FIRST DRAFT OF Textual Analysis of Music Magazines

The two magazines I have chosen to compare are hip hop weekly and XXL. They both come from the same genre which is Hip-Hop. Both of the magazines clearly indicate that the genre is hip hop as well known rappers are included on the front cover such as Nicki Minaj and Jay Z, and the fact having celebrities wearing sun-glasses and having tattoos indicates Hip Hop and shows swag. The magazine Hip-Hop weekly clearly indicates its genre as it says it on the masthead.

It is clear from the Hip-Hop weekly magazine, that it is aimed at females aged between 16 to 25 as it contains gossip and rumours about celebrities and girls like to read about that including myself also because of the use of colours such as pink and yellow, while on the other hand the XXL magazine is targeted at men, because there is mainly male artists in the magazine and the colours look suitable for males such as black and white and red.

The life style for the XXL magazine seems to be gangster life and black culture whereas on the hip hop weekly magazine seems to be a partying lifestyle, going out, attractive women and fashion.

The similarities in the two magazines are that they both feature some of the same artists such as Kanye West, Jay Z, Rhianna and Nicki Minaj. Also both of the two magazines have bold mastheads and both have medium close up images on the magazine front covers. Also the contents pages seem to be similar as the page numbers are large next to each feature. However there are some differences such as the colour scheme, the XXL magazine focused on three main colour which were red, black and white, on the other hand the hip hop weekly magazine had focused more than three colours, which are; yellow, pink, white, red and blue. The main front cover image is black and white in the XXL magazine and coloured in the hip hop weekly magazine.

Finally I would choose the XXL magazine as my favourite because I liked the way they only focused on three main colours throughout the magazine, and the black and white theme, which gets attention quickly, and the colours are not all over the place, like the hip hop weekly magazine. I also liked the idea of the colour red, as it blends well with black and white and stands out clearly as well.