Is the best music writing being done on blogs?

I've read alot of interesting music writing on blogs (Tim F., the panelists at that session--Jess, Matos, Geeta Dayal, Jay Smooth, Tom Ewing and more), but I've yet to find blogs that cover African and Caribbean music as thoroughly as the Beat magazine, and I've yet to find a blog that covers Ecko/Malaco style Southern soul, or Louisiana roots stuff--brass bands, zydeco.

As opposed to not reading them or what?

Interslice!

Never mind that Blogger's been around since, oh, 2000. And that 'zine culture was, in essence, blogging + dead trees. And that, of course, Worthy Media Critics And Other Types emerge fully grown from the ground like Athena, & can hit the ground running working their way up the print food chain like Mom & Dad did because that is The One True Way, and fie on those that either do otherwise or (GOD FORBID) forsake the land of Glossy Paper and Newsprint to find their own way (a way, BTW, you're totally free to ignore, if you can get over YOURself), and sheesh way to not "loathe the form" you spend a whole paragraph pigfucking, Phil. Score one for the blind reading between the lines. Again.

DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE!!

-- miccio (anthonyisright@GEEmail.com ), March 9th, 2005.

i love you miccio

I'm a scientist.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/nsn

Never mind that Blogger's been around since, oh, 2000.

"Bogging" has been around since at least '94, probably even earlier, only it wasn't called blogging. It was just called writing on your webpage.

Crypt Newsletter was never called a blog but that's exactly what it was.

http://www.soci.niu.edu/~crypt

There were many such things, for all manner of subjects. I was deeply involved in computer security and, eventually, national security issues. A great deal of what I wrote wound up being cited in the mainstream news, on radio, in scholarly papers, etc. The writing generated a book, requests to contribute to other books, editorial writing for the Wall Street Journal and other things.

However, I also had journalism experience at a daily newspaper for years prior to that.

One thing has always been the same. The endless, deadening and antagonizing hype over "the future and meaning" of daily content provided in cyberspace as opposed to old school media. Cyberspace writers are always said to be overturning the slugs and sloths of the old world. Soon there will be no need for anything but computers and web addresses! You old hidebound fucks will all be out of work because you're no damn good! And slow, too!

And prescriptions that you have to read everything in cyberspace, on whatever topic you're specializing in, or you'll not be hip and soon be dumb and obsolete...were easy to come by every week since the mid-90's.

People should rightly be sick of hearing about it. And they should ratchet up the sensitivity nob on their bullshit detectors as soon as it's heard coming. Another sign that the meme is truly well rotted is when it appears reprinted as some triumphant quote or claim in the mainstream media, the examples trotted out as being things you should add to your reading list are always the same two or three. Which means the person writing the article doesn't actually waste their time either combing through the fare in cyberspace, but is responding to groupthink, that which they have seen others write and/or which now resides in Lex-Nex.

I'm a scientist.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/nsn

Never mind that Blogger's been around since, oh, 2000.

"Blogging" has been around since at least '94, probably even earlier, only it wasn't called blogging. It was just called writing on your webpage.

Crypt Newsletter was never called a blog but that's exactly what it was.

http://www.soci.niu.edu/~crypt

There were many such things, for all manner of subjects. I was deeply involved in computer security and, eventually, national security issues. A great deal of what I wrote wound up being cited in the mainstream news, on radio, in scholarly papers, etc. The writing generated a book, requests to contribute to other books, editorial writing for the Wall Street Journal and other things.

However, I also had journalism experience at a daily newspaper for years prior to that.

One thing has always been the same. The endless, deadening and antagonizing hype over "the future and meaning" of daily content provided in cyberspace as opposed to old school media. Cyberspace writers are always said to be overturning the slugs and sloths of the old world. Soon there will be no need for anything but computers and web addresses! You old hidebound fucks will all be out of work because you're no damn good! And slow, too!

And prescriptions that you have to read everything in cyberspace, on whatever topic you're specializing in, or you'll not be hip and soon be dumb and obsolete...were easy to come by every week since the mid-90's.

People should rightly be sick of hearing about it. And they should ratchet up the sensitivity nob on their bullshit detectors as soon as it's heard coming. Another sign that the meme is truly well rotted is when it appears reprinted as some triumphant quote or claim in the mainstream media, the examples trotted out as being things you should add to your reading list are always the same two or three. Which means the person writing the article doesn't actually waste their time either combing through the fare in cyberspace, but is responding to groupthink, that which they have seen others write and/or which now resides in Lex-Nex.

So blogging on the same subject allows me to get away from that framework and write whatever I want, in the tone I choose. I guess the emphasis shifts from writing with the reader in mind (which is a must for most journalism), to writing with my own taste and preference dictating it all.

Blogging is this year's trendy new way to masturbate
And....?
I don't see what the problem with people self-indulgently creating personal space for expression is. You just don't click if you don't want to.

?

what that sounds like to me is "place where music nerds can talk without having to even try to make what they're saying understood by non-music nerds."

I look at blogs as being just another medium, but also one that is distinct in form from other venues for writing. I think that the best blogs tend to be the ones that take advantage of the format and do something which could not be done in print media or online equivalents of print media.

I hate the blogger triumphalism, but I think the bloggers who dismiss their own medium and the luddites are even worse.

In regards to professional journalism vs. nonprofessional blogging, I'm just glad that there is a format out there where people who want to write about topics can be taken seriously without having to be a full time writer/freelancer. Not everyone wants to be a journalist, you know? Those people have interesting thoughts too. More interesting thoughts a lot of the time!

Exactly. And allowing this to influence so-called "mainstream" or traditional journalism is not helpful. Music criticism is bad enough already. It doesn't need to take tips from people who often seem to be actively disdaining the idea of writing with communication in mind.

What? This is overrated. If it were truly the hardline case the only material that would ever get published would be sports, the cartoons, and an astrology column.

For me, this would be a strange model. All my writing is there for others to enjoy it as they wish -- I would say that generally speaking more formal writing is more compact, but seeks to be no less informative or engaging. I don't equate a lack of, say, word limits with writing freedom -- not that is what you are specifically suggesting, but it seems a kind of corollary.

xpost I guess! Basically, the idea of a binary that says 'regular journalistic reporting = for the reader/blogging = for the writer' is really pushing it.

So which blogs aren't widely read and why not? And which are and why? And is that the same as blogs that are always cited in the mainstream media?

The most popular music blogs according to sites like Technorati are Stereogum, Large-Hearted Boy, Ultragrrrl, Music For Robots, Fluxblog, and Said The Gramophone. You can count Whatevs if you want to, but that's more of a general gossip site.

name names, or yer off my OTM list

I actually got a pretty lucrative writing gig based on my work on nyr0kk, but then the new editor canned me 8 months later because my writing for them--a big glossy magazine--suddenly didn't work. "You write too much about the music." Ahhh, I see.

*slaps head*

apart from music writing, the blogs that have made me happiest are those that are alienated expressions from workplaces and homes around the country/world - everyone has a room of their own, so to speak.

There was a thread about WordPress on ILE (RFD: WordPress 1.5) where folks more in the know that I testify to its fantasticness, and if you visit the WordPress site (http://www.wordpress.org), you can check out their FAQ & other documentation. As for webhosting, I've used Dreamhost (http://www.dreamhost.com) since 1999, & they've been very good to me.

— News services contributed to this article.

Macs have SUBMIT buttons? Nice! Fuck a Windows anykey!

"The information oligarchy that TV had, that's gone," MacDougald said. "They'll never be as powerful as network anchors once were."

Yep.

xpost - and what's really sad is that the silver lining is 'nontrad media will probably never be nearly as relevant as it's proponents claim'.

I would recommend not so much worrying about what factoids you want your audience to know and thinking more in general terms about who you are writing for. Grant Morrison always says that he writes his comics for "intelligent 14 year olds" and that certainly worked for me as a young teen reading his stuff. I think it's better to leave people curious and interested and hint at directions they can go in on their own time rather than bore them by being pedantic. I write my blog primarily with older teens in mind. High school seniors, college kids.

Yeah, why is this? I'm happy to know it's not just me, but that kinda sucks. (I installed Haloscan before Blogger had its own comment feature.)

No doubt, Blount! I imagine bloggers will "win" in that traditional media outlets will co-opt aspects of bloggery as they see fit (which is happening), but the notion that blogs will be the ones doing the subsuming is ludicrous, esp. right now.

Never mind the whole infuriating "media bias blah blah we should be heard blah blah let's put a foot in the ass of anyone that's not ONE OF US blah blah yay right wing bias uber alles" crap not-so-implied in that article. Lefty blogdom seems to be stuck reacting to what righty blogdom does - instead of trying to dictate an agenda, or at least parry & counter, they're backpedalling to prevent the 3-on-1 fast break every time something happens. (Never mind that the few times a story from lefty blogville came up - OH NO OHIO BALLOT SCANDAL - it's up & died soon after it began).

It's like Princeton vs. UNLV - yay for the grassroots pick and roll, but meanwhile LJ, Hunt, and Anthony are runnin', gunnin', and droppin' a combined 75 on your fundamentally sound asses, and it's still the first half!

I would hope that this statement would inspire a genre of its own. E.g., "I guess their style isn't generic yawnsome Louis Armstrong/FDR intergalactic sculpture enough for people to get into" or "I guess their style isn't generic yawnsome Ludwig Wittgenstein/Mark Fidrych proto-doo-wop enough for people to get into," etc.

Why Music Sucks = chatroom w/ dead trees and staples.

(P.S. I use the word "chatroom" as my catchall term for chatrooms/newsgroups/forums/message boards, since "chatroom" is a far sexier term. In my book I refer to "I Love Music" as a chatroom. I can't imagine wanting to call anything a "message board," except perhaps the employee bathroom at the Strand bookstore.)

David, I was substituting "proto-doo-wop" and "intergalactic sculpture" for "whoever/whatever," but perhaps we could add "whoever/whatever" afterwards.

And Shakira fans could add a "wherever" as well, and say that their breasts are too small and humble for people to get into.

Cuando tenia 12 anos de edad toco por primera vez en una orquesta infantil que habian formado en la Ciudad de Sabana de la Mar.

Es un Artista de corazon, escribe y canta solo las cosas vividas sean buenas o malas convirtiendolas con mucha genialidad en algo jocoso y muy picaro, para asi ayudar a la juventud a disfrutar el dia como si fuera el ultimo que viviria.

las cosas serias de las que escribe lo hace de manera muy divertida pero muy profesional, haciendo asi que la gente se olvide de las penas y problemas politicos, economicos y sociales, que nos impiden cada dia ser nosotros mismo y disfrutar la vida como debe ser.

El Viejo Beno dice que “un dia sin reir es un dia perdido”, y ese es el motivo de sus canciones, que la gente no pierda los dias que puedan disfrutar aunque este la barrera de las situaciones diarias, por que la vida es corta y solo el sufrir la hace mas larga.

Tiene escritas mas de cincuenta y cinco canciones de Reggaeton, y lo que me sorprendio mucho fue escuchar que ninguna se parece, cada una es una historia real, y lo mas impresionante es que no repite ninguna de las oraciones de sus estrofas en otras canciones.

Sus primeras tres producciones saldran, si todo le sigue saliendo como hasta ahora, en marzo de este ano y tiene planeado para fin de ano su primer album, “VACILON Y FRONTEO” con canciones como :

1 - Intro (aqui el hombre realmente se las trae)
2 - La Pecadera (Fiestera)

3 - Me gu´tan To´a (a las mujeres)

4 - El Bonaense (a su pueblo)

5 - Senda de gozo (a las mujeres)

6 - Vacilon y fronteo (a las mujeres)

7 - Soy un Tolete (de forma ironica)

8 - Realidad Negra (contra el Racismo)

9 - Vacilon en Perreo (fiestera)

10 - La home - runera (a la Rubia Poderosa)

11 - Futuro de un Chota (una jocosa e ingeniosa prediccion para el que chotea)

12 - El Chota Sangre Azul (historia real de aguien que es hijo y nieto de chota y El Viejo Beno le aconseja por medio a esta cancion)

13 - Sueno Cumplido (Reggaeton fiestero de agradecimiento con un menu de letras muy bueno y mucho sentimiento)

14 - Sin Malicia (protesta contra los que prohiben las canciones por el doble sentido)

15 – El Funio (jodio) Beep (en esta cancion El Viejo Beno protesta por que las canciones tienen que ser danadas por un maldito pip, que dana las letras y las rimas de las canciones, realizando de forma ironica el pip de la censura el mismo con la boca)
Yo tenia que escribir de esto por que como dije “El Viejo se las trae”

Y espero que siga hacia delante sin ningun tipo de tropiezos esperando que hayan mas que lo hagan como el y que pueda seguir contando con el apoyo de mas personas que quieran disfrutar mas de la vida y hacer menos dano.

Bueno y para finalizar aqui les dejo las letras de la cancion “El Funio Beep” y la direccion para que la bajen y espero que les guste, hasta mas lueguito yo les seguire informando.......
.....por que estoy haciendo esto por que aparte de que tiene talento... es un buen AMIGO

EL FUNIO (jodio) BEEP

Ahora las canciones vienen con tecnologia
Tan con un funio beep que hasta usted sorprenderian
Hay unas como esta que hasta causan decepcion
Por que suena mas el beep que las letras ´e la cancion

Mira bien el flow que tiene esa morena
Esa a mi me desbarata es una buena hembra
´Ta entera, surtia como paletera
Este ripio ´e peso guardaria en su cartera

La noche entera ........aunque me muera
Le daria beep hasta por las orejas
Y despues de beep rociarla como maguera
Por que ella bien disfruta beep a mi manera

Leavinsky posicion eso es una chuleria
Por que como ella beep lo hace con vacaneria
A esa con todo y ropa yo no me la comeria
Por que yo durante un mes solo trapos evacuaria

No haria como papo si su mujer ta enfogonada
Si ella no quiere beep el se entra a punaladas
Hasta su mujer se niega cuando uno esta de mala
Mucho beep sin un centavo pone flaco y eso sala

Como hombre chibirico tiene la bragueta abierta
Por que ahora quiere beep la noche entera
Pero no tiene un centavo ni pa´ ver telenovela
Y su mujer pa beep no esta dispuesta

CORO
Ahora las canciones vienen con tecnologia
Tan con un funio beep que hasta usted sorprenderian
Hay unas como esta que hasta causan decepcion
Por que suena mas el beep que las letras ´e la cancion

No digas de senoritas de que son inseguritas
Solo por que quieres beep y por ti no estan loquitas
Como horita.....que me rompieron la camisa
Por que muchas quieren beep a lo claro no escondidas

Pa frontear con lo que tienen demostrar lo que ellas pueden
Y te beep y tambien te beep delante de la gente
Me frontean uhmm con una miradita
Y no es mentiras ups es que se sienten seducidas

Por que me entrego por entero cuando yo beep
Pa ella dejo yo de ser viejo
Y es que a ella le gusto como yo beep
Uhm pa ella yo soy solamente el Beno

CORO
Ahora las canciones vienen con tecnologia
Tan con un funio beep que hasta usted sorprenderian
Hay unas como esta que hasta causan decepcion
Por que suena mas el beep que las letras ´e la cancion

A las Dominicanas, les gusta beep
Alla en Puerto rico, les gusta beep
En esos Nueva Yores, les gusta beep
A las Venesolanas, les gusta beep
A las Colombianas, les gusta beep
Alla en Miami, les gusta beep
En Europa entera, les gusta beep
Y a el mundo entero, les guta beep

Beep en la manana, beep al medio dia
y si Dios no mete su mano Beep tres vece al dia

Con El Viejo Beno.... a pitar Hasta que Colon Baje el Deo!!
Sigue Ahi!!

Y aqui la pueden bajar, GRATIS!!

http://rapidshare.de/files/10596842/4-funio_beep-EL_VIEJO_BENO.mp3.html
y

http://www.flurl.com/uploaded/El_Jodio_Beep__de_El_Viejo_Beno_46465.html

DISFRUTENLA!!!!!

http://idolator.com/tunes/white-noise/overheated-world-of-music-blogging-results-in-a-few-cases-of-exhaustion-308340.php

Idolator on the state of blogs

Not to mention this from rockcritics.com last week:

http://rockcritics.com/2007/10/03/rockcritics-music-blogger-symposium/

x-post

Idolator references an October 9 pretty goes with pretty blog piece referencing the October 3rd rockcritics.com blogging symposium discussion with Maura Johnston (the editor of Idolator and blogs regularly at maura dot com);
* Rich Juzwiak (He currently writes fourfour and co-writes the VH1 Blog); David Moore is a teenpop correspondent for Stylus magazine and lapsed Pitchfork contributor. [See Dave Moore’s blog: Cure for Bedbugs];
* Simon Reynolds; Carl Wilson (writer and editor at The Globe and Mail in Toronto, and blogger)

http://rockcritics.com/2007/10/03/rockcritics-music-blogger-symposium/

http://prettygoeswithpretty.typepad.com/pgwp/

Guys, blogs, seriously.

Good article. This passage is especially true:

And I think the current state of the RSS feed outlined by Pretty Goes With Pretty--the lack of critical filters, the rise of the "promo MP3" and having to respond to that and only that if one is going to craft a post about a band, the symbiotic relationship between PR companies' aims and music bloggers' content--has also resulted in burnout on my end, with there being so much chatter and noise that I've gone back to only really trusting recommendations from friends and a few hand-picked sources in order to find out about new music.

It's the same as people saying the Internet would usher in an era of "real, unfiltered" information getting to the public. It's true -- as far as it goes -- but there's now so much volume online, such a loud echo chamber, such duplication and posturing, that after a while all that information becomes background noise. That leads me back to identifying a handful of sources who I trust, and relying primarily on them (which isn't a bad thing, by any means).

The Oxford article linked in the Idolator piece is good too.

Check out this Maura quote-

But today, with the rise of the MP3 blog and the idea that a person doesn’t need to write about a record in order to communicate what it sounds like, the space hasn’t become just for critics–while there are some great writers running blogs that have MP3s and music samples on them, there’s also been a rise in blogs that are much more enthusiasm-driven and interested in sharing music directly, without any verbal clutter. There’s a definite divide between the two generations of music bloggers, with a few people (Matthew Perpetua of Fluxblog, Sean at Said The Gramophone) straddling it. (I think I’m one of about four or five people who still is on I Love Music–although I never have time to post anymore

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/10/i-bolted-through-a-closing-door/#comment-323406

Check out the comments on the golden age of blogging (4 years ago)

Does Rolling Stone Magazine's circulation still dwarf most of these blogs put together?

I'm liking Wayneandwax.com and Dj Rupture's mudd up blog these days

the best music writing anywhere is done on my blog http://www.acuterecords.com/blog

The best music writing tries to be as objective as possible, which means blogs are hardly typical of good music writing at all. But neither is very subjective music mags such as NME, snobbish elite-mags such as The Wire or extremely genre-spesific mags such as Mixmag, Kerrang or The Source. The mest music writing is done by more objective mags such as Q and Mojo. (and to some exctent Uncut, although their exaggeration of Americana's importance makes them a little too much on the subjective side)

http://images-jp.amazon.com/images/P/B00005QD7O.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

"You've always been there for us, Q and Mojo (and to some extent Uncut)"

“all in one place” can create a crackle which pushes somewhere new — niche-located allows response to be elective and selective, when (sometimes) it didn’t ought to be, and i think the push somewhere new is actually reduced (what we’ve somewhat seen is the establishment of multiple zones-in-exile pushing old lines, letting themeslves be unbothered by dissent because it’s easily screened out

the problem is that there’s no way to allow space for “serious” dissent (obv inc jokes) without also enabling “timewaster” dissent (obv inc utterly po-faced counter-args)

mark s very otm.