Initial Ideas for My Magazine

From looking at other magazines and also having a keen interest in the subject, I have decided to base my magazine on House Music/ DJ theme. House music is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in the American city of Chicago in the early 1980s. It then began to influence popular music in Europe, since the early to mid-1990s; house music has been infused in mainstream pop and dance music worldwide. Today, house music remains popular in both clubs and in the mainstream pop scene while still maintaining a strong foothold on underground scenes across the globe. House music today, while keeping several of these core elements, notably the prominent kick drum on every beat, varies a lot in style and influence, ranging from the soulful and atmospheric deep house to the more minimalistic microhouse. House music has also fused with several other genres creating fusion subgenres, such as Euro house, tech house, and electro house. A new generation of house music DJs has experienced a growing fan base from the mid-2000s onwards. Examples of these DJs include but are not limited to Afrojack, Avicii, Bingo Players, Calvin Harris, Deadmau5, Porter Robinson, and Swedish House Mafia.

Figure 1: Avicii

Figure 2: Swedish House Mafia

Figure 3: Calvin Harris

As already mentioned House Music is not only associated with remixes from DJs but is most commonly applied to an arguable British-based music scene between 2005 and late 2008 of fastpaced electronica-influenced indie music that celebrated the late 1980s Madchester and rave scenes through the use of neon colors and using the term 'raving' to refer to going nightclubbing. These are the sorts of atmospheres associated with raving/nightclubbing; normally very colorful and busy which relates to the theme of raving; wild and crazy. I need to think about the use of color and camera effects (aperture lens) to make the images look as good as possible when making constructing my magazines. In addition, one of the things that distinguished new rave from other movements was the wearing of baggy or little clothes, fluorescent colors and the emphasis on celebrities attending.

There are already some Dj/Clubbing specialized magazines retailing now. Mixmag quoting itself as The Worlds Dance Music & Clubbing Destination and Dj Mag. This again shows the brightness behind the genre portrayed by the magazine producers. As for content, most House Music magazines, like regular magazines, including reviews and interviews. But in this case, they are normally about events such as a DJ set performed rather than an album. Also because clubbing/raving is viewed as a community thing, there are normally a lot of members of the public involved in the creation. In Mixmag, especially, articles inform the readers on aspiring to be a DJ and this is quite a regular feature. It is often very usual for these types of magazine to do consistent their magazine.

top 10 charts in

Possible content that I could include suitable for my double page spread is a possible review with additional artists quotes, and maybe a feature of a Top 10. This interview with DJ, Ferry Corsten gives an insight into his profession. I could match my content of my article copy on the same features; for example he speaks about the amount of work involved and why he decided to become a DJ. http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=QiQKb9s94QE

And this review from the Guardian represents a typical DJ set, in this case Swedish House Mafia, should be portrayed. Comedy is incorporated heavily into this review; ADD-friendly controlled explosions and informing a field of mud-caked ravers that they were all "fokken legends", almost sarcasm. This review isnt just generalized either it picks out key points of interest to keep the readers attention.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jul/17/swedish-house-mafia-review

Both of these articles are informal although in different situations, which is the tone I should stick to, to make it an easy read. Informality also suits my genre as you would not class clubbing as a formal event. I believe the introduction to an article will be very important as if reviewing an event; the scene needs to be set so the reader can grasp a better understanding of the situation. However as neither have been used in a magazine, I will have to consider the correct way to represent a review/interview in magazine form. The audience for most magazines involved with this theme are predominately males aged 16-26 (Mix Mag Publications). However I believe there is an increasing appeal for females especially associated with the clubbing stance. I know that there is a market for this judging by figures from House Music/DJ Set Festival, Tomorrowland. Statistics from 2012 showed that all 180,000 tickets sold out and 1.2 million professional DJS. In addition because of this type of hobby is quite costly this should allow me to have a higher price range. However, I will target my magazine at class type, CDE as this incorporates not just higher skilled professionals but also casual grade workers as they could deem it as aspirational. Although further research would be needed, eg a questionnaire, the consideration of price is important. Without any investigation, I would say at the moment I will charge about 2.00 for my magazine. My initial thoughts of a name for my magazine were something associated with listening or the head. The brand, Hedkandi known as the most stylish name in house music is a music brand established in 1999. This said; if I were to make a similar name this would be similar to the collusion between Q and NME (both having red and black colouring). However, I should consider an acronym for use as a title as these are usually more rememberable.