☞ Articles with musicians
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Using examples, how far do you agree?
I agree that articles about artists heavily influences a magazines popularity. I think this for many reasons, including the fact that fans of the artists would be interested in reading as well as keen music fans, regardless of the positive or negative feeling that is being conveyed. I think these articles have a huge impact on the audience and these reasons are why magazines are sold on such a wide scale.
Top Of The Pops is a very popular magazine targeted towards young, teenage girls of whom typically listen to pop music. Top Of The Pops is a great example of why articles with musicians are successful, as well as the popular magazine NME which is more targeted to young adults and above. The reason that people like these magazines are not necessarily based on the content, but because of the artists featured. For example, Jake Bugg was interviewed for NME (November 17th 2012) and although the journalist who exploited Jake was very negative about him, people were interested in reading the article because of how honest and truthful it was - allowing swear words to be used - ‘I'm keeping that X Factor s*** off the top spot' - which wouldn't usually be included in other magazines like Top Of The Pops. They also included intertextual references and black and white images to represent the target audiences interests.
Also, in NME, the articles are very serious and seem to get to the point, however TOTP’s magazine is very cheesy, feminine and somewhat 'staged' - proving how different the target audience is for the two magazines. Whilst NME featured Jake Bugg, where we saw Jake constantly discussing his music and telling the NME audience the truth, as he, and the magazine alike, are very honest and reliable. Jake Bugg speaks to us just as he would to a friend, as we see him using swear words and very colloquial language, which conveys how he doesn't care what people think of him and he only cares about the music. On the other hand, TOTP’s likes to make their guests seem very innocent to match their target audience. TOTP’s featured Little Mix, where there was no relevant content to music, instead parties, which was ironic due to it being a music magazine. They talked about the girls make up tips and party ethics so it all seems very rehearsed, which can be backed up by the props and photographs taken in the article to represent the magazine's target audience.
Speaking of photographs, the images chosen to represent these magazines have a big influence on who the magazine is aimed at. In NME, Jake is seen wearing a tracksuit and singing into a microphone with his eyes closed whilst holding a guitar, which portrays how laid back, carefree and dedicated that he is - how he's 'lost in the music' and that's all that he cares about. This makes Jake seem more like a down to earth person so the audience can gain a genuine relationship with him. Contrastingly, Little Mix are trying to look 'perfect'; standing in a line, posing and looking straight at the camera. Their props, body language and costumes are even quite 'out there', which proves how Little Mix are celebrities in their names and not just music, unlike Jake, as they care about their image and other less important things when music should be their top priority. This also proves how TOTP’s wants to make the artists impress their readers and talk about irrelevant things to keep it interesting to the target audience (as young girls care more about 'fame' in general).
In this context, both magazines are completely different - the TOTP’s readers want to know about the artists life, whereas the NME readers want to know about the music (it is a music magazine after all!).
To summarise, NME is more popular with an older audience as it's language is more suitable and the content is far more relevant and interesting. This covers the majority of people who typically read music magazines, which contrasts to TOTP which is aimed at a more niche audience of young, females.
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