Is Justice "blog house"? Are The Teenagers? And what about that "Summer Girls" song by LFO? All these questions are answered in Hipster Runoff's handy rundown of the genre, which also looks at the state of music blogging today: "BLOGS are great for finding new music, and reading the opinions of people who don't even matter (just like U!). Love all yall blogs, whether or not yall are creating blog house bands or not. Just as long as the music is free, and the content stream is consistent, that's all any1 rlly wants.... Good thing blogs don't write 2 much and appeal to the attention span of Generation Y. Love yall for buying so much stuff and being a demographic that advertisers want 2 reach." There's nothing like true emotions that are lubricated by desirable metrics, right? [HIPSTER RUNOFF]
After starting up a firestorm of hot blogging commentary recently with his comments about the Internet and music, Paul McGuinness is at it again, this time pontificating about Radiohead's dramatic sales failure with In Rainbows.
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Mike Piazza Retires
What, you didn't honestly think I was going to let the retirement of Major League Baseball's No. 1 metal fan/Belle and Sebastian muse pass without comment, did you? Not a chance. (Besides, something had to break up the Idol coverage.) See you at the ceremony retiring No. 31, duder! Hope the Mets management can get Zakk Wylde to play you off. [Can't Stop The Bleeding / MLB.com]
If you're running a country or R&B blog, there's a new standard to compare your traffic to (and end up getting a little depressed over). AOL Music, which is apparently the most trafficked music site, has launched The Boot and The Boombox yesterday, and both are poised to become the online behemoth's latest attempt to turn all music coverage, everywhere, into links that lead Websurfers to AOL-branded galleries and listicles.
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Yet another pop-centric blog bites the dust (and from the commenters' murmurings, it looks like the culprit is whoever handles Oasis' business affairs): "PRETTY MUCH AMAZING, HAS ONCE AGAIN BEEN TRUMPED. I DONT KNOW IF I WILL BRING IT BACK THIS TIME. IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING, HASN'T IT. BUT THIS MAY BE IT FOR PMA. WHO KNOWS. WILL UPDATE AGAIN NEXT WEEK TO KEEP EVERYONE IN CHECK." Kind of surprised that the leaked Kelly Clarkson demos didn't do him in, but I guess the music business is still in "slightly slower than your average tortoise" mode when it comes to its endless game of whack-a-mole. [Pretty Much Amazing]
Ah, trend stories, the bane of every journalistic enterprise. On the one hand, they are handy for editors who want to know what "the kids" who will be taking their jobs and houses are up to. On the other hand, they're generally vacuous glosses on subjects that are way too surface-gleaning to even be called "superficial." Greg Sandoval at CNet took the world of "music blogging" under his trend-story wing this morning, and if nothing else it's a primer in how not to tackle this admittedly knotty, yet way too often completely misunderstood subject. Five anti-lessons after the jump.
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The Guardian "leaked" most of the Glastonbury lineup this morning, and while there are certainly portions that sound very alluring (especially ignoring the logistical issues of actually traveling to an muddy field in the middle of England), it appears American festivals aren't alone in having an off year.
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There's a lot of planning that goes into a new stadium. "Can we break the $10 barrier on the price of nachos?" "Where do we locate the hot dog topping station?" "How much extra security do we need for Bat Night?" In order to focus on those pressing issues, the Washington Nationals have passed the buck to you, Internet user, to pick the various songs played loudly while certain events are occurring. However, the problem is, many of the songs you have to choose from are AWFUL.
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Because I quit! Okay, not really. But Feb. 29 will be my last day as "Senior Editor" here at Idolator. On March 1, I will become "Editor-At-Large." What does this mean? Part of what it means is that I'll actually be able to leave the house when the sun is shining. (Sometimes. Maybe.) But really it just means we're changing things up a little bit over the next few months.
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Guardian writer Owen Adams listened to old garage rock MP3s more than new records in 2007, records that only a "select few" knew about when they were (almost) new. Which made them special! Perhaps his complicity in enjoying the Internet's bounty made him feel guilty, because now he's really worried about, you know, all this musical freedom of choice and dangerous aesthetic input available at the touch of trackpad. Because if records were scarce once again, surely we'd have better music than this pluralistic crud we're listening to now. Duh?
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Naturally we heard more than 40 great songs in 2007. And so before we get to the top two slots, here are 10 tracks that might have made it into our list of awesomeness on another day, from Radio Disney to Brooklyn art-rock to Euro-techno to Britney:
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In case you haven't noticed yet today, a spanking updated version of MP3 blog aggregator/life-saving tool the Hype Machine has launched. Well, it hasn't quite launched. It's waiting for 10,000 readers to hit the front page before it officially opens its door. Everybody go there right now if you want the steady stream of M.I.A. remixes to continue flowing.
Start your melodramatic Friday night boozing a little early with the entirety of a career-spanning show by Tom Waits, recorded in New York in 1999. In fact, it ranges so widely across Waits' output that it's got to be split into two parts. [Captains Dead]
Like the most depressing YouTube tribute video in history, R.E.M.'s new single "debuts" tonight on Anderson Cooper 360, synched up to "footage from areas around the world where environmental crises are not just theories but are happening in real time." Hey, it fits, considering they were the first band I ever liked that made me feel shitty for littering. [Live Daily]
For those of you who have been wondering where the absolutely crucial music blog jefitoblog has been all these weeks: Apparently the site's been hosed thanks to his hosting provider going bust. This post, however, should serve as a fine reminder to all of you bloggers out there: Don't forget to make backups of your stuff. [JasonHare.com]
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