the music press intro to a level

Foundation Portfolio

Your task, to be completed with evaluation by Christmas.

The front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine.

All images and text used must be original, produced by the candidate, minimum of FOUR images.

• Popular music magazines have played a key role in the emergence of rock and pop styles since the mid-1950s.

• These publications have reported and reflected musical trends from Elvis Presley to Eminem, the Beatles to Lady Gaga.

• They have become more than mere mirrors to pop culture: they have also helped to shape the way music is heard and the way music is consumed.

Issues to consider…

• 1. The relationship between the print media and the industry.

• 2. The role of the writer and critic as 'gatekeeper’.

• 3. There has been a long running struggle between the inkies and the glossies, who is winning and why? Are any of them in the digital age?

• 4. In recent years, the mainstream press has taken an increasing interest in pop and rock matters.

• 5. How have digital outlets brought changes to this field?

• 6. What are the different ways in which writers and journalists in this sector express their critical views?

• 7. The relationship between the music industry and the media publications.

• 8. What do magazines cover and how do they express their ideas?

• 9. Style and content analysis.

• 11. How far is rock writing concerned with issues of the artistic and aesthetic and how far does it have to toe the line of the corporate industry?

• 10. Consider the ideological functions of this kind of publication. What social, cultural and even political messages can we recognise beyond the headlines and images?

• 11. How far is rock writing concerned with issues of the artistic and aesthetic and how far does it have to toe the line of the corporate industry?

Next steps

• After we have researched the music press from these viewpoints you will then create your own;

• Front page, • Contents• Double page spread• With a house style and definitive

‘aesthetic’.