On this cover, Leona Lewis is wearing quite a short black dress and is standing in a provocative way, bent over slightly with her thumb in her mouth giving off a faux innocent look. She also has quite a confident facial expression, especially with her eyebrow raised looking at the audience. Along with the way she is posing, she is looking straight into the camera with a direct mode of address with a seductive look, which adds to the over-all promiscuous aura that she is giving off. The lighting is high-key, which you would assume would make it seem sophisticated but on this cover it actually makes it seem quite trashy, insinuating that Leona is trying to alter her attitude and the way people see her. Her make-up is simple but heavy, suggesting a harder edge to her personality, and it also works with the plain black outfit. The shot type allows the audience to see all of her outfit and pose, which is very important in completing the representation of her image. Her hair has been styled so it has quite a bit of volume and is in a rough curled fashion, perhaps adding again to the promiscuous look.
In this shot, a medium long shot is used so the audience can get a full view of the set along with Lily Allen and her posing. Despite Lily only wearing hot pants and tights, her pose means that the front of her body is covered, making the fact that she isn’t wearing a top not so bad. Like Leona, she is looking directly at the camera with a more darker but suggestive look with her hand close to her face and mouth, suggesting that she has a more darker but playful personality. From what you can see of Lily’s face she is wearing dark, smoky eye make-up with her dark hair completely straight which connotes again to her darker personality. All of the colours on the cover are very metallic, with her wearing silver and black and the backdrop being a silver white. Having the panthers as a form of prop indicates that Allen is daring and is willing to take risks.
For this cover, Eminem is standing in a very defensive pose with his arms crossed tightly against his chest, showing off his tattoos and muscular arms. The clothing that he is wearing is very simple and plain, just a black vest top which helps to show off his arms, insinuating that he is tough and not one to mess with. He is looking at the camera with a direct mode of address and a stern facial expression which furthermore intimidates the audience and makes him seem very much the one in charge. However, the attitude he is giving off is one that people will expect, and so the image fits the purpose. By using a white backdrop for the cover, Eminem stands out a lot more with the added high-key lighting, making the features of his face and body highlighted. Eminem isn't a 'typical' rapper, but he does hold certain stereotypical qualities of one, such as the tattoo's, muscles, the buzzed hair cut, serious facial expression etc. There are some surprising elements to the photograph such as the cross necklace he is wearing - as you wouldn't expect that of him, however it could relate to the topic of his feature, of him 'coming clean' so connotes his new attitude to life.
Kerrang has a very busy cover for this issue, and it makes it seem like You Me At Six aren't the most important feature in the magazine despite them being the main cover image. The whole band are photographed on the cover, and they all have quite varied facial expressions. Josh Franceschi is the main lead in the band, and has therefore been placed at the front as if they are positioned in a type of hierarchy. He is also pulling a very comical facial expression while the others are either smiling or smirking apart from Max who looks shocked. This could be insinuating that they all have quite playful attitudes but can also be serious when needs be. They are all wearing black clothing to contrast against the white background, though you can't see much of their clothing it looks quite casual, simple t-shirts or hoodies, insinuating again that they are laid-back and not overly bothered about their appearance. Nearly all of them have longish hair which is stereotypical of the type of people featured in Kerrang as part of the rock image, but they look a bit more primed in comparison to others, which indicates the age that they are and the target audience that they are appealing to. The 'KERRANG!' logo has been placed behind the band, which shows that they are more important to show rather than the logo.
Again, Kerrang have another really busy cover with a band featured as it is typical of them to feature more rock bands that single artists (in the genre of rock, more bands would be expected rather than just one person), but is still different to the You Me At Six cover. Again, a hierarchy style of placement has been used on the cover, with Simon Neil being the main lead in the band so being placed in the forefront of the cover. The background the of the photograph is black, and it makes the two guys wearing black seem to blend into the background a lot more, whereas Neil is wearing a white hoodie so stands out a lot more, indicating that he is more important and needs to be seen quicker than the other two. However, in contrast to this the lighting on the other two is a lot more high-key meaning you can see them better whereas Neil has the hood up casting deep shadows on his face making him seem more mysterious. Also, he has one hand covering a part of his face, insinuating that he is slightly hiding, whereas the others are simply looking at the camera as if they have nothing to hide. With this cover, the 'KERRANG!' logo is black on a white background and slightly overlaps two of the cover's subjects along with a drop-down shadow which is really surprising, it's usually a rule of thumb that on a magazine cover you wouldn't have anything covering a face on the cover but this furthermore adds to the idea that the other two members of the band simply aren't as important as Neil. Two of the members of Biffy Clyro have quite long hair and they all have (or are growing) beards, typical of the rock genre look. Neil also appears to be wearing 'guyliner' which became popular in the rock genre, it also emphasises the shadows on his face and makes him different to the other two band members as they aren't following this trend as Neil is.
On this cover, Q is featuring three very different artists (with Lady Gaga part of the pop genre, Jay-Z rap and David Grohl rock), and they are all images from obviously separate photo-shoots. Jay-Z is obviously the most important person on this cover as he is positioned at the forefront of the cover with his name also at the top of the list on the left-hand side of the cover. Lady Gaga and David Grohl have been edited in at the same distance behind Jay-Z, insinuating that they have equal importance to the issue despite Lady Gaga's name being mentioned first in the list to the left. Jay-Z is giving a stereotypical rapper pose with a laid-back stance, hands in pockets and head slightly up as if to say "Yeah, what?", wearing casual jeans and a plain black t-shirt with a simple buzzed hair cut along with a chained necklace so he fits the stereotypical look. Lady Gaga has a more feminine pose on the cover, wearing one of her less-crazy outfits and is saluting, a pose that has been recurring throughout the pop genre recently with artists such as Cheryl Cole and Rihanna using the same army-style salute. At the time, Lady Gaga also has straight blonde hair and is slightly tanned (not so much to look fake though) which could be seen as quite stereotypical of the pop genre. David Grohl is wearing clothes similar to Jay-Z, casual jeans and a black t-shirt, but you can also see a guitar neck by his legs which represents the rock genre he is a part of, along with his longer shaggy hair and beard. All three figures are wearing black as to stand out from the white background they are in front of, and to perhaps symbolise that despite coming from different genres, they are all similar in a way. This is also strengthened by the serious facial expressions they all hold, as if these are the people in the music industry who care about their music, fans, label etc more than others perhaps. They are also giving the camera a direct mode of address, showing that they aren't afraid of being whoever they want to be and are proud of themselves or their attitudes.
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