is potentially one of their most under-rated. Hello Oskar is the perfect embodiment of Our Lady Peace's grunge influences, from the borderline hysterical vocals to the repetitive chords. However, it is Car Crash that leaves a lasting impression of the album. It is the last song on the album, but it could be in the first, with what little coherent words there are dissolving into animalistic croons by the end of the five minutes, supported a simple, striking bassline.
   Clumsy is considered by many to be overrated beyond repair, but it would be hard not to be fond of of at least half the songs on the album.

Mumiy Troll 7th September 2012 Gig Review

   There's something almost endearing about the whole show- possibly it's just the sheer intimacy of it, possibly, as vocalist and general madman Ilya Lagutenko informs us towards the end, it's because the venue is the very same one that Mumiy Troll played their first English show fifteen years ago, following the release of Morskaya.
   It's probably not a coincidence, then, that most of the songs on their setlist come from that very album- picking up a battered acoustic guitar, Ilya says, in English: "this is an old Russian lullaby" before launching into the opening verse of Utekai.
   Delfiny and Vladivostok 2000 follow, the latter sung so loudly by the crowd that the band struggle to make themselves heard above the screams of "uhodim, uhodim, uhodim...".  Ilya is the raconteur, telling anecdotes to roars of laughter from the audience, finally pulling on stage the person responsible for the backing vocals on their 1997 album during a reprise of Zabavy.
   Mumiy Troll, after almost twenty years, are one of Russia's most famous rock exports, and, after tonight, I'm certain that most can see why.