The Culture of Music Blogs, Build Up, and Backlash

(this is a little piece I put together around January, it was something I just had to get done to move on with my life)

Sad truth #1: When most people ask me how I found about an artist they haven’t heard of, the real source can be found in my internet cache.

This first sad truth comes courtesy of the approximate hour I spend everyday exploring the bookmark folder of my Firefox browser labeled “blogs”. The concept of a blog is something the most of you are familiar with; it’s a term that has incorporated itself heavily into modern Internet influenced vocabulary, becoming as ubiquitous as “Google” in real life conversations. The term “Blog”, which is just a shorter and zestier take on Web Logs, has gained immense popularity in the last couple of years, reaching an apex in 2004 when it was claimed Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary word of the year. The legitimization of the blogosphere (their word, not mine) has only been furthered by events like them breaking stories before major news networks, offering images otherwise censored by more traditional media, and even presidential candidates announcing their bids on their own blogs (Barack used YouTube). The tapestry of blogs is diverse, consisting of people writing about everything from politics, to fashion, to how cute things are, to of course music.
Of the 60 million (!) registered blogs, only a small sliver of them are devoted to writing exclusively about music. Music Blogs, as they are called, are the products of people writing daily about what music they like, and although there are a host of ‘different’ ones, they all pretty much center on the culture of indie rock. The people writing these updated accounts are pretty much anyone with a view on modern music that is willing to sit in front of their computer and type the thoughts up. The result: the constituency of the music blogosphere is culled from all walks of life. Some of the most read music blogs are authored by college kids, others are music journalists looking for a break, others write from inside a cubicle, and still others are thirty something dudes looking to make a living off of their blogs (which is surprisingly possible). Music bloggers are in a way very average people, a sampling of middle to upper class men and women who are brought together on the internet by one of the most pretentious pastimes: writing about music.
Be not fooled dear reader, these people aren’t reinventing any sort of wheel with their blogs. The commentary they offer isn’t mind blowing for the most part, the posts are often ridden with grammatical errors, and most of the blogs post exactly the same music within hours of each other, however what music blogs do offer rather uniquely is availability. While yr Rolling Stones or yr Spin print magazines can tell you what it is you should be listening to, blogs can let you listen. In the wake of popular file sharing methods like Kazaa, Limewire, and the torrent communities, music blogs have become a new medium for sharing acquired mp3s to the greater internets. If you ever wondered about what happened to the kids that would obsessively download album after album onto their hardrives, look no further than the URL addresses of many a modern music blog.
The creation and staying power of these blogs has been the culmination of a couple of key factors. First off being the arrival of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is a term coined by Al Gore in 2004 (so at least he created some part of internet) that is used to encompass a new generation of Internet usage and purpose. Transparency and customization are the key components, creating an environment that lets users shape it as much as they want. This is the reason why Time Magazine featured a computer screen with a crappy little piece of shiny plastic in the middle to make “you” the person of the year in 2006, if the Internet rules the world and “you” rule the Internet, then obviously you sorta rule the world. This underlying assumption is what has lead everyday Americans to create music blogs, to defy copyright laws and share mp3s at will, to gain readership by promoting bands they have never met before, and to offer a relatable inclusion to a world of otherwise music snobbery.
The other reason these blogs have fertile room to grow is because, for the most part, these guys have no agenda. In the music industry, that is a near impossible thing to accomplish. When perusing over a blog one never feels like they are being talked to in a condescending way. The musings on the music right before the mp3 download are paragraphs that feel thesaurus-free, almost like a dialogue with someone that uses the words ‘good’ and ‘awesome’ at least ten times in describing something they like. This earnest feel is something that unfortunately lacks from other popular music information sources (read Pitchfork) and is why the entrance of blogs is so embraced. People sharing music not because they are paid to do it, but because they just really want to do it. Sure they achieve some really obscure level of Internet fame, but the sense that they are trying to share good music with absolute strangers like myself trumps that aspect.

Sad truth #2: When I refer to what ‘people’ think of a new album, I am usually referring to people I haven’t met that are writing on their computers from around the world.

As Uncle Ben once said to Peter Parker: “With great power, comes great responsibility”. This unfortunately is something that the relatively new to the music game bloggers have yet to understand. As their readership increases to the point where they can actually make a living off ad revenue, they don’t seem to have much respect for the more established industry they are entering. Take for example what the bloggers are posting right now. Downloadable on a score of music blogs this week are new songs from Andrew Bird, The Arcade Fire, Panda Bear, and !!!. The problem? All of the songs being posted by these artists are from albums that won’t come out for months. While it is not the bloggers fault that these days’ albums tend to be more leaky than a cauldron, many in the industry consider it the blogs fault for propagating these leaks. Within hours of albums leaking on private torrent sites like Oink, bloggers are posting the contents en masse to anyone with a high-speed connection. This in many ways seems like an innocent happening, people getting genuinely excited about one of their favorite artists new albums and sharing it with a greater community, but the consequences often hurt the artists the most.
What tends to happen when a dozen or so well read blogs write about the same band at the same time is a little something called hype. Hype, as many of you know, sucks. It’s the reason Wedding Crashers really wasn’t as good as your friends told you it was going to be, and why you are taking a class from a professor who was described to you as a god, but is really just meh. With hype comes expectations, and expectations that are not met in full result in backlash. Take for example blog darling band Birdmonster. Popular site Gorilla vs. Bear said of the band after they had only released a three song ep: “And if those 3 songs are a preview of Birdmonster's future output, this could be the next band that takes the indie rock (not to mention the blogger-nerd) world by storm.” This initial claim was followed by many posts hyping the band as the next big thing, comparing the band to Modest Mouse, and flipping all sorts of shit over how good they are live. Now there is a reason why Birdmonster isn’t headlining any big concerts months after all this acclaim. All the hype that the band gained, but didn’t ask for, resulted in a much more critical eye on the artist. As soon as a band is buzzed about by the blogs, it is forced into the face of non self-employed music critics, such as the staff of Pitchforkmedia. Birdmonster’s debut album No Midnight got a 5.6 from the Internet review giant Pitchfork, a pretty much insurmountable handicap for any aspiring indie rock band. Reviewer William Bowers said in his opening lines of the review: “Um, some bloggers have spoken. The medium that may one day be more immediate than whatever medium Pitchfork didn't replace has christened a new band deserving of our appreciation and concern. And that new band is...a jangly Everclear?” Whether or not this statement is legitimate doesn’t matter, what did matter however was that bold glaring 5.6 at the top of the page. While bloggers tried to bring their idea of good music to the people, they ultimately ended up seriously hurting Birdmonster’s career. In the Internet world where blogs are interesting, but Pitchfork is authority, hyped bands don’t fair well with consumers.
The other problem with bloggers offering up nothing but hype before an album actually comes out is how ADD they and the culture they are writing for is. Hype comes in waves, and the buzz surrounding Andrew Bird today will have crashed onto the shores well before his new album actually comes out. The blogs jump the gun post style makes readers fawn over things that aren’t close to being actually released, and the way the cycle repeats they are already onto something new by the time the CD hits record store shelves. When these albums are physically released the Internets are unsurprisingly mum, they already exhausted their vocal chords shouting about it months earlier, way back when it was ‘new’.
The suggestion that Blogging about something is as popular as Googling something these days speaks loudly of the new direction our culture is heading. To Google is to passively find out information, to discover what the web has to offer in secret, but to blog is to be involved and active in that web community. When you blog you lose the anonymity that the multicolored Google sign offers, you are logging your thoughts and feelings for other people to judge and comment on. The everyman has been given a method to be heard, and they are sure as hell using it. As the trend is only building there will inevitably come a day when there are as many people reading what a well paid English graduate has to say as there are reading what a high school student who likes music and can manage a blog wants to write. Web 2.0 has definitely arrived; it’s just a matter of time until we see how an already established industry can deal with it.