Starting off

started by writing an essay about a magazine article:

Magazine Article

The article I have chosen to write about is an article in the music magazine “Mojo”. The article is an interview with the creator of Motown, the ‘Emperor of Soul’, Berry Gordy. This article was written by Geoff Brown.
The magazine Mojo is a large, national magazine which is released monthly owned by the German company ‘Bauer’. The company Bauer also own a radio station. The magazine publishers were inspired by the publishers Emap who published the magazine ‘Q’ which was very successful. Mojo was first released in 1993, keeping with the Classic rock style of ‘Q’. The competitors of this magazine are other music magazines. For example magazines like ‘Q’ and ‘Classic Rock’. There is a range in different ages who would read this magazine. For example middle aged people would read it because of the genre of music which is being shown in the magazine; classic rock and younger teenage people will like it because it contains articles about the more modern groups and artists too. This issue is especially aimed at more the older generation because it has a 39 page section about the 50 year anniversary of Motown. It also comes with a free Motown hits CD which has been made to look like an old 45 RPM vinyl record to give it an authentic feel. There are many old blue note images of the many Motown groups and artists.
The format of this article is a hybrid article. It contains elements of an interview (talking to Berry Gordy), personal sketch (saying about his achievement of Motown) and a confession/ personal experience (stating the problems he faced in Motown and how he overcame them). Throughout the article, Gordy talks about different Motown artists and problems he faced during the creation of the Motown label. Before the article begins there is a bold headline at the top of the article which describes what he did. This is done to introduce him as an ‘Emperor’ or a music group/artist who are just about to come on stage. There are many different quotes from the article being shown in boxes and bold writing placed around. This is done to get the reader/browser to be intrigued by the story and want to read more into it. The first one of these says “When I saw the cars coming off the ford assembly line, I got an idea. Why don’t I have a record company with an assembly line?” Quotes like this one are little bits of information that the potential buyer won’t necessarily know. The first line of the article says ‘Before Motown there was never anything like it’; this line shows how important Motown was n the history of music and how much of an influence it has on modern music. It is also used to make Gordy seem just like his nickname; an Emperor. After talking about some of the artists of Motown, Geoff Brown then goes on to talk about What Gordy did before he created Motown. The words and phrases Brown uses throughout the whole four page article are used to show Berry Gordy as being a powerful force which blew both the music industry and peoples taste in music to another level. Brown is showing what Berry Gordy has done for the world of music and how a black person could do that to music; especially as it was created in the 1960’s when many Americans were very racist. It is a very positive article which is important because it is done to show the 50th anniversary of the Motown label. The article might not have been done just because of this, but also to promote the Motown label for the younger generation who read the magazine. This label was very important for black people trying to get into the mainstream music scene as it is completely different to groups like The Beetles or The Who which were dominating music at the time. The colour of both the images and some of the text relates to the time period. The header of the article is in a bold, gold font. This is done because of his nickname and gold is normally shown as a royal, expensive colour and material. The images are black and white because it was the ‘60’s and because it makes the images stand out above the rest of the page. For example there is an A4 image of Berry Gordy on the first page and it doesn’t just stand out because it’s big; the black and white is very striking to the eye. Throughout the rest of the article there are images of Gordy next to ‘Hitsville U.S.A’ (the recording studios of Motown), recording artists and many vinyl records to show that it’s the 1960’s. The majority of the images are showing joyful people to show that Motown hit the world like a storm. There are very few images that ‘bleed’ off the page. These images are of the most well known artists and producers of Motown. For example the A4 image of Berry Gordy is a bleeding image. This may have been done to show his importance in the Motown label and that this importance could not be contained.