This departs from the conventions of magazine covers that normally run a masthead run along the top of the front cover. ‘Q’ is enigmatic, just like the regular Spine Line which changes every months because many readers will be uncertain why it is called by this name and according to the Editor it looks original and displays better on newsstands (the magazine was planned to be called ‘Cue’ as in cue the music but it was thought there was an outside chance it could be mistaken for a snooker magazine, a sport which was very popular when Q launched in 1986. The white letter could signify simplicity or purity while a red background has connotations of danger – the founders of the magazine thought at the time that the music press was ignoring older, primarily male music buyers.
Within the masthead, the magazine’s tagline is foregrounded – ‘A DIFFERENT TAKE ON MUSIC’. This again encodes a sense of originality and almost ‘independence’ to audiences which is in fact mythical if audiences engage in content analysis; Q magazine devotes a significant amount of content to established, mainstream Rock artists and belongs to the Rock genre frequently running articles on its favourite British bands including the Rolling Stones, Stone Roses and Blur. ‘A DIFFERENT TAKE ON MUSIC’ however is another successful way to market to audiences who perhaps do not have the significant cultural capital of the primary reader.
Q magazine has high production values and this is evidenced by its glossy, monthly format and also by fact that it is published by the Bauer Media Group, one of the oligopoly of magazine publishers who acquired EMAP in 2008. Bauer own 282 magazines in 15 countries and also TV and Radio stations and are the UK’s largest publishing group. It is with this financial backing that Q can sustain relatively low monthly circulation of 80,400, as with most other consumer magazines a common occurrence with many diversifying into new media as with Q’s website www.qthemusic.com. Bauer’s other music magazine titles include Mojo and Kerrang who, like Q have diversified into cross media platforms like Q TV and Q Radio. The Q Awards are also sponsored by the brand (though Bauer) and remain one of the UK’s most prestigious music awards. It with this in mind that Q sees itself as more sophisticated than other titles offering quality and still attracting high profile advertisers despite the low circulation. Q’s demographic have a high potential for advertising spend suggesting ABC1, aspirers, male skew, urban and city living 25-45 who are ‘into their music’.
Q have hybridised up to a point with the Rock genre very much apparent but with a focus occasionally on quality indie artists like Pete Doherty and Elbow. Q want to be associated with successful music artists and a way of maintaining their place in the market is by flexibility in terms of genre (see also Kerrang magazine). Guitar bands are Q’s main focus and as a result have a close relationship with the Glastonbury Festival producing a free daily newspaper during the festival although as with the above front cover are comfortable with running covers devoted to popular female artists who are invariable framed for the male gaze with this audience in mind. In April 2010 Q caused controversy when they ran a front cover featuring Lady Gaga, centrally framed in medium shot covering her breasts, only to be banned by some US retail outlets. Unashamedly ‘boysey’ Q’s sister papers include Empire, a wholly mainstream, male dominated film magazine and football magazine FourFourTwo.
Q are also well known for compiling ‘lists’ – on the above front cover a typical example of this would be cover line ‘The 25 Greatest Rock Movies’ and have an extensive ‘Review’ section (new releases, reissues, live concert reviews and film). Q TV closed in July 2012 but again focussed on Rock videos and Rock films with the occasional indie and ‘alternative’ reference. The saturation of music TV channels and low viewing figures made it untenable that it continue broadcasting. Q Radio however continues and is available on the internet, on digital radio or on digital television networks with the added advantage of limited production costs while the cost of maintaining Q TV was considerable and without enough advertising revenue to cover costs. As with the print music magazine, the brand Q remains recognisable, but for how long?
Cover lines on the right hand side of the above edition anchor the masculine representations with not only bands like U2, The Stone Roses and Oasis having hyper real, stereotypical connotations but the lettering also appears in bold, upper case, sans serif block with its own signification of masculinity. All bands are British and entirely male with all Oasis and The Stone Roses conforming to a hell raising, bad boy image which would be read as aspirational by much of the target audience who are fans of the groups. U2 are foregrounded as a dominant, successful global band with their lead singer Bono often revered and enigmatic. The sub headings ‘Good lord, it’s their masterpiece’ and ‘The 55 pint interview’ again serve to anchor these hyper real masculine associations that the readers expect. The mode of address is used to facilitate this with the magazine talking directly to the reader in an informal way with common use of exclamation marks creating the myth of a personal communication. This is s similar technique uses by Men’s Lifestyle magazines to create a form of inclusivity like the readers are all part of the same homogenous group.
This simplistic, almost minimalistic front cover suggests the sophistication that Q magazine are looking to achieve – many lower production value magazines have cluttered from covers that have limited design considerations. The central image, Lilly Allen is a carefully constructed photo shoot ensuring the singer appear frames centrally in long shot, topless looking back at the male audience. Her body language, including a hand on hip, her seductive gaze, and dress code including black tights, heels and hot pants are straight out of a Men’s Lifestyle magazine and are common conventions. Across her body the main cover line, ‘SEXY BEAST LILY ALLEN’ has its own connotations and could be understood as a pun with the presence of two black Panthers flanked to either side. Wild cats stereotypically are associated with a sexual connotation (sleek, dangerous, uncontrollable, deadly but beautiful) and are used in this way on the front cover. Again written in sans serif font her name is foregrounded large as a banner and the colour palette is also stereotypically masculine using silvers, blacks, whites and reds which also serve to create more of an aesthetically pleasing cover. Written underneath Lily Allen’s name in smaller, italicised this time red for passion and danger upper case text is use of alliteration ‘WICKED, WICKED WAYS’ which allows audiences to decode the impact of the sexual representation through use of language.
The cover lines that run along the bottom of the front cover signify their importance in terms of genre in that are mainly indie compared to the main cover lines about Rock bands at the top right of the page. Pete Doherty’s on and off drug dependency is referred to by the cover line ‘PETE DOHERTY AND THE HARDEST WORKING CORPSES IN MUSIC’ but a hyper real masculine representation is still apparent as like the other Rock artists he has a bad boy image. The only female frame of reference on the front cover is an overtly sexualised Lily Allen whose presence is for male audiences and potentially for a secondary female target audience who could see her as an aspirational role model. Her agreement to appear on the front cover of Q is an interesting one from a marketing perspective as lyrically many of her songs reflect a fierce independence but arguably the cover image references the significant other (men) that her songs do not – this would be a mutually beneficial marketing agreement both for Q and Lily Allen as with the Lady Gaga front cover, both would benefit from notoriety and publicity while Q remain associated with quality artists.
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