Music magazine comparison - Kerrang!

Kerrang! was first published in 1981. when it first was published it featured acts such as Bon Jovi, Slayer, and Poison on the cover.

The theme constantly changes but started as thrash and glam metal, but in the mid 90s changed to grunge.

In the 2000’s the genre changed again to become emo and metalcore, however this was criticized as they emphasized on it so much.

When Kerrang! was first published, it was in a magazine format and was released once a month, but soon changed to once a fortnight, then changed again to once a week.

Kerrang! started their Rock chart list in March 2012, however it is not featured in the magazine itself and is featured on Kerrang! TV and Kerrang! Radio.

The masthead for Kerrang! is the name ‘Kerrang!’ with cracks around the edge of each letter and lines going though each letter, the cracks around the letters could be the magazine suggesting that we are all corrupted and are starting to show cracks much like the letters in the logo is. The masthead also has an exclamation mark at the end of the word ‘Kerrang’ this could be because the genre they cover is more exciting than other music magazines around.

The main story titles on Kerrang! are usually right in the middle of the page, this would attract the readers attention better than having them at the side or at the bottom of the page, there is also more emphasis on the main story as it is usually in a different font to the rest of the stories.

There is almost always a lot going on on the cover of Kerrang! this could be because it makes the magazine more exciting than others that are on the magazine stand so would stand out more. They also have competitions advertised on the cover, if the competitions are exciting then this could make readers more likely to buy the magazine as they have a chance to win something.

Most of the time, the stories on the cover of Kerrang! are about artists in the genre, however it is common that the stories are sometimes about activities to do with the genre of music, for example they have had a story titled ‘Can moshing kill you?’ this is relevant to the genre of rock as at rock concerts moshing is an event that can occur regularly.