Kerrang Magazine - Front Cover Analysis

Kerrang is a magazine directed towards young male teenagers who enjoy rock music and look up to being like the men in bands. The cover article photo is of five men, one of them is a lot more forward than the others and his head covers the ‘R’ and ‘A’ in the masthead which spells out ‘Kerrang!.’ The man who is more forward than the rest holds a megaphone and looks as though he shouting down it, from this I can only guess that he is the main band member, the singer. The main band member’s hair is long and black, whilst he is wearing a thick metal ring, black trousers and a black short sleeve t-shirt which allows him to show off his tattoos, this makes the reader feel slightly intimidated by him and gives him a rebel image. His most obvious tattoo to the reader is of a cross and what looks like weeping angel, this also adds to his dark image and gives the magazine a slight gothic feel to it. There are an echo of rings placed in the background of the magazine cover, highlighting the fact that the main band member is shouting into the megaphone and ‘sleeping with sirens’ are ‘here to wake up your town!’. The four band members in the background are all wearing and look different to each other, not only because they are pulling different faces to one another but because of the way they are dressed and standing in comparison the main band member, this allows the target audience to expand slightly as they are all different looking people. The band member to the far left is sticking his tongue out and is wearing a plain white t-shirt, he is throwing his hands up as though he doesn’t care and just wants to have fun. The band member second from the left is wearing a backwards cap, has stretched ear lobes and is wearing a black leather jacket which he is holding closed in a relaxed fashion but also makes the reader feel intimidated as he looks like a rebel. The band member second from right is wearing a backwards cap, jeans, a shirt and a jacket this allows him to look a lot more casual and chilled out, yet he has necks tattoos which make him look rebellious. Whilst the band member to the far right is wearing a patterned shirt and is smiling at the reader whilst making a rock on hand gesture this makes him look relaxed. The band’s name ‘sleeping with sirens’ is written all in capitals in a large white font, it also has a yellow shadow boarder making it look as though it is coming out of the page, this shows the bands importance. The background to the magazine cover is a dark red with small splodges od black colouring which makes it look dirty adding to the rock star, rebellion feel to the overall magazine as it looks careless yet cool, which is what rock stars are known to be like.  There is a yellow strip at the top of the page advertising the ‘pull-out’ poster of Green Day found inside the magazine, this is useful as it helps to sell the magazine, to help the advertisement of the poster they have also included a picture of Green Day to the right of the yellow strip. There is also a yellow strip at the bottom of the page with the word ‘plus!’ written in red font to get the reader’s attention to what else is included in the magazine. A picture of My Chemical Romance has been included at the bottom of the cover to advertise the ‘massive encyclopedia’ included in the magazine. Above what’s written about My Chemical Romance the red background looks as though it has been torn and the writing about the band has been written over a black background this allows it to stand out and the torn effect on the red background adds to the rebellious look of the magazine.