Comments on: On Re-Shifting the Focus

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 00:29:00 +0000

I really appreciate your words here Eric – we’ve never talked about this kinda thing but I can’t help but think that I’m contributing to the problem more than I’m contributing to the solution. It’s a strange thing though, as I don’t think that I’m quite on the level of the ‘PR-dump MP3blogs’ but on the other hand I really don’t contribute honest thought as much as I could.

A while back there was dialogue going on about the separation between the blogs that want to offer ads and those that don’t (due to credibility, or whatever)…and to some degree I’ve shifted towards the idea that I have the opportunity to capitalize on the time that I put into the web site…and though I don’t do it to the same extent as some blogs I feel uneasy about posting a music video with little to no commentary…but it affords the concerts, it affords gas money, and it affords me to ultimately have my site.

So while I would honestly love to take the time and find inspiration to interpret and record my thoughts like you do, I made the cognitive decision that my blog is to some degree – a business.

It might cheapen the music posted on the site or the entire experience of visiting my site, but occasionally I try and do something valid or creative. I really hope that the site doesn’t come off (entirely) like an mp3 dump, lacking any sort of discrimination as to what is posted.

Just know that my heart is in the right place, and thanks again for the inspiration.

By: pete

pete — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 03:28:00 +0000

heeey! new banner!!

awwwesome.

By: Mike B.

Mike B. — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 03:18:00 +0000

I didn’t read this before I made my latest post, but I think it kinda applies, especially the part at the end. How much of this can you really blame on the practicioners? If they’re situated within a cultural system, aren’t they ultimately responding to the desires of that system’s consumers? It seems like substantive blogs failed to become the norm not because they got drowned out by PR-dump MP3blogs but because ultimately the public didn’t respond with enough interest to justify the effort. If BlogBurst is taking the content of these blogs, and not the content of the other blogs you mention, doesn’t that sorta indicate something? Fandom works because it exists within self-sustaining communities, but blogs are all implicitly trying for a wider audience, and that’s a much tougher nut to crack. I don’t think it’s an accident that a lot of blog practicioners are moving to academia.

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 15:24:00 +0000

Eric – I have to admit that it’s been awhile since I read your treatise last year on the state of the MP3 blogosphere – I remember agreeing with it – but I thought the piece by Wasik in Oxford American made essentially the same observations that you did a year ago, and those observations in turn were echoed by a lot of critics last year in response to your piece. I don’t think much has changed in that year, but your take on it this time around (i.e. social networking as corporate product) is dead on. I hope it gets heard!

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 00:07:00 +0000

eric, just finished reading this, it was extremely excellent and i gotta say, i agree with every word of it.

By: danica

danica — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:15:00 +0000

It’s important to remember, however, that the use of record labels, like publishers, did not arise out of a need for cultural curatorship, but the facilitation of reproduction and advertisement.

By: brandon@elbo.ws

brandon@elbo.ws — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:35:00 +0000

I kind of always thought or Elbo.ws as the M.A.S.K. to Hype’s Transformers. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.A.S.K. )

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:34:00 +0000

Agreed, Grocer: curating is one of the great things that an mp3 blog can offer. However, one of the big problems of mp3 blogs these past few years is that any sort of selectiveness has gone out the window. So instead of blogs being a filter of some particular blogger’s tastes, they have simply become a giant syncophantic echo-chamber, indiscriminately posting loads upon loads of mp3s and band hype. Nothing’s being “filtered” if everything gets equal time.

By: The Grocer

The Grocer — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:12:00 +0000

I’m fairly new to this sort of scholarly dissection of the medium – so forgive me if what i say is out of place or stupid. I have been following mp3 blogs closely since 2004, starting out with stg, fluxblog and a few others that have made it in and out of my daily reads over the past 3 years.

I work in and around the radio industry, so i tend to place that filter over the way i think about mp3 blogs. When i first began to follow them, i came up with a phrase to describe it to myself and others – “slow motion radio.” For me, it was like listening to college radio, served up by intelligent and thoughtful hosts whose tastes overlapped mine in different ways. Sometimes this meant that i was pushed out of my comfort zone and other times it meant that i got wind of something deliciously central to my personal taste.

WIth the decline of radio and mtv, and the rise of technologies enabling anyone to be a publisher, some interesting dynamics have taken place. I contend that there is still a basic *need* that people who are interested in music (but not rabid about it) have – a curatorial source that they can trust. In steps the best of the mp3 blogs. The musical landscape is so expansive that the average joe needs to have some way of culling it down to what they might like. I’ve never been much into radio, but in days past i would identify labels with artists that i liked, pouring over their catalogs and various descriptions they offered, choosing 7 inches to sample something for the least amount of money.

I’m digressing and i need to stop! Basically, i just wanted to add that one important thing that mp3 blogs have done is give listeners of music an important curatorial filter. I read stg nearly daily and will download anything that sean posts. i do that because over the past years i have determined that there is a 70% likelyhood that i will enjoy it, and even if i don’t, i will learn something or appreciate it in some way. There are others on this list, and when they go away i will cry – because finding a good curator is like finding a needle in a haystack.

By: sean

sean — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:18:00 +0000

Thank you so much for that, Eric. It’s the “it’s a shame” part that’s so hard to articulate properly; blogs’ “democratization” of music-crit (”democratization” being a euphemism that has more to do with “relativism”, I think) is held up as a barrier against any criticism. “I do things my way, you do things your way, and that’s awesome! Yay liberty!” But even if I respect someone’s right to make their own choices, it doesn’t mean their choices can’t sadden or disappoint me.