My Genre - Why?

In preparation of beginning the task in hand of designing my own magazine, I thought a clever action to take would be to delve into researching the techniques that magazines of each genre of music use to appeal to their target audience.

It has became apparent to me as I started thinking over some magazine names and their intended genre that rock dominates at the moment. There's also a great list of magazines available to us nowadays more than ever, maybe because bands are finding it easy to make it big with new big influences of media such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo where bands can upload their tracks and create virtual online fan bases without ever having to be played on the radio therefore not even accepted by today's culture. This can lead to bands eventually being brought into the mainstream of the music industry just by a website. Maybe this is the reason the amount of music magazines is increasing, music lovers want to know about the fresh and new non-mainstream bands that are out there on the world wide web but need some slight guidance of which artists are just wannabe trash and which artists could be the next big thing.

After Googling magazines of the main genres of rock, pop and dance, the world of teen magazines took me back to when I read them, and made me realize they contain total drivel because they know their audience are gullible pre-teens who believe anything that they read will make them 'normal' to fit in with school friends and other girls their age. I think I'll pass on including any element of this in my magazine creation. Shortly after, I decided to take out my iPod and look through the genres. Weirdly enough I came across 'rave' and I thought "hmm, this could be interesting". Also, I knew from watching other peoples proposals they were either doing rock, pop or R&B so I thought I'd venture from the sheep and focus on something totally different like a bright and colourful rave magazine, which I do know a fair bit about from hearing about it and seeing it in the media. It's incorporated with fashion too, now that more and more people are joining the scene and wanting places that specialise in the apparel and accessories.
I noticed there wasn't much more choice out there for people with any other taste than rock so I thought I'd help them out and move on from the cliche.

It is now clear to me that rock is dominating the media. Not just music magazines or on the radio, but in the fashion industry too. Since more rock bands are about we see how they dress, then celebrities dress as they do, who we then see snap shots of in glossy magazines then before we know it the fashionistas are making clothes for the high street that they know we'll want so we can look like those celebrities we so dearly look up to for image guidance. Before long its taking over and now if you don't wear clothes influenced by rock, you aren't part of the norm. You aren't hip. You're not trendy. It's a vicious cycle which has kicked off and its becoming hard to put and end to. It's clear rock is thriving at this period in time.

On delving into further investigation, I considered maybe taking ideas from my research to stand out from the norm, to do something different and give recignition to the rave scene and prove its not just about weirdos that wear tye-dye, take pills and fling themselves around in a club. On looking at examples of not only magazine covers, but online websites for fans of the music, I knew I'd have to research alot more to grasp the less obvious the key features that I'll need to include to make my magazine conventional. But for know, I just know to keep it colourful and quirky.

My final decision has been made, I will begin to research magazines influenced by rave and techno, as vague and mysterious this genre may be to me. I intend analyze it to widen my research and maybe discover some of the more effective presentational devices they include despite the fact it's not exactly the kind of music I have a liking for. Despite this, I will make sure to make the conventional expectation of a magazine, perfect for a raver.