Sarah

http://www.thetreadmillguide.com

And I don’t think that music blogs have really impacted the mainstream yet, or even a large portion of the non-blogging culture for that matter. The bands I consider to be “big” are hardly known within their own cities, let alone on any larger scale…to use an example, on my site I do a larger feature/contest on a band each week. This week I’m doing a Toronto band called Henri Faberge and the Adorables…I love them to the extent that I travelled five hours for their CD release show, and the show was pretty well-attended (400 people or so, with 13 other bands on the bill, all of whom were in some way related to the Adorables). But I realize how small the band really is when I talk to other people in Toronto, most of whom have never heard of the band despite the fact that they’re huge within the (very small) community that I’m familiar with. I realize that this is Canada I’m talking about, so it’s a much smaller scale, but still — I think that being involved in music blogging throws your whole perspective out-of-whack, and makes it harder to judge the popularity of a band…and, by extension, a lot harder to judge the impact of music blogs…

Tuwa, you say “Lucas and others have a good point: maybe our work isn’t having much effect at all.”

I, for one, would not be where I am had the availablity of conversations like this not been so compelling over the last few years. Of course there are other factors, like education and profession and musical taste, etc, but music blogs have in a way validated my own interests in the industry, in writing, in criticism, in the acceptance of the validity of a conversation like this one: simultaneously geeky and profound.

So it is a bit like cherry picking, in that we learn from each other and go out into the world with our knowledge, whether it’s in a blog or elsewhere.

It’s hard to wrap my head around my exact motivation though. My stock answer for why I blog typically refers to my career as a college radio DJ, which I was doing long before I started blogging. I see blogging as a natural extension of DJing – it’s just sharing the music I love with other people. I’m definitely willing to admit that the increasing recognition and “popularity” of my site feels pretty damn nice – but I would take one email saying “wow, I found this song on your site and completely love it” over hundreds of additional hits any day. My favorite thing about DJing is something similar – phone calls from someone who wants to know what I’m currently playing.

It’s funny though, I do think we’re all a little guilty of putting too much emphasis on music blogs. Sure, collectively they have an effect, but outside of certain areas, I don’t think their hype has much influence. I live in Nashville and I’ve been to several shows featuring bands that have been blogged to death and just sold out their show in NY – and five people show up to see them here.

Thanks for writing this Eric. You definitely got me thinking.

In my peer group, I am probably one of the few, if not only, that goes deep into the blogs. Despite the fact that we all share very similar tastes, why am I the only one who regularly scouts the blogs for new music? One easy answer is that is the role I’ve taken in my social group. Others don’t need to troll the blogs, because for them, I become their clearinghouse (through both my actual blog — which in truth only my mom reads with any regularity — and though old fashioned peer-to-peer sharing).

In this way, blogging isn’t necessarily only an insular culture. We each cherry pick certain things from the blogosphere and bring them with us into the real world. Half my friends probably don’t realize where I discovered Catfish Haven, but they are all now fully on board… And so the end result of two to three blog posts, filtered through just one reader, has yielded 5-10 fans outside the blogosphere. So in many ways, I see blogs as being much more relevant to the outside world than they have been credited with. Granted, we’re not sending CYHSY to the Top 40, but look at how far they’ve come using blog buzz as a venue for their intial publicity.

I guess this is just to say that, while the author is certainly an important part of the equation, you can’t discount the way information is passed on through the reader and what value the reader takes from the existence of blogs..

I’m not sure if you mean that consumerism of music is a bad thing, though, and maybe you didn’t mean it as such. I hate print!

Tuwa, I didn’t want to make it sound like the blogs don’t affect anything because they do. I’m just saying that it’s good to remember why you got into the blogging game and stay away from “we are changing the world” hubris. I’ve been personal blogging since 2002 and there was this brief moment where I was getting, like, 200 hits a day and I thought, man! I am gonna make some money here! I made 20 dollars in donations. From one person. Ha. I think I wrote better before that. No pressure, just passion.

I still need the money, though.

Where was I?

Lucas and others have a good point: maybe our work isn’t having much effect at all. Frankly I’m surprised anyone can make any money at it.