Music Magazine Textual Analysis - Double Page Spreads

Magazine - "UNCUT"
Publisher - "IPC Media"
Published Since - May 1997

<---Left Page   Right Page--->

From the top of the left page we see the name of the artist the article is centered around, we know they are and artist as underneath is the article title - "NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR", there is a small use of white space above and below the banner which is just used to help the banner and title of of the article stand out (as the colour used is orange against white, which stands out very well).

following the title of the article is a brief summary of the artist leading up to the artist's name in large letter in the centre of the page. the brief summary highlights many good points about the artist and helps the readers understand that this artist is someone very much worth knowing about (the use of these good points make readers interested in reading more about the artist, especially since the magazine lists a few very well known people, such as "David Crosby" (a famous American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, who is also a double member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) and "Jackson Browne", (another famous American singer-songwriter and musician who has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone and who has also been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) showing just how important this artist is.

Below Jonathan Wilson's nickname - "the new King of Laurel Canyon", is a moderate amount of white space, separating the section at the top - the brief introduction to who Jonathan Wilson is, and the section below.

The article towards the bottom of the page is presented as 3 columns of text going down the page, the use of which makes the magazines look professionally presented and saves space as to maximise the amount of text that can be entered onto the page. Something noticeable to do with the article is the use of drop caps to start parts of the article, the effect of this makes the article seem slightly classy but also just looks very nice, and professional when presented in a magazine, something else noticeable is the name of the writer of the article -"Andy Gill" and the photographer who took the picture of Jonathan Wilson - "Aaron Farley" above the middle column of text, the effect of this is just to credit the people who worked on the article and to just tell the readers the names of those that wrote and provided photos for the article, offering slight publicity for Andy Gill and Aaron Farley.

Most of the text on this page is presented in Serif style font which adds a certain charm and idea of the class of the article (that it is not incredibly cheap and shallow), there are only a few instances of Sans-serif style font being "JONATHAN WILSON" at the top of the page and the title of the article "NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR". There is something to be said about the colours of the text, besides the standard black used in the article at the bottom of the page, much of the other text and imagery (the banner around "NEW ARTIST OF THE YEAR" and the banner across the top of the page (not a banner in the sense of a front page headline which goes across the full width of the page by the way)) uses the colour orange and brown, matching the feel of the image on the right page of the double page spread, as the feel of the image of Jonathan Wilson is that of a sunny, relaxed outlook, due to the strong sunlight in the image. The text on the left page has one minor use of slang, the word "jams", commonly used in the sense of people relaxing together and "jamming" meaning playing music, the pure use of this word gives a sense that Jonathan Wilson is a relaxed person who enjoys playing music with others in a relaxed environment, telling the readers a little more about what kind of person Jonathan Wilson is, which seems to be very relaxed.

The image on the right page of the double page consumes the entire page and relates to the article (as we can tell by the small amount of white, Sans-serif style text in the small black box located towards the bottom left of the image, which sates that it is an image of "Jonathan Wilson at his home in Silver Lake, LA"). The use of the image is obviously to give a better idea of the sort of person Jonathan Wilson is, the angle of the photo,
mise-en-scene and body language of Jonathan Wilson also help this greatly (as we can see the photo is a mid shot of him and his body language appears very relaxed and "mellow", portraying him to be a very relaxed person and the setting around him, of his home, shows to be a very natural place with lots of plants and fresh air, giving a sense that he is not the "city-type", Jonathan Wilson's clothing also gives a very relaxed feel as he does not seem to be dressed up for the picture, he seems to be relaxed in a loose check shirt, jeans and 2 bracelets.




Magazine - "mixmag"
Publisher - "Development Hell Ltd"
Published Since - 1st February 1983

 <---Left Page   Right Page--->

Straight away we see a very large article title across the top of both pages of the double page spread, titled "ORCHESTRA MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK". From this title we can tell the article is obviously about an orchestra, the actual way the title is shown has been catered to this article as we can see the title is surrounded by the guide lines used for composing notes in music, the effect of this is that it looks very professional and also very beautiful in general.

The text across the entire double page spread is all written in Sans-serif style font and in white colour. the reason for the white colour is to keep with the theme of the article (an orchestra who operate in the dark), as obviously the black background continuing off from the image of the orchestra in motion (in an almost bleed effect, as the darkness continues seamlessly from the image to the magazine e.g. from the image on the right page of the double page spread across the left page) as the black background represents the darkness, so a white text is needed to show up well against the black (the only instance of black text is the page number and issue for which the magazine was published against the small amount of white background on the left page of the double page spread). There is a slight amount of white background on the double page spread, on the left side of the left page, but as it comes to the article and the image of the 3 key members of the orchestra, it changes to black to match the rest of the double page spread and gives an effect of a normal lit environment moving into darkness, which is something different (like the orchestra itself - something different).

The image of the 3 key members of the orchestra on the left page gives readers a sense of the type of people these men are (as it tells readers at the top of the image which member of the orchestra is which). The image is presented as a circle with the men inside of it, circles seem to be a prominent theme in this double page spread as we can see by this image, the black background invading the white on the left side of the left page and the large white bullet point starting the article on the right side of the left page.

The underlined text underneath the image tells the readers that this is in fact no ordinary orchestra and that in fact "They compose and play techno on classical instruments" and the orchestra's name is "The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble" (named after each of the 3 key members second names) and finally that the interview took place within Vienna and the writer of article is "Chris Cottingham" and the photos were taken by "Harry Weber" (the effect of providing the names of the photographer and writer provides them with some publicity and helps them become noticed by readers, it also may tell some readers something about the style of photograph or way the article is written if the writer or photographer are well known and have a consistent style to their work).

The actual article is written in columns and moves from the right side of the left page to wrapping around the large image of the orchestra performing on the right page, the use of this just helps to fit text into the page whilst getting the most out of the image shown. Something noticeable is the slightly bolder text after the article finishes, which advertises that "The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble's album 'Mr Machine' s out now via !K7", the effect of this advertisement, after the article about the artist's new take on techno music, may make readers want to purchase the album because they may be interested after the article that they just read, which possibly means profit for The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble and the independent record label "K7".

Looking at the images, the image on the left page does not say too much about the key members of The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble, it simply shows what they look like, as far as mise-en-scene goes it shows them as perhaps quite intelligent individuals thanks to, not only their clothing, shown by the three shot, mid long shot/long shot, but the fact they create techno music through the use of classical instruments, which no-one has done very successfully before, thus making them appear quite intelligent to be able to do this (even though this isn't evident in the mise-en-scene it is something to be thought about along with the clothing (which is part of mise-en-scene)). The location in the picture does not seem real, although it very well may be, as far as effects is perhaps make them look mysterious. The image on the right page is an image of (what seems to be) The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble performing, this image does not tell the readers much about the 3 key members although it does tell them that they do use more than 3 people when performing (as is evident in the picture, and hence why I have been saying how Daniel Brandt, Jan Brauer and Paul Frick are the 3 key members, as they created the orchestra).




This sums it up for my double page spreads textual analysis and also completes the textual analysis section of my music magazine coursework, so yeah I'm pretty happy about that :D

Anyway, till next time everyone :)