KERRANG! ‘the world’s biggest selling weekly rock magazine’

Forget your indie rock, KERRANG! is not for the faint hearted rocker.  With regular coverstars being Iron Maiden, My chemical romance and Greenday this is literally a rock magazine, no messing about. The magazine is largely made up of pictures with tiny and often sarcastic articles concentrating purely on the music, with a bit of eyeliner and swearing thrown in. Even the rock theme continues throughout the adverts with my personal favorite being Tommy Lee’s PETA advert: ‘Ink not mink’. 

The “the world’s biggest selling weekly rock magazine” is aimed at moody teenagers aged 14-18 who want to cover their entire bedroom with posters and read about up and coming bands whilst also sticking to the more recognisable mainstream bands featured on the covers, for sales obviously. 

If your not into proper rock music this might not be your cup of tea.

Are whiteness and blackness useful concepts in the study of popular music?

The Blackness and whiteness concept may have been useful when describing the history of music, however it is no longer relevant to music today. David Hatch argues that 'popular music has always depended on interactions towards white and black traditions', today most of popular music has a mash up of different genres and cultures. The stereotypical genre's we associate with 'white' music, such as rock and roll was originally considered to be 'black' music, however radio stations in the 1950's would only play the white version. Does this mean that rock and roll is white? Same as stereotypical 'black' genres such as rap, Eminem has been a very successful white rapper so do we still define this music as 'black'? 


I believe that there are several other factors that need to be considered when defining music, and cannot be simply defined as 'white' and 'black'.

Does the emergence of the digital download signal the end for the music industry?

From 1999-2001 the RIAA estimates that 803 million CDs were sold and 2.1 billion CD’s were downloaded for free, ‘Lessig points out that if each download was equivalent to one lost sale, we would be witnessing a 100% drop in sales, not a 7% drop’ The statistics don’t add up.

Record companies promote songs as a commercial item and concentrate on selling the music as a commodity ‘not a piece of the soul of an artist’, Condry concluded that in situations where the connection between fans and artists is viewed as more direct the fans will buy the music, for example Radiohead released In Rainbows and customers could order for whatever price they saw fit, the album went to number 1 and a spokesperson for the band reported that most people paid the normal retail price. If the the fans feel part of a ‘shared community supporting music that people care about’ (Cultures of music piracy, Ian Condry) it is likely they will still pay for the music, even if it is available for free. Digital downloads will not eradicate the music industry, but perhaps make a slight dent.

Can popular music achieve genuine political change?

“Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!” 

Bob Marley was one of many artists expressing his political views through his music. His ‘Legend’ album (as with a lot of the reggae genre) preached anti capitalism. However the sale of 10 million albums slightly contradicts his anti capitalist ideas! Although it may have been inspiring to individuals it never did create a political change.

The music on it’s own simply doesn’t seem enough. 

Live Aid is an example of popular music achieving political change, raising over 150 million for Africa. However it was a combination of huge publicity, worldwide footage and some of the biggest names in popular music for this to happen. A song on its own is not enough to achieve a political change.

What is world music?

World music can be defined as a general category for music that doesn’t fit into the anglo American popular music categories (Pop, Rock etc). World music tends to be ‘local’ music created and performed by indigenous musicians and is normally closely related to the music of their culture.

But can we still call it world music?

The cultural imperialism theory suggests that dominant nations such as American and Britain impose their cultural values onto weaker nations which has lead to Anglo American popular music essentially becoming the accepted norm and has lead to the development of homogenous global culture based on that of Anglo American culture. This means that even local products are not necessarily authentic representations of their cutlure, and tend to be indistinguishable from imported Anglo American music.

International record companies will now distribute any locally produced music, as long as the song and singer adheres to certain global criteria, supporting Hesmondhalgh’s star system and sings the song in English.

Is popular music a mass produced commodity or a genuine art form?

Art can be defined as the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination. A mass produced commodity is used to make money by producing the same thing. I think to simply label music either of these is an impossible task, music can be both.

Adorno suggests that the popular music industry is an all consuming production line, that churns out mass produced, inferior commodities; I agree with Adorno that a large part of the music industry is a money making machine. Take X-factor for example, the past four years have churned out cover after cover of recent songs, just because the public are familiar with them and therefore buy the single. However this music standardization cannot be applied to the whole industry. People who either write, produce or perform their song and do express imagination and creativity such as The Beatles can be defined as real musical artists.

How useful is a production of culture perspective in understanding the birth or rock and roll?

Law, technology, industry structure, organisation structure, occupational career and the market are 6 of the factors that Peterson considers in his culture perspective theory on the birth of rock and roll. There is no denying that all factors have contributed to rock n roll’s beginnings, for example without the change in in the 1914 ASCAP law and the FCC approving backlogs of radio stations in 1947 people wouldn’t have been introduced to alternative music. 

However Peterson doesn’t acknowledge what you would think would be a huge factor- the music itself. Peterson doesn’t explain why it is rock ‘n’ roll and no other genre of music that had such a huge breakthrough in 1955. He fails to acknowledge the technologies that created the rock ‘n’ roll sound, the huge amount of teenager’s searching for a something to relate to and the demand for a new exciting genre that could have only been rock ‘n’ roll.

Is it reasonable to consider that rock music is gendered male?

The Rolling Stone’s top 100 guitarists is rammed with rock legends from George Harrison to Kurt Cobain, at first glance you may think that its the top 100 male guitarists of all time, however with the contribution from Joan Jett at no. 87 and Joni Mitchell at 72 it is hard to deny that their is a serious lack of female input in rock.

I believe that from its early origins rock has been gendered male, purely down to social reasons. Men want to be the guitarist and women want to be with the guitarist. Everything about the stereotypical guitarist screams masculinity, from the way its held, to the way its played seem to suggest ‘a silent encoded phallocentric message’ (Bayton). Girls are socialized to play ‘feminine’ instruments (flute) and stick to Pop music. 

Its going to take more than a handful of Women to rebel against these gendered musical standards to really start making an impact on the Rolling Stone’s top 100 guitarists.

Can popular music ever really be 'unplugged'?

There are many performances that claim to be 'unplugged', we have MTV’s unplugged sessions, Radio 1’s live lounge is normally acoustic and ‘unplugged’, however the truth is these sorts of sessions can never truly be ‘unplugged’. Although these musicians are using acoustic instruments they are entirely ‘plugged’ as they are recorded and amplified for them to work.

The 20^th century bought about many inventions of music technology that changed the face of music. There was the invention of the first microphone, the first amplifier, and the first way to record music. These three key elements have so profoundly changed music that it would now be impossible for popular music to ever be ‘unplugged’.

We would have never seen the wide spread social impact that rock and roll created, or the experimental genres of today that have stemmed from it. Music wouldn’t be where it is now, and we would be back to basics: Opera houses and orchestras.