Task 6
- 2. R&B is a genre of music known for its soulful voices and strong backbeats, it was style of music created by and for African Americans in the 1940’s. Artists such as Ray Charles, Little Richard, and James Brown are considered as some of the most influential artists within the genre. Billboard magazine coined the term Rhythm & Blues to rename their ‘race records’ chart in 1949, this reflected the changes of social status and power of African Americans in media. It link to the imagination of young white audiences and led directly to the popularity of rock and roll. The focal point of R&B was in Georgia Atlanta. The end of the classic R&B period was marked by Billboard magazine's short-lived decision to combine its pop and R&B charts in 1963. Since then "R&B" has been used more broadly to encompass a range of black musical genres, including soul, funk, disco, and rap.
- 4. Men’s Fashion Women’s Fashion From looking at the clothing associated with this genre you can see that for women the clothing can be revealing and isn’t typical everyday fashion, it can be high end and expensive. The women are portrayed in a more sexualised way. For men in the genre you can see that the clothes are expensive, they wear suits and are either portrayed as clean cut and handsome or as edgy and unique. With both the both the men and women’s clothing choices, the colours are simple and tend to have a specific theme, but include one or two bright bold colours that standout and make it interesting and quirky.
- 5. From looking at other music magazines and the photography of the artists that I looked at I have noticed how that the majority of the photographs have been taken in studios, this allows the artist to truly be the focus of the image. The use of a photography studio also gives more control with lighting, this allows the photographer to highlight their best features and make them look attractive and appeal to the reader.
- 6. The makeup within this genre is focused for women, in most photoshoots the women wear lots if makeup to accentuate their features, they have heavy eye makeup to make their eyes bolder drawing more attention to them which is used to attract the audience. Makeup is worn to make them more attractive. However, in a few photoshoots some artists have started to pose on covers wearing natural or no makeup, portraying them in a completely different way. This is a style that newer artists are starting to do to create more artsy cover photos this is also related to smaller magazines that are less world renowned such as ‘Dazed’ and ‘yen’ compared to magazines such as ‘Vibe’.
- 7. In the BBC Radio 1 UK Top 40 singles the highest racked R&B artist is The Weeknd at number 8 with his song ‘Starboy’ ft. french house artists Daft Punk. The highest ranked album in the top 40 from an R&B artist is Craig David at 24 which has spent 11 weeks in the charts. R&B artists are recognised highly around the world with artist such as The Weeknd and Drake placing in the top 20 singles in the US Billboard Top 100 singles. Again Drake alongside A Tribe Called Quest are in the top 10 for US Top 200 albums.
- 8. These are images of non celebrities who I think would suit being in an R&B music magazine.