Today I will be analyzing the language of an article which I can take some notes on what to add to my double page spread in my magazine. The Beat is the magazine I will be investigating. It was published from June 20th 2015. The writer Shirley Halperin wrote an article on the pop singer, Adam Lambert. Adam Lambert: Don’t look back was the name of the article.
The article is an interview with this famous pop singer. We are aware of the presence of journalist by the first line, “Adam Lambert looks like he’s ready to kick some ass”. We know this as it speaks from the 3rd person or the writer’s point of view. This shows someone else is telling the story from the words of the artist or what they might have been told. It is written in the third person. This impacts us as we do not get the real story from the start himself. The mode of address is clear in this piece as we are aware of the journalist’s presence. There is a clear long introduction which then merges into the story, but closer to the end the story does close itself.
The story starts with us being told where the star is born, which is in San Diego, so this starts to give us a nice sense of location where the story began. It does not delve into his childhood, it does state his mothers (interior designer) and fathers (software professional) profession, so this gives us a rough idea of what class Adam grew up in. We then start the piece with some amazing adjectives which were ‘sexually ambiguous rocker’ this is an amazing three words to start with. They give us the impression that he was a bit of a more die-hard rock fan inside a pop singers body, and that he is open to others opinions. This is very fitting for the genre of music as shown by the big photo as he is at a concert dressed in rock looking leather with nails painted black. There are other uses of metaphors that relate to the rock style of pop. This quote “flair for operatic shrieks” shows that the artist performs as if he was a rock or heavy metal star. Two of his most famous songs “if I had you”, and “whatya want from me” Shows that he is missing a loved one which is why the word “sexually” was used to describe the star as a normal human who has experienced a loving relationship. When you finish the article you get a view of the personality and the journey the artist has overcome to become famous.
To conclude this, I am going to look at how the journalist represent the star through their writing. We see from that language used the character is described very well, we are told the story from the third person which really helps us to pull his life together and experience what he has.
