To help me when writing my article on my chosen band for my music magazine I have evaluated the double spread article "Two Nights In Bird Land" which featured in Mojo magazine. The edition of Mojo magazine featured Kings of Leon on the front cover. This tells me that I could do my article of a band/artist and feature a different article on the front cover, this way a will be appealing to a wider audience.
The choice of the band featured in this double page spread, "Doves", is an indie/rock band. This relates to the magazine, Mojo, whose target market is indie rock. And therefore tells us that this should relate to the people reading this magazine and the reader should have vested interest in this article.
The masthead "Two Nights In Bird Land" is in a larger font and in bold and the banner is bright yellow. This is to attract people to this particular article, to grab people's attention. The actual words "Two Nights In Bird Land" is a pun on words, as the band themselves are called "The Doves", which related to the words "Bird Land".
The imagery used in this article is very realistic, the main picture is not actually a set up photo-shoot but The Doves in their "natural" environment; on stage singing and playing for their fans. However the colour used in this main picture is not realistic. There are a lot of shocking colours used, such as, electric blue yellow and orange. This tells the reader of the kind of atmosphere The Doves play gigs in. The picture is taken from a low angle shot, as though the photo is taken from within the ground of one of The Doves gigs, so you get a fans point of view. It is also taken from a low angle shot to how the fans look up to their favourite band and admire their fame and good taste in music and songs.
More imagery is used to show close up of each of the band member faces. These picture are in black and white and in a mug shot type of style, this may be to give off a bad-boy image. Each picture may be in black and white to again attract the reader, as the colours clash with the other pictures on this page which have a very high composition.
The article starts with the lead, "Hometown heroes doves pound Manchester, and then move to Newcastle." Alliteration is used is this first paragraph, "Hometown Heroes". The lead is a very short sentence for effect and to make a pint, the point being how Doves have rose to fame. The graphic verb, "pound" also suggests that the Doves have become a successful strong band. The by-line is also included in the lead, "Elisa Bray reports". The drop capital used is "D" to of course stand for Doves, which is at the beginning of the cross head.
The language that is used in this article is informal, for example "He would join his 'music head' dad at gigs, leaving Jez wondering who that 'cool' guy in shades and dressed in white was." This is to give a relaxed feeling to the article and make the mode of address conversational. It also reflects the band's attitude, they are also very relaxed. Many quotes from the band are used to make the article seem much more personal. For my magazine I too want to give of this relaxed, laid-back feeling. However the article also has descriptive writing, but is very upbeat and energetic, "the energy surges through the heaving throng, from the step lip to the rear wall, for four glorious minutes...".
The layout of the article is house style. This distinctive design distinguishes it from its competitors. The main picture takes up a quarter of the whole article. This may be because pictures tend to attract readers rather than too much text. The gutters used are also quite wide to again break up the text. The colours are bright and the text informal this relates to the demographic that Mojo magazine is trying to appeal to.
The bottom right hand corner of the article has an insert of a conversation between Jez and Jimi, members of the band. This again gives us a feeling of the attitude of the band and how relaxed and down-to-earth they are. It gets us to know more about Jez and Jimi as people. It includes quotes such as "we racked up a £3000 bar bill ". This tells us the type of impression that the band want to give off about themselves which would appeal to indie/rock fans, it also shows a witty and funny side to there personality. The picture next to grey box is a picture of William Orbit. The colours of this picture are unusual and are in correspondence to the main picture. The caption at the bottom of the page (rust devils...) is distant from the picture but still relates to the main picture and it linked to the name of Doves new album.
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