Idolator

Have you ever felt like the 90-word capsule reviews that pass as "music criticism" these days were too, like, long, man? Or thought that the slavishly press-release-ready writeups proffered by music bloggers didn't get to the thumbs-up/thumbs-down point quickly enough for you to figure out whether or not you were going to go off and not pay for a record? Well, have we got the site for you: Musebin, a "music reviews that restrict opinions to 140 characters or less but don't restrict those opinions from being voted on by other users popularity-contest style" Web 2.0 clusterfuck. OK, so it probably won't change music writing as we know it, but it'll sure make people out there who value nuance over knee-jerking, or even words over wrds, cry themselves to sleep a little bit harder tonight. More »

A funny thing about this brave new Internet world of ours is something I call the BoingBoing effect. A site that's a very good aggregator can attract a large audience by posting frequently and picking great and unique things to link to. But if there's a particular mindset to the site, it can get passed on to its audience incidentally, and be validated by the site's own popularity and authority. In the case of BoingBoing, a self-proclaimed "directory of wonderful things," it's their particular philosophy on the "free" nature of information. As it applies to music, the idea is that the music industry is a criminal enterprise and that music would be much better for everyone if it was free, or at least "pay what you like." Which is how we get Scott Thill, a music blogger for the biggest tech magazine in the world, saying crazy shit like this. More »