Double Page Article (Task 13)

This is the first draft of my double page spread article, which is a biographical article about Keane.


As the world tour for their third album, 2008’s ‘Perfect Symmetry’, draws to a close, we at Pulse look back at the story of Keane to see how they made the journey from a teenage cover band to the first band ever to perform a live show in 3D.
The band we now know as them started life as ‘The Lotus Eaters’, the brainchild of composer, keyboardist and vocalist Tim Rice-Oxley. He and school friend Dominic Scott (who would play lead guitar in the band) formed the band in 1995 whilst studying at University College in London. They invited another friend of theirs, Richard Hughes, to play drums in the band, and they focused on covering songs by artists such as U2 and Oasis. During this time, Rice-Oxley was approached by Coldplay singer and pianist Chris Martin to play keyboards in the newly-formed Coldplay, but he turned the offer down as he wanted to focus on his own band. In 1997, despite the initial protests from Scott and Hughes, Rice-Oxley invited childhood friend Tom Chaplin to join the band. Chaplin took up the offer and replaced Rice-Oxley as vocalist in the band, and shortly after the band changed their name from ‘The Lotus Eaters’ to ‘Cherry Keane’, which was later changed again to just ‘Keane’. In the summer of 1997, Chaplin moved to South Africa to work as a volunteer during his gap year, and when he returned in 1998, the first thing he was told by Hughes was that they had their first gig in ten days, at the ‘Hope & Anchor’ pub in London In 1999, Keane recorded their first single, despite the fact that they did not yet have a record deal. The single, ‘Call Me What You Like’, was sold at live performances in early 2000. Later, in 2001, they released their second single titled ‘Wolf At The Door’, with only fifty hand-labelled copies ever being made. Shortly after the release of this track, disaster struck, and Dominic Scott decided to leave the band with the thought that Keane were simply not going anywhere. After Scott’s departure, Rice-Oxley and Chaplin both started to feel the same way about the band, and all live performances and recordings were put on hold. However in the December of 2002, Keane returned to playing live and one of these gigs was attended by Simon Williams of Fierce Panda Records, and he agreed to release their first proper single, ‘Everybody’s Changing’. The track went on to have huge commercial success and as a result of this they signed to Island Records in 2003.

2004 found Keane being earmarked as the band most likely to achieve success by the BBC’s Sound Of 2004 poll. The year also saw the band’s first release on Island Records, the single ‘Somewhere Only We Know’. The track reached number 4 in the UK singles chart. In May 2004, the band’s debut album ‘Hopes and Fears’ was released. It shot straight to number one and has sold over half a million copies worldwide. The album stayed in the top 75 for 72 weeks. Three months after the release of ‘Hopes and Fears’, Rice-Oxley received the Ivor Novello award for songwriter of the year. The album also received a BRIT award for ‘Best British Album’ and the band themselves won the ‘British Breakthrough Act’ award. The next year was jam-packed for Keane. They recorded two cover songs for the charity War Child and contributed vocals to the Band Aid 20 version of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The band also performed two tracks at Live 8 in London. It was during 2005 that Keane started recording their second album, ‘Under The Iron Sea’. The title of the album was revealed in March 2006 via a handwritten message posted on their website.

Prior to the second album’s launch, the single ‘Is It Any Wonder?” was released and reached number 3 in the UK singles chart. ‘Under The Iron Sea’ was then released in June 2006 and had sold a hefty 220,000 copies by May 2007. But their happiness was to be short-lived, and in August 2006, Chaplin announced that he had admitted himself to a clinic for alcohol and drug problems. As a result of this, the band had to cancel three gigs and postpone their tour of the United States. However the US tour was to eventually be cancelled to allow Chaplin’s treatment in the clinic to continue. But things started to look up for Keane when Chaplin left the clinic in October 2006 and the band embarked on their tour of South America. Considering that this was the band’s first time to counties such as Argentina and Chile, they received a huge welcome and were shocked at the positive reception they were met with, particularly in Mexico. 2007 saw Keane playing three tracks at the UK leg of the Live Earth concerts at the newly built Wembley Stadium. The tour for the second album ended at the Natural Music Festival in Spain and Keane decided to take a break for a couple of months before reconvening for album number three.

The next we heard from Keane was via a clock on their website, counting down to 4 August. This was to be the date of the release of their next single, ‘Spiralling’, which was released as a free download for two weeks. Keane’s third album, ‘Perfect Symmetry’, was released in October 2008 and reached number one in the UK album chart and number 7 in the US Billboard chart. November signalled the start of their world tour in support of their third album, and in December of that year, ‘Perfect Symmetry’ was voted as Album Of The Year by the readers and listeners of Q magazine and Q Radio. The fourth single from the album, also titled ‘Perfect Symmetry’, was voted Track Of The Year by the same magazine,.

2009 was to be an exciting year for Keane, as in April they became the first band ever to broadcast a live show in 3D. The show was filmed live at Abbey Road Studios and fans were encouraged to buy the most recent single, ‘Better Than This’, which came with a free pair of 3D glasses. The band’s website also had instructions on how to make your own glasses. The show was broadcast via a stream on the band’s website and was later available to view in high definition.

Now, at the end of 2009, a decade after the release of their very first single, Keane have announced that they will release an EP entitled ‘Night Train’. The EP is to be released in May 2010 which will be followed by a tour of UK forests, including a gig at the Bedgebury Pinetum, a forest near to the band’s hometown of Battle. Tickets for all six dates of this tour are now on sale and the speed at which these tickets are snapped up will be a sure indication of just how big this band have become.

Front Cover Images (Task 13)

Today I took some of the images that I will use for my front cover and contents page. I wanted the model in my front cover photograph to look like the type of person who would read my magazine, and also as if they could be in a band. Here are the images that I took:




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I decided that I am going to use the first picture for my front cover and edit the part of the background out as it is not suitable for what I want my image to convey as you can see the school.

Contents and Double Page Spread Images (Task 13)

These are some of the photographs that I might going to use for my contents page and double page spread.

Keane pictures



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Double Page Article Research (Task 12)

I decided that I was going to write my double page spread article as a biographical about the band Keane. I did some research about the band using websites such as the band website (http://www.keanemusic.com/keane-biography.php) and their wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keane_(band)). I also know quite a bit about the band myself and so I will also use my own knowledge.

Sketches (Task 11)

I produced some rough sketches of my music magazine front cover and contents pages. I don't know what my coverlines and images are going to be exactly yet so I haven't specified on the sketches. Also, I might change some of the way the pictures are laid out on the contents.

Front Cover



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Contents Page



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Publication Plan (Task 11)

Title: “Pulse”

Positioning Statement: “At the heart of the music world”

Frequency of Publication: Monthly

Price: £3

Distribution: Newsagents and supermarkets, music shops

Style: Informal style which uses some humour and some slang words. It is more for older teenagers and adults so the language ranges from simple to semi-complex. It has a lot of photographs.

Regular Content:
- Letter from the editor
- Readers’ letters and opinions
- Music news
- The month in pictures
- Question and Answer (where readers send in questions to ask to a band/artist)
- New album reviews
- Gig reviews
- Competition (some sort of puzzle e.g. a crossword or a quiz, to win the prize)
- Upcoming artists
- Top ten tracks of the month
- Gig guide
- A free CD and an article about what has been included on the CD.

Feature Content:
- The best and worst album sleeves
- Ten best cover songs
- Festival guide
- Keane (double page spread feature)
- Interview with...
- In the studio with...
- Songs of the decade
- Best of 2009

Questionnaire Results - Graphs + Conclusions (Task 8/9)

Gender


Conclusion: Most of the people I asked were female so the choices I make about my magazine will be biased towards females rather than males.


Age


Conclusion: I managed to cover a wide range of ages with my questionnaire. Most of the people I asked were between sixteen and twenty years old so my magazine will probably be biased towards them. However there were also a large number of people aged over twenty five so this might balance out the bias.


1. What is your favourite colour?


Conclusion: Out of the twenty people that I asked, a quarter of them said that blue was their favourite colour so I will make sure this colour is predominant in my magazine but also include other colours.


2. Which kind of colours do you prefer to see inside a magazine?


Conclusion: A large majority of the twenty people I asked stated that they preferred to have bright and bold colours in a magazine rather than light colours and pastel shades so I will include these types of colours more than lighter colours.


3. How often do you/would you buy a magazine?


Conclusion: I asked twenty people how often they buy or would consider buying a magazine and gave them the choices of ‘weekly’, ‘fortnightly’, ‘monthly’ and ‘quarterly. Seven out of the twenty people picked monthly and six chose fortnightly so I will choose one of these two frequencies for the magazine that I create.


4. How much are you willing to pay for a music magazine?


Conclusion: Eight out of the twenty people I asked said that they would be willing to pay between two and three pound for a music magazine and seven said that they would pay between one and two pound so for the magazine that I create, I will choose a price in one of these ranges depending on what frequency I decide on.


5. On a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being definitely and 5 being definitely not, how much would you like to see the following features in a music magazine?

News about bands/artists


Conclusion: A large majority of the people I asked said that they would definitely like to have news about bands and artists in a music magazine so I will include this as content in my magazine.


Pictures


Conclusion: Twelve out of the twenty people I asked said they would definitely like to see pictures in a music magazine and only two people said definitely not, so I will include images in the magazine that I create.


Gig Guide


Conclusion: Seven out of the twenty people I asked said that they would definitely like to have a gig guide featured in a music magazine and nobody said that they definitely would not, so I will include a gig guide as regular content in the magazine that I create.


Reviews


Conclusion: A majority of the people I asked said that they would like reviews in a music magazine so I will probably include reviews as regular content in the magazine that I create.


Interviews


Conclusion: Twelve out of the twenty people I asked said that they would definitely like to have interviews in a music magazine so I will include one or two interviews with bands and artists as a feature in the magazine that I create.


Letters from readers


Conclusion: There was a mixed response from the twenty people I asked about letters from readers and most people answered in the middle. However, eight people chose the more negative answers and seven chose the more positive answers so I will have to decide whether or not I will include letters in my magazine.


6. Would you be more likely to buy a magazine if it had a free gift e.g. a CD?


Conclusion: A large majority of the twenty people I asked said that they would be more likely to buy a magazine if it came with a free gift so to encourage people to buy my magazine, I will include a free gift.

Questionnaire Results - Video (Task 8/9)

This is a video I recorded of somebody answering a couple of the questions included in my questionnaire.

Questionnaire (Task 7)

This is the questionnaire I created in order to research my target audience. I asked twenty people aged from ten upwards, both male and female. I created the questionnaire using Microsoft Word.




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Codes and Conventions - Double Page Spreads (Task 6)

Codes and Conventions of Magazine Double Page Spreads

Layout
Has drop quotes in the middle or top of article – small excerpts from the article to grab reader’s attention, usually something exciting or controversial.
Page numbers and magazine title in the bottom corners of the page.
Has a by line – says the name of journalist who conducted the interview or wrote the article and the name of the photographer who took the photos used.
A limited use of colour.

Images
Has a large image – sometimes has a caption saying who the picture is of.
Sometimes a picture of the journalist at the start of the article.

Text
Eye catching headline – bright colour, bold, large.
Catchy text that relates to the article and/or the person/people it is about.
Has the text in columns – name of artist or person the article is about is highlighted in some way i.e. bold or in a different colour.
First letter of the article is usually bigger than the rest of the text.
A short summary at the beginning of the article – a stand first.

These are the double page spreads I analysed to get these codes and conventions:



Q Magazine (click to enlarge)



NME Magazine (click to enlarge)