Rob Young on blogs in today's Guardian

Kodwo's piece was really good too.

Speaking personally there was one clear advantage to Kodwo's piece but this does hit one nail squarely on the head: people write music weblogs in general not because they are failed music journalists in a 'gift economy' etc. etc. but because they/we ENJOY DOING IT!

i think "gift economy" is a good way to think abt it

(also i don't think RFN is any more "in code" than anything else i've done but i guess this isn't for me to judge)

i'm really glad carmody got props, but, and i like his work n'all, how is blissblog best? to my mind it's too much what SR wd write in print, i don't find it very bloggy.

also -- anal hospital isn't a blog and penman seems to have given up (as indeed has taylor parkes, it seems).

Sorry this is probably going to seem like a big of a soggy blanket but...

Is it me, or do articles on music blogs ALWAYS just rattle off the same list of suspects/ILX posters. Because it just seems more and more to me like a self congratulatory circle jerk of the usual suspects.

I mean, if blogs are this breath of fresh air they're supposed to be, surely they could find a fresh bunch? I find it hard to believe that there are only a dozen "good" (define that how you like) music blogs on the entire internet.

penman is currently working on other non-virtual projects (he wouldn't say what) and being more diligent than some (ahem) abt resisting distraction

i'm really glad to hear that -- as i recall he often used to hint about major 'arcades' style ws-in-p.

No offense to the Usual Suspects/ILX posters, but honestly.

There are loads more Kate - new ones crop up every week in my referrals, undoubtedly lots more exist without deigning to link to me - and the number is growing. The average lifespan of a music blog is pretty short, though.

Articles are only talking about the usual suspects because those suspects form a pretty obvious 'scene' - talking about similar things in similar ways and talking to each other too. So it allows a narrow-ish focus.

I suspect a lot of the most interesting and valuable blog-based music writing is completely under our radar - one-off or occasional posts in ordinary blogs, rather than the structured explorations you find in 'music weblogs'. It gets read by the 20-100 people who read that blog and then vanishes forever.

moreover the specific thing yr valuing kate — being out of reach of the established circle — kind of determines that it won't be being noticed

"i demand ppl point me to more things they haven't found out about yet!"

well, yes, but it's odd that there seems to be one circle rather than a number of circles...?

it's the blogosphere that celebrates itself.

It's more Enrique's point that I'm on about.

It's a limited amount of people all celebrating each other. And that irritates me.

Look, it's this whole new medium of music journalism! All being done by the same circle of music journalists from the old medium!

well i wasn't a music journalist in the old medium; neither was robin or tim or matthew. and indeed i have gotten into trouble of late with certain elements of the blogosphere for pointing out occasional self-congratulatory tendencies, which is why for my part i tend to avoid referencing other blogs in my own blog text, assuming that being linked will be recommendation enough, unless it's directly relevant to the piece in question (e.g. robin on "odessa").

i dunno kate. i just celebrate the fact that i remained alive after two years of hell and that laura's death was not the end. i wish i had penman-like resistance to temptation and just stopped doing any music writing after CoM ended, but...y'know, gail wanted me to carry on doing it. i'm not sure for how much longer though. perhaps just post monthly on naked maja?

I'm sure there are plenty of articles about blogs that no one here links to because they don't mention any ILXers, Kate.

Marcello, I am not complaining about you or anyone else named in the piece.

Whatever... this is not my place to vent my frustrations about the solipsistic world of blogging.

i don't think kate was hating on any of the blogs in themselves, more the print media tendency to look not much further than the ilx/blissblog tendency.

penman-like resistance to temptation

hmmmmmm.

i like the conversational and quick-response personal aspect of blogs: it's the opposite of solipsism really - print-writing is MUCH more isolating (esp.since the advent of email and the death of the magazine-as-office)

rob y's piece is too wire-centric but that's kind of his job!

there's another thread about blogs that discusses the possibility for 'other worlds' within the blogosphere i think?

it's not surprising really, though - this 'circle' of blogs that we're talking about contains several relatively famous journalists, so chances are any group of people talking about music in much depth on the web will find their way into it one way or another. i think it's a case of the internet being smaller than we think, for once, perhaps? if there is a lot of good & interesting music writing in other blogs, chances are it's in tico's submerged blogs rather than another big interconnected circle like this one.

and kate, i mean, chill! you don't have to read them! people blog mostly for themselves and their small circle of friends/readers i reckon. x-post.

Kate, the trick is to not read them and nod politely when people talk about them.

(NB for some reason I only do this with music blogs - I read other topic ones a fair bit)

i only read yrs cabbage: i can repeat it off by heart now

I've tried reading blogs, but I just can't get into them. Even if it's by someone that I know ... heck, *especially* if it's by someone I know, I just feel kinda creepy about it.

i came to ilx via blogs, somehow; and though some feel creepy i thought pillbox was amazing, and i think carmody's and carlin's are too.

so you're the one person who reads it Mark! I may actually update it... one day

ha it would be nice to see a (gasp) female mentioned on these bloggah lists once in a while! (coughs) but kudos all around

kate it is the first time i have ever been mentioned in a list of bloggers, for heaven's sake i'd been busy and left the blog dormant for about three months and then just came back about 2 weeks ago! they're not trotting me out along as one of the usual suspects - to be frank i'm fucking gobsmacked...

geeta: ha ha ha (I'm not holding my breath.)

quietly proud and annoyed

There are 100 + music blogs in my blo.gs updating list:
http://blo.gs/3600/favorites.html

hurrah! taylor parkes seems to be a little bit back in action and has not faltered at all.

as I should be, and somewhat regret the fact that I am not :).

robin -- it's been hectic here but many thanxxx for the piece.