Textual Analysis of a Front cover

Music Magazine Textual Analysis

Mojo is a popular music magazine published by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. I am going to do a textual analysis of a front cover from the magazine ‘MOJO’. The front cover of this ‘‘MOJO’’ magazine tells us that this magazine is published by a British company because the colours used are red, blue and white which are the colours in the English flag. Also these colours denote that this magazine is aimed at the British public. The group on the front cover are The Kinks who are an English rock band formed in the 60s. The Kinks are recognised as one of the most influential acts of that era, this could make people of the older generation become more attracted to the magazine.
The Mojo magazine frequently uses a top 100 list ranging from top 100 British songs to most miserable songs of all time. As you can see from the front cover there is a top 50 greatest British tracks ever, this could make die hard fans of the British culture buy the magazine and as this magazine seems to target the British audience it would be reasonable to put the top 50 list there.

Denotation: There a several denotations I could see on the front cover one of them for example is that the title of the magazine is slightly hidden behind the image of the group this denotes that the magazine is targeting the older generations because teenagers of this generation are highly unlikely to recognise or ever heard of the Kinks. The cover line ‘’WE NEARLY DIED’’ tells us that they nearly died but the image of the group in the background tells us otherwise because they seem to be jolly and heathy.

The main cover line that relates to the photograph says ‘The Kinks’ which tells me that the main focus of this magazine is that particular band, the word is in bold red which stands out and attracts me to the magazine. Also ‘MOJO’ is behind the picture of the band which could denote that the band is more important then the magazine itself. The other cover lines surrounding the word ‘THE KINKS’ tells me that the magazine has an interesting story about the Kinks as it says ‘LAUGH’, ‘WE NEARLY DIED!’, ‘THE RISE’, ‘THE FALL’ etc. The different cover lines tell me that the magazine is not solely focused on the Kinks, because the other cover lines tell me about other artists that are featured in this magazine for example Kanye West and Bob Marley. Another cover line the ‘’STRUMMER CONNED US’’ may catch the attention of some people because if I read something like that on front cover I would want to know more. The top 50 list might also interest music fans because some of them like to be updated with the latest music and keep up to date but as this top 50 list is about the greatest British tracks ever this may appeal to the British audience or people in music from the United Kingdom.

This magazine does well in trying to target their specific audience because of the colour theme they use and the consistency of the font used this makes the reader attracted to the magazine because it does not bombard them with too much at a given time. Also Mojo do a very good job in giving the magazine a British feel because most of the things on it are things to do with the British culture like the band for instance and the top 50 list of the greatest British songs.