NME Double Page Article Analysis

The main purpose of this analysis of a double page article is to identify methods of layout and construction of an article including formation of text and images and so on. In addition as my magazine is of a pretty similar target audience to this magazine I was interested in finding out how they relate the central image of the front cover to the feature article of the magazine.

The band featured in this article,  the Arctic Monkeys, who were also featured on the front cover of the magazine. The choice of band featured in this article suggests that the target audience are going to be people who have followed the Arctic Monkeys over the years of their career in the music industry or people who generally have a taste for Indie Rock music.

The language used in this article is mostly formal and well written however has tendencies to include quotes from the band being interviewed which consist of some ungrammatical words and the article itself also has some swear words in it. Examples of this are “Did you watch that Take That documentary that were on? It were right good that.” This suggests that the band have a close personal relationship with the audience as they are talking as they would talk to their friends and they are not changing who they are for the sake of the fans. Another phrase which consists of a swear word comes up when the interviewer makes reference to a quote of the lead singer Alex Turner “[he called Take That “a load of old bollocks”]”. This suggests the audience of the magazine are definitely slightly older as this is not something you would see in a kids magazine however it is too informal to come up in a more sophisticated magazine for more mature people, therefore with the aid of the front cover we can even more clearly establish the audience are students who are into Indie Rock music.

Within the article a clear house-style has been developed between the magazine front cover; this may be a result of the band in the article being the central image of the front cover. The article maintains the theme of green, black and white in order for the reader to easily recognise this as the feature article of the magazine. The font used in this article is ‘Times new Roman’ which is very easy to read making the magazine more accessible for the reader. A bigger size font is used for the first letter of each paragraph as well as a change in colour of the font to green which is one of the dominant colours of this article, also assisting the house-style of the article. This is to grip the reader every time when you start to read a new paragraph again. This is effective because it regains your concentration in what you are reading, rather than it being all one sized font throughout the article.

The article is slightly unconventionally laid out. It is spread over 3 pages, the page on the left is a blown up image of the bands front man Alex Turner, the page on the right is the first page of the article and the next page overleaf is the second page of the article. The article is then laid out with small basic text and then slightly bigger images; this has been done to highlight the images of the article to gain the reader’s attention. The article is mostly taken up by text however the effect of small text and big images which highlights them which draws their attention and then makes them read the article also it suggests that the audience may be more interested in images suggesting they again are of a slightly younger age.

The tone used in the article suggests that the reader is a close friend of the band featured as well as a well informed intelligent fan. The band are made to seem like a close friend of the reader through the language used when the band are quoted, they speak as if they were speaking to a friend. Furthermore the reader seems like a well informed intelligent fan in one of the captions of an image on the article which says ‘Alex stayed sitting so nobody could move his chair’ This suggests that the reader would have knowledge of the band and that they are ‘well informed’ as an intertextual reference is made to the bands single off their recent album ‘Don’t sit down cause I’ve moved your chair’. 

 The article does demand some knowledge of the band quite a lot throughout the article. Strong references are made to the bands previous recent albums and the variation in style within these albums, a lot of these references are pointed to the previous album released by the Arctic Monkeys ‘Humbug’ An example of a phrase which suggests this is when Alex is speaking of Humbug. “There were times in the lyrics on ‘Humbug’ where yeah, i went into some corners that I didn’t need to.” However some information is given in the article for readers who may not have knowledge of the bands history such as the description of all the albums in the column ‘Evolution of the monkeys’.



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