Textual analysis of XXL music magazine

Textual Analysis: Best Life magazine

Denotation:  The magazine cover consists of a colour photograph of a man looking directly at the camera along with a female looking directly at camera aswell. It is a medium close up showing both of there heads, shoulders and abit of there waist. They are both standing with the male with his hand in his pockets while the female is holding an object in her right hand. The background of the photograph is black and the photograph covers the whole magazine cover. Behind the male and female is the XXL masthead and in front of them are two separate cover-lines in white. The photographed names of the two people on the cover are in white. A bar code is visible in the bottom left corner.

Masthead: The XXL masthead is very distinctive and stands out as the XXL is white with a red background. The font used is sons-serif and the lettering is bold capitals. The font used connotes American culture as American has an energetic music industry with lots of powerful artists who all share the same passion and talent. All the musicians who have appeared in or on the cover of XXL have had a reputations of having a combination of R’n’B, Rap and Hip Hop.

Characters: The cover photograph is of successful American R’n’B and Hip Hop stars Nicki Minaj and Drake.

Composition: They are both of them are situated in a peaceful manner showing of there dominance.

Costume:  Her clothing is very unique and different to what others would wear, as she has got leopard gloves on both hands to match her leopard skirt. The clothing he is wearing is plain but stylish and he is wearing army style jacket with a white t-shirt and a dark pair of jeans.   

NVC:  Their Non-verbal communication is very dominant as he is standing with his shoulders back hands in his pocket approach looking directly at the camera while she is looking directly at the camera but with her head slanted at an angle.

Lighting:  The lighting is very high key as the background is black the lighting has to be key to help show the dominance of these to characters.

Setting: There is very little setting so because of this its hard to established where the setting actual is.

Cover-lines:  The main cover-line that relates to there photograph says “Domination”. This is making a reference to the music that these two artists have produced over the last year or two, as they have both taken the music industry by storm and are two of Americans leading artists, not just in American but globally. Also the fact that both artist can rap and sing aswell is raw talent as some artist only stick with one certain genres this could also mean that these two artists are ready to take over the whole music industry and be the best artist that ever live. With these two artists on the cover this could mean that this magazine has not long go come into the market.

Target Audience:

The mostly likely target audience will be R’n’B and Hip Hop fans who have a taste in this type of music, and both male and female. These people are likely to be interested in the music industry and up to date with the music in today’s society.