the napster-like magic moment. so Muzzle of Bees (i love you, if only for your blog name, that is my favoritest Wilco song ever. favoritest) has been doing this very important thing, and you should all sort of know about it, if you don't already.

there's this series, Get To Know Your Blogger, which i enjoy quite a bit, and it's for reasons perfectly exemplified in the most recent edition. this interview with San Diego Serenade is one of the best i've read so far - i guess it's what i would expect coming from Conor, who's one of the better blog writers out there. i want to quote something here, though:

How important do you think music blogs are in general? Do you think they will continue to be as popular as they are today?

I think that they are important and that they will get more important. When one person can gain an audience for his opinions about music, that is never a bad thing. Consolidation of outlets to hear about new artists is the direction that other forms of media have gone in, and blogs are the exact opposite. The community of music bloggers seems like a welcoming and encouraging one, thankfully not as elitist as one would fear.

However, I think it’s important to keep things in perspective in terms of the influence of blogs. I have a few main fears for the future of music blogs:

1. Readership often depends on access to music. It’s no secret that a large part of the attraction for anyone reading a music blog is the free music provided. It’s easy to go to a blog, skirt over or ignore anything written, and download all the posted content. Many artists support blogs and give their mp3s out freely to them, but I feel like the up-front nature of blogs, with their easily identifiable owners, is still in its pre-napster phase. There’s no way to tell how or if this is going to change, but when it does it will be bad. Part of what makes something like the Summer Songs series on Muzzle of Bees great is that you can listen to the song while you read someones description of it. If that were taken away from a blog, you would have substantially less interest I imagine.

2. The torrential pace at which things move. New content attracts readers, obviously. But I don’t like the frenetic pace at which artists come and go through the blogs. To me, having constant recommendations for artists, songs, albums, concerts, can sometimes amount to a Boy Who Cried Wolf scenario, as in, if everything is heartily recommended by a blog, how do we know when they are REALLY heartily recommending something, like seriously this time? Like what is that Beirut guy up to these days? Was that his moment in the sun? Are people still talking about him? I think part of what makes music fun is anticipation and permanence, and blogs, and the internet as a whole, have chipped away at both of these two things.

whoaaaaa. Conor, my friend, holy crap. you said the words i was having a lot of trouble articulating.

his point is absolutely perfect. i read an article in the Phoenix a while back with this exact same point (you can read that here, and i highly recommend it). they went on about sites like YouTube and even mentioned said the gramophone, largehearted boy, and an aquarium drunkard. they ask the question: when are we going to get hit for free mp3s? when will we start to pay?

it's stuff to chew on. and it's important, because if you're reading this, chances are you're involved with a blog. and i think they're right. this is the magic moment - breathe it in, guys. because the heavy hammer could come down on the fun at any minute.

anyway. if you want to read everything done for the get to know your blogger series, well there you go. i just linked you to it.  shan  7:11 PM  |  view comments (0)