Men’s Health Best Life ^[1]

Sample Headlines:

• 8 Laws of Building Wealth
• The Sexually Satisfied Wife
• 15 Flat Belly Power Foods
• 17 Secrets of Male Style

Target Readers: Best Life is the older, more mature brother of Men’s Health. Aimed at men in their 30′s and 40′s who have successful careers and families or wish they did.

Pros:

• Articles are more mature and serious than many men’s magazines
• Articles have useful information with practical tips you can immediately incorporate into your life
• Covers a wide variety of topics: health, relationships, career, travel, ect.
• Discusses sex in a mature fashion

Cons:

• Heavy on the ads
• Format and layout could be a bit cleaner

Attainable Lifestyle? If you can afford $3,470 Tom Ford boots

Percentage of the Magazine that Consists of Ads: 45%

Raunchy Sex Ad in Back? Nope

Rating: 4 out of 5 John Sullivans

Read back issues of Best Life Magazine ^[2] for free at Google Books

Details ^[3]

Sample Headlines

• Do You Have Douchebag Hair?
• The Rise of the A-Gay
• Inside the Twisted World of Revenge Porn
• The New Chauvinism

Target Readers: Younger men who fancy themselves as sophisticated and cool dudes

Pros:

• Some useful fashion information, although often aimed at a more hipster than classic style
• Appealing format

Cons:

• Heavy on the ads
• Tries too hard to be cool; a photo of Mr. Potato having a romp with a spread-eagle Barbie isn’t funny and ironic, it’s just lame
• Articles are shallow and lack substance
• Any magazine that lists R. Kelley, Clay Aiken, and Thomas Beatie (the pregnant “man”) in a list of the “40 Most Powerful Men under 47″ should have their editorial heads checked

Attainable Lifestyle? If you can afford a $395 Burberry scarf

Percentage of the Magazine that Consists of Ads: 45%

Raunchy Sex Ad in Back? Nope

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 John Sullivans

Men’s Health ^[4]

Sample Headlines

• Lose Your Gut!
• Better Sleep, Bigger Muscles
• Dress for More Sex
• Lower Her Inhibitions

Target Readers: The all-American, well-rounded, fitness conscious man in his 20′s and 30′s

Pros:

• Lots of useful and practical tips and advice on a wide variety of topics
• “Bulletins” section dishes out fast, easily digestible nuggets of information
• Format is immensely readable, you can skim some sections or dive into the more in-depth articles
• Provide effective new exercises and workouts to try
• Lots of great features such as “Belly Off Club (profiling real guys who lost weight and how they did it), “Ask Jimmy the Bartender,” and “Ask the Girl Next Door (my wife says she’s usually spot-on in her advice)”
• In-depth articles can be thoughtful and interesting

Cons:

• Try to sell you a lot of expensive crap
• Lots of ads for junky fitness supplements
• Doesn’t approach sex from a mature standpoint-more like Cosmo for guys
• The photos of women seem to get racier and racier with each issue. Some are bordering on soft core porn these days.
• Some articles get too foo foo. Do guys really need a guide to buying jeans? (Here’s the AoM Guide: Step 1-Try on jeans you like. Step 2-Buy them)
• Two months in a row “Lose Your Gut” was the cover headline. Six pack abs are awesome; we get it

Attainable Lifestyle? Most of the clothes they feature are eye-poppingly expensive, but they do throw in stuff like Levis

Percentage of the Magazine that Consists of Ads: 40%

Raunchy Sex Ad in Back? Yup

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 John Sullivans

Read back issues of Men’s Health ^[5] for free at Google Books

Nylon for Guys ^[6]

Sample Headlines

• Mila Kunis Can Kick Your Ass!
  The Moody Genius of Mogwai
• Vintage Cameras Go on Sale; We Go Crazy

Target Readers: 20-something guys who are so hip it freakin hurts

Pros

• Decent video games reviews
• Fashion features offer a wide variety of brands and prices, some of which a regular guy can actually afford
• Interesting profiles of musicians and celebrities

Cons:

• Tons of ads, often hawking unmanly products
• Not a lot of practical advice or knowledge
• Shallow articles
• In attempting for a cool and edgy format, it loses readability
• Fashion heavy

Attainable Lifestyle? If you can afford $60 vintage-looking New Balance sneaks

Raunchy Sex Ad in Back? Yup

Rating: 1 out of 5 John Sullivans

Maxim ^[7]

Sample Headlines:

• The Sexiest Stars of 2009
• The World’s Most Dangerous Sport
• Shark Beach
• Coolest Cars of 2009

Target Readers: 20-something frat dudes; teenage boys who aren’t old enough to buy porn

Pros:

• Mindlessly entertaining fluff, like a People Magazine for dudes
• Decent reviews of music, movies, and video games

Cons:

• A complete lack of useful information or in-depth articles
• Emphasis on babes, with lots of full spreads of scantily clad, airbrushed, seductively posed women.
• Lacks a mature and classy approach to women and sex

Attainable Lifestyle? If you can afford $60 Banana Republic shirt

Percentage of the Magazine that Consists of Ads: 28%

Raunchy Sex Ad in Back? Naturally

Rating: 1 out of 5 John Sullivans

Esquire ^[8]

Sample Headlines:

• Wisdom and Damn Good Advice from…. (This is the focus of the most recent issue. I recommend picking it up. Esquire interviewed many prominent men about what they’ve learned in life. It’s a good read).
• Ten Things You Don’t Know About Women
• Living Rationally
• Influence: The Art of Sweet Talking

Target Readers: The classy, refined, yet rascally gentleman

Pros

• Excellent feature called “Man at His Best,” which is a monthly guide to culture, movies, books, health, advice, and style
• Some obligatory scantily-clad women, but in general, sex is handled tastefully
• Intelligent content
• Often has classic, vintage features

Cons:

• Esquire is great all around, but suffers from the plague of all modern men’s publications: the fear of ever being totally sincere. There always has to be that hip, cheeky tinge

Attainable Lifestyle? If you can afford a $25,000 watch. No, I’m not kidding.

Percentage of the Magazine that Consists of Ads: 30%

Raunchy Sex Ad in Back? No

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 John Sullivans

Men’s Vogue ^[9]

(Note: Before we could even get this written up, it was announced that Men’s Vogue was being cut to a twice yearly publication. I guess not enough men wanted to vogue).

Sample Headlines:

• Apocalypse Boot Camp
• The Other Titanic
• The 38 Year Old Giving Away 36 Billion

Target Readers: Classy, intelligent men of all ages

Pros:

• Men’s Vogue was a real surprise. It’s not just the dude version of women’s Vogue and was neither as foo-foo or fashion conscious as one might expect. It’s actually a solid, interesting magazine for men.
• Excellent feature-”The Examined Life” which profiles the lives of interesting men, both famous and ordinary
• Substantive and well-written articles on a variety of topics

Cons:

• Heavy on the ads
  

Attainable Lifestyle? If you can a $4,025 Hermes umbrella

Percentage of the Magazine that Consists of Ads: 45%

Raunchy Sex Ad in Back? Nope

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 John Sullivans

Men’s Journal ^[10]

Sample Headlines:

• Reboot Your Life
• The Man Who Defined Being a Man
• The Algae Oil Boom
• Better Than Yoga

Target Readers: The rugged and adventurous yet sophisticated athlete and traveler, or guys who aspire for such status

Pros

• An excellent mix of articles of cars, sports, health, science, cooking, ect.
• Articles are interesting, intelligent, and well-written
• Arresting photographs of exotic locals and extreme sports

Cons:

• Some of the features are far more aspirational than realistic; sells a very narrowly attainable lifestyle

Attainable Lifestyle? If you can afford the $3,200 a week needed to lodge on a private island

Percentage of the Magazine that Consists of Ads: 40%

Raunchy Sex Ad in Back? No

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 John Sullivans

Men’s Fitness ^[11]

Sample Headlines:

• The Best All Body Exercise Ever
• Video Games and the Future of Fitness
• Get Ripped Fast
• Tight abs

Target Readers: Younger, fitness oriented men

Pros

• Useful advice on health and fitness

Cons:

• Definitely trying to sell you stuff; articles packed with more high tech gizmos than useful information
• Articles are shallow; presented as bite size nuggets of information
• Lots of ads for supplements
• Not as well-rounded as Men’s Health
• Heavy on the ads

Percentage of the Magazine that Consists of Ads: 47%

Raunchy Sex Ad in Back? And how

Rating: 2 out of 5 John Sullivans

Outside’s Go Travel and Style for Men ^[12]

Sample Headlines:

• The Season’s Hottest Ski Trips
• The Most Incredible And Luxurious Tahitian Adventure Ever
• Can Wayne Gretzky Skate to Another Stanley Cup?

Target Readers: Men who like to travel and who have a ton of money or dream that they someday will

Pros

• Pretty, inspirational photos that let you travel to the world’s coolest places vicariously
• Minimal ads

Cons:

• Sell a lifestyle that’s out of reach to most guys
• Has a narrow focus-travel-without much content on other things

Attainable Lifestyle? If you can afford $230 cashmere scarf

Percentage of the Magazine that Consists of Ads: 19%

Raunchy Sex Ad in Back? No

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 John Sullivans

GQ ^[13]

Sample Headlines:

• How to Dress for the Big Job
• The 25 Sexist Women in Film of All time
• The (Overworked, Slightly Distracted) Man’s Guide to Finally Getting Productive

Target Readers: Guys who are cool, but also want to be taken seriously, man

Pros

• Great fashion tips, although some veer to the more hipster than classic style
• Sometimes offers engaging, thoughtful articles about current events
• Great photography
• Minimal Ads

Cons:

• The occasional topless lady can be found in its pages. Might not want to leave it around the house if you have kiddos

Attainable Lifestyle? If you can afford $640 diore homme jeans (although in fairness the most recent issue offers a guide to dressing for under $100).

Percentage of the Magazine that Consists of Ads: 26%

Raunchy Sex Ad in Back? No

Rating: : 3 out of 5 John Sullivans

Agree or disagree with our reviews? Let us know in the comments section.