Representation of males and females in pop.

Pop music features widely with both women and men artists. However, the genre of pop is being rapidly taken over by women artists despite the few males. For example Beyoncé, Rihanna, Little Mix, Madonna, Britney Spears and obviously a lot more as well as the male artists such as One Direction, Union J and Justin Bieber.
From my own previous experiences, I have picked up that the majority of pop fans are usually female but of course there are male fans. I know this because of concerts I have been to. For example, I went to a Rihanna concert and there was thousands of more females than males. I have also been to see JLS and One Direction and both of their concerts were swarming with females. This suggested to me that most of the fans are female.
Most of the artists in pop that are male also feature in different genres such as R'n'B. Such as Chris Brown, Trey Songz and Ne-Yo but the R'n'B artists are usually all featured on the Top 40 Charts because their songs are popular which is what Pop Songs is abbreviated from.
Certain pop stars such as Miley Cyrus and Rihanna are beginning to ruin the representation of pop. This is because they have become sexualised and got carried away with what they wear and the songs that they sing. For example, Miley Cyrus starts performing in outfits that look like swimming costumes. This is bad because she started as a disney star as Hannah Montana so she has a lot of young fans who begin to think its acceptable to dress like her and sing songs like she does. For example 'We Can't Stop' which has some sexual content in the music video which a lot of the young audiences will preview. There is also a lot of explicit dancing which should be shown after the watershed because of young children but it isn't. Also, 'Wrecking Ball' when Miley Cyrus is sitting on a boulder naked. This can be previewed on youtube for any age which is bad because yet again, the younger audience will begin to think that this acceptable. However it is lucky because they made a clean video instead for the music channels.

Mood board of pictures.

I have put together a mood board that consists of double page spread articles, front covers and content pages all from pop magazines as well as instruments that most well known pop songs usually consist of. I have done this because it highlights that each magazine uses high key lighting and a certain colour scheme to match the artist on what they're wearing or their well known personalities. Also, it helps me to get ideas of how to have my logo on my cover page, how to structure my contents page to ensure that it doesn't look messy or clustered and my double page spread as every picture used in the double page spreads above show the artist starring at the camera to engage the audience which looks effective.

Thinking of a Concept.

Group work lesson - analysis of double page spreads.

During a lesson, we did group work and analysed three different music magazine double page spreads. This was good because it gave me a clearer understanding of what double page spreads should consist of and it allowed me to take ideas from other people as well as myself so that we can all help each other in our research and planning.

Research into different audiences.

For each genre of music there is a different type of audience.

Pop
Pop is the most widespread music genre has a demographic audience of E as they are mainly students. The audience usually ranges between 12-24 in mostly females and some times males.

Rock
Rock music has a widespread variety of their audience because they also have many sub-gendres. Rock has an audience of older males whereas the sub-genres such as indie have a younger audience of people who are aged late teens and younger adults. The typical demographic audiences for rock are E, D and maybe C2.

Reggae
The reggae genre was pioneered in the 60s and 70s. The audiences were poor working class Jamacians however it ended in all countries by people of all ages and race. The reggae audience varies greatly as their are many reggae sub-genres which appeal to different people. The demographic audience for reggae are E and D.

Classical
The main audience of classical music is males and females ranging between 50-70. The audience is very specific as the amount of people who listen to the genre is decreasing regularly. The demographic audience for classical music is A and B.

Country
The target audience for country music is 18-54 with a core audience of 25-45 year old adults. 40% of country music listeners are in the top demographic and about 38% of the American population are country fans. In the more recent years, country music has gained a lower target audience due to artists such as Taylor Swift who also features in pop and is played on the mainstream music radio stations. The demographic audience for country is D.

Music magazines in a shop.

These four magazines were from a local shop and were ordered in pop to rock but they were the only two genres that the shop had. This clearly showed to me that pop and rock were the most listened to genres in the area due to the lack of magazines for other genres. I am going to analyse each magazine that I saw in the shop individually and suggest the ideas that I got from them for my own magazine.

The 'Shout' magazine was a music magazine that I have personally never seen before so it instantly made me think that it could've been new. It would easily attract a customer of its target audience that is young or teenage girls due to the use of attractive band members and free gifts such as little make up bits. In my own magazine, I'd like to use attractive band members because a lot of fans will buy the magazine because they see their idol on the front cover and they will see it as an opportunity to get the new exclusive information on them.







The 'NME' magazine is a music magazine that I am familiar with due to my friends and research. The one I saw in the shop looked completely different to the previous NME magazines that I have seen as it is featuring something different and not a specific celebrity. I like the idea of including more than one artist to attract a wider range of consumers but in my own magazine I would prefer to have one artist on my front cover that will foreshadow a huge article on them. Although the NME magazine is different, they still use the same colours. This shows that the editors are consistent and keep up the representation of NME which is good because it fits in with the genre and looks good still.





The 'Top of the Pops' magazine is a music magazine that I have done a lot of research on so when I saw it in a paper copy in the shop it gave me more ideas for my own magazine rather than the online version did. Although they were practically the same, you can see the detail a lot clearer on the paper copy. The paper copy also included free gifts and attractive band members which is similar to the 'Shout' magazine because it helps to attract their target audience. Also, they use the season that it is to apply to real life. For example 'Christmas Special' which will show that it is including recent events so that the readers are up to date. In my own magazine i'd like to have a sub title that applies to the time of the year or a recent event that has been in the media.




The 'Classic Rock' magazine is an unfamiliar magazine to me but even without reading the name, I would be able to tell that is for rock because of the low key lighting and the artists on the front. The magazine includes a free calendar and a 'best of year CD' which will increase the sales because the consumers will want to have a CD especially because it will have their favourite songs and artists. Some of the consumers will want the calendar because it'll be useful for them. The name of their magazine 'Classic Rock' stands out because the word 'Rock' is bold and big across the page compared to the word 'Classic' which is quite small and fits in between the 'R' and 'K' of rock which shows that Rock is important and has more aspects to it than just classic rock because it looks like 'Rock' is just a base of a huge genre. In my own magazine, I like the idea of having a huge logo and layering it behind the artists head because it looks more professional.

Research into different Institutions.

Bauer Media Group
Bauer Media Group was founded in 1875. It used to be called 'Heinrich Bauer Verlag KG' which was abbreviated to 'HBV' and sometimes shortened to 'H.Bauer'.
Bauer has been managed by four generations of the Bauer family. It started in a small printing house but now it is grown into a worldwide publishing and media company.
The Bauer Publishing Group comprises 300 magazines worldwide in 15 countries as well as televisions and radio stations.
Bauer started publishing magazines in the UK with the 'Bella' magazine in 1987 and soon became Britain's third largest publisher.
Bauer then further expanded in the UK with the purchase of Emap Consumer Media and Emap Radio in 2008 and then they became the UK's biggest publishing group. Bauer's subsidaries is Bauer Radio and Box Television. Although Box is also owned by Channel 4.


Immediate Media Company
Immediate Media Company was formed in 2011 by the merging of Origin Publishing, Magicalia and BBC Magazines.
Magicalia was founded in 1999 and is a digital cross-media publisher. It works in retail and within e-commerce. In retail they publish magazines in the parenting and active markets and in e-commerce they publish websites for magazine clients and retailers.
BBC Magazines was the publishing side of BBC Worldwide and was a commercial subsidiary of BBC. They published some magazines such as 'Country File' and 'Radio Times' for adults, 'It's Hot' and 'Top of the Pops' for teens and then pre-teens, educational and pre-school magazines too. This shows that BBC Magazines fit in all of the demographic targets which is good because it increases sales in the magazines they published.


NME
NME started publishing in 1952 as a music newspaper and gradually changed to a magazine. It was the first British newspaper to include the top music charts. Before NME, it was the Melody Maker which ended in 2000 which featured in dance bands. It was then merged into New Musical Express. NME features in pop and rock music. In 1996, NME opened up online so that the magazines could also be accessed there for readers who didn't want paper copies. NME used to have a television show which aired for 5 years and ended in 2012 but it then changed to a Chart Show.