Textual analysis of a music magazine front cover

The denotation of this magazine is that it is a front page of a music magazine, which shows an image of the artist Nicki Minaj. The photo is in a colour contrast which seems to be bright, vibrant and vivid. She has bright green hair which immediately catches the audience’s eye and the woman is looking directly at the camera, which seems to indulge the audience. It is a medium close up which shows her head down to her top pocket, part of her arm is visible in the shot as she is doing a small action. The background of the photograph is plain white and the photograph only covers a section of the magazine as there are small other photograph of her and a photograph of a man, this tells us a little of what to expect in the magazine. The lighting used in the photograph is a high key lighting especially on the main front cover photograph. The light is really bright on her hair to make it stand out and alert the audience. NVC: The woman has a shocked impression on her face but yet it still seems cheeky and flirty as it also seems as if she is flaunting her eyelashes.

In front of the woman is the Masthead and there are also four different coverlines written in a lime green colour except for one of them that is written in yellow. A barcode can also be seen in the bottom left hand corner. With the dateline which says, “June 2010”. However there is no selling line on the top of the magazine.

Masthead: This reads, ‘Word Up’. It is very vivacious, as it is in Yellow with small dark shadows beneath it. The font is a sans serif font, which makes the magazine modern and directed to the younger generation. The masthead is very plain and simple so that it can be easy to read. The words ‘Word Up’ gives me the impression that they are trying to portray a very young and ‘hip’ image, these words also seem to be slang and very informal. This also tells us that it is a very modern magazine. 

The cover photograph is of Nicki Minaj. She is posed looking in a very seductive/shocked way. The clothing she is wearing is a black dress which shows a lot of cleavage however it is covered by the coverlines, I believe this has been done to appeal to the appropriate target audience of the magazine. This is likely to be teenagers.  She has also got on a black leather glove which completes the look. She has a connotation of being an innocent girl.

The main coverline in relation to her photograph says:

“The blinged-out Barbie returns”  

This emphasises that Nicki Minaj went somewhere and is back bigger and better. The “The blinged-out Barbie” reference indicates that Nicki Minaj wears a lot of jewellery. Also this term is very slang as it is targeted to teenagers. So they automatically assume teenagers will understand the type of slang used.  Also the term “Barbie” tells the audience she is very girly and cautious about her image. One of the coverlines also read, “12 giant colour pullouts” with two photographs of Nicki Minaj. Which are the photographs that are included in the giveaway.

All the different coverlines tell us that this magazine doesn’t focus on just one topic and one celebrity but much more.  Some of the other artists’ mentioned in the coverlines include Waka Flocka, Sean Kingston, Jaden Smith, Lil Chukee and Lil Twist.

With all these points in consideration, I would suggest that the most relevant target audience would be for the younger generation because the slang used throughout, the vivid bright colours and the type of artists the magazine would include.