Let’s all take a moment to put our heads together and figure out the following sentence. “Right now The Music Slut is posting an iBook-tracked MP3 that could propel a Toledo basement band to multi-platinum stardom this time next year.” It’s pretty crazy, right? From the “hip” lingo (anyone care to define “iBook-tracked”?) to the idea that any band might reach multiplatinum status next year, particularly one catering to the paying-for-music-averse music-blogger world? I could probably write a whole post on that string of words alone (if someone would like to let me know about bands The Music Slut has “broken,” instead of “appended a slightly contextualized MP3 of in order to drive Hype Machine traffic to their site,” I’m all ears), but there are other infonuggets to be learned from Jim Wayne’s “Music Criticism 2.0?,” which looks at the “laptop-toting aural misanthropes” that you and I know as music bloggers. Apparently, said bloggers have turned the music industry on its head through the power of posting already-cleared MP3s and adding a few “oohs” and “ahhs!” Who knew, right?
Other lessons abound:
• Music blogging is totes a cinch! Quoth Wayne: “It’s as easy as picking an artist in high reader demand (a sidebar on Hype Machine tells you the day’s hottest searches) and whipping up an MP3 post, maybe even a sentence or two of commentary. Presto. Here come the hits.” Dozens of them, am I right?
• No matter how much crap I’m getting in the mail, someone out there can rub my nose in the fact that they’re getting better crap! “I get all kinds of fun shit in the mail,” Music For Robots co-founder Mark Willett told Wayne. “Free cell phones, MP3 players, etc. I even got a free laptop for Christmas last night from Vista.” Also: He says that he “never, ever” lets money or gifts sway his opinions. Quotes to journalists, however, are apparently fair game!
• Everyone has their own ways of dealing with slow news days! “In the early goings of his blog, Indie Surfer Blog admits to at times planting one foot on either side of [the posting stuff he may not like] line. But he claims to do it for the readers; not to appease publicists. ‘Often I receive the emails direct from the musicians asking to be featured on the page, so I post about them even if I don’t like their music,’ he concedes. ‘I’m also trying to feature different music genres, so I often post some music I’m not really into, but I think some readers may like it.’ “
• Oliver Wang is a pretty smart guy! OK, I knew this already, but he at least is a realist about the lack of, shall we say, purity out in music-blog world, and how most readers don’t really give a damn about little things like “ethics” as long as the content’s good. “In the end, it’s about the content, not necessarily the ethics of the content provider,” he says. Especially if that “content” consists of Sendspace links to lots of songs–well, at least until someone complains!
• “Music Criticism 2.0″ may be the worst phrase I’ve heard all year! Especially since it’s being used to describe people who only write about bands if they’re “into” them (or, in the case of The Music Slut, if said artist can rile up the readership enough to get the pageviews rolling). Is that really “criticism”? Ah, who cares, right? I gotta go, someone just uploaded a Radiohead MP3 and it’s totally on elbo.ws right now!
Music criticism 2.0? [OJR]
The Powerful Widgets of Music Marketing. I sometimes wonder how certain blogs like Gorilla Vs. Bear or Music for Robots can possibly find something new, to like, almost every single day of the year. They’re like a classroom full of retarded kids: Play them anything, serve them pudding, and it’ll the best music they’ve ever heard since yesterday.
Wait, free laptops? How are bloggers getting free laptops?? In my day, we were happy with a promo CD that included the actual artwork as opposed to the plain white sleeve.
In regard to Willett’s amazing cache of industry-delivered swag, it probably wouldn’t hurt if the article had mentioned that in addition to being the editor of MfR he’s simultaneously a functionary of MotorMouth Media, one of the better-known music publicity organizations out there (and one of the first to engage directly with music bloggers by sending them promos). I’ve often wondered how those two roles are balanced when it comes to the whole “payola” issue.
For me the most annoying aspect of this article is that it reads like it was written in 2004, when mp3 blogging was a relatively fresh & new concept and the field was relatively uncluttered. The advent of SendSpace & similar filesharing conceits in early 2006 resulted in an exponential increase in the number of blogs out there, especially the ones that, yes, do just go out to elbo.ws, see what’s driving the most interest at the moment, and post links to more of the same, usually without a shred of any illuminating commentary. I’m not sure how that qualifies as “music crit 2.0,” however.
Oh sure, everyone loves the 2.0 but where was the love for Music Criticism 1.5.95(beta)? There were a few bugs (anytime someone mentioned Panic! at the Disco! it would unexpectedly crash, it always gave “their older album” higher scores and it genuinely enjoyed music) but at least it didn’t accept blatant bribes like the 1.0 release.
To consider the value of music blogs in today’s landscape and not actually unearth a few of the truly excellent ones that are out there (to include in the discussion) is as foolish as thinking that anyone with a sense of taste places actual “value” on PR/news regurgitating MP3 whores. Blah. I’d love for someone to actually take a good critical look at some of the most “popular” music blogs out there.
I still want to know how I can score a free laptop.
For real, I think Moerex makes an important point - the spread of large-file download sites has very much changed the proverbial game. At the very least, it’s created an entire community of album-blogging that I think differs significantly from the song model that my site (and others) have traditionally followed. Strangely, I know few places that seem to be talking about this; you’re having entire genres being archived and made available for download. It raises all kinds of philosophical, ethical and legal questions.
The thing that I always wonder about is: It’s meta-interesting to see a dozen sites republishing PR blasts in the span of a couple hours, but do music blog readers really want to be on PR lists? If so, can’t they just subscribe to the band’s newsletter and cut out the middleblogger?
Re: Music Slut… in all fairness, how is what they are doing any different from what any other media outlet (including) Idolator does by incessantly covering Britney Spears, 50 Cent, and other major mainstream names - i.e. the most Googled lot???
as media outlets you are ALL in the same soup, competing for traffic / eyeballs / readership / viewership / listenership / etc. etc. bc that is what makes you have your jobs, whether you need the numbers for advertisers to buy in or you’re a subscription service WHATEVER. don’t try to fool folks into thinking that there are some media outlets more holy than others because of tehir content…
save places like WFMU and Arthur Mag - and even they have a target demographic and readership they are obliged to maintain in order that they continue to have the money to operate - all you music outlets, the Pitchforks and the MTVs, everyone, is all merely abiding by the same capitalist rules we all have to in these societies we live in.
so for GOOD GOD, QUIT HATING!!! its just not the season for it;)
If I have to read another thinkpiece about Anything 2.0, there will be blood. Unless it was about Jake 2.0, that was an underrated show.
that is a really bad article in so many ways. the main problem is that the author implies many times that music blogs can turn an artist into a platinum seller. blogs are the new top 40 radio? only if top 40 acts peter out around 30,000 in sales.
the queen of blogs, lily allen, has sold about 300,000 in the u.s. amy winehouse, who can be considered a mainstream success, has sold four times that — and it wasn’t blogs that got her to that level.
grant hart had a quote about underground music. he said (i’ll try to get it right…the quote is really old) bands toil away in the underground, occasionally see the bright lights of the mainstream and then run back to the safety of the underground. that’s music blogs for ya. they are not trying to break the next mainstream success. they’re happy living in an underworld world of a thousand little unpopular niches.
I think this dude, David Brooks, and Sasha Frere Jones need to team up and write a book that will singlehandedly “fix” modern music. I’m sure that they could crassly oversimplify, grossly misunderstand, and lazily overinflate the whole modern musical landscape in a marketable, book-length format and be selling it to everyone who cares too much to buy their music at Wal-Mart but too little to actually go to shows by St. Patrick’s day. By July 4th, we’ll be back to cranking away in the marginally satisfying monoculture we once enjoyed (thanks to a diamond selling, ethnically eclectic blog band that, paradoxically, resurrected modern rock radio).
@SuperUnison: So Black Kids *are* going to be famous?
from now on, I’m only posting iBook-tracked MP3s
I remember the first MP3 that my iBook tracked. We’d gotten word a NiN song had escaped from their new album. I played Pretty Hate Machine to give it the scent, and we were off! Next thing you know, I was in a bathroom in Germany, and not for sadomasochistic gay sex. Thanks, iBook.
check out the banner:
[img91.imageshack.us]
too perfect.
(sorry for the poor image quality. MS paint is the most advanced program on this damned work computer.)
This dude’s got it ALL wrong. Music fans have always self-segregated into “mainstream” fans and “underground” fans. Music blogs just allow the undergroundlings to build a higher wall around themselves. Most bands that sprout up within that scene will be ravenously consumed before they have a chance to mature, and when they die of overexposure, the undergroundlings will move on like a pack of zombies in search of fresh brains.
I really think it’s up to the artists to steer themselves away from too much blog-love too early. Maybe there’s room out there for “online-only publicists” whose job is to manage buzz and keep the bands from being cannibalized by the scene?
some good points on the piece, but consider the audience. apparently written for music-blog ignorant OJR readers. to that end, the sensationalist approach is effective as a general frame for outsiders. that said, the iBook thing is definitely a stretch. though i’m sure it’s happened in some sense.
well dearest, because music slut doesn’t attempt to give any kind of context, information or opinion, it’s pretty much just regurgitated press releases from what i can see. now i know that every music website will, from time to time, just bung up some tour dates, but that seems to be all they do…
@worldsfair: I acutally agree with most of what you’re saying, but please don’t discount the notion of some outlets (like FMU, Arthur and others) being “holier” than others. They ARE “holier” or “more pure” or whatever you want to call it, and thank god for that. One of the biggest dangers we face in this increasingly “mass-consensus / social network / personalized recommendations driven” age is the slow creep toward homogenization of everything… the Majority will always gravitate towards that which is safe and familiar. Most people DON’T EVER want to be challenged, or to try new things. It’s why Celine Dion tops the Amazon best sellers list and not the Liars.
When we give over full control solely to popularism (”the most eyeballs,” “the most googled”), we gravitate everything to the middle of the bell curve, and in the end, everything is distilled down to utter blandness. So yes, some outlets actually are “holier than thou,” and yes, some outlets are “haters,” and yes, they actually go against the “mass consensus love-in” vibe that pervades everything. And thank god for that!
Yeah, mp3 blogs are, generally speaking, pretty dismal in terms of “criticism.” Mp3 blogs aren’t the new top 40 or whatever, they’re the new college radio station with limited range. Except that you only have to check in once a week to see what songs are posted and don’t have to sit through the shitty ones.
I seriously doubt MP3 blogs are going to have any impact on new music or music criticism. What it does have an impact on is a ton of file-sharing with full albums available, not a song here, clip there.
As for the criticism part, a lot of it is aggressively shitty. When it’s not, it’s a paste and clip of someone else’s work, often uncredited. For some reason, blogs and music don’t mix for me–I find the whole thing very tedious unless it’s done with pure love and brevity.