rudeboy7969

the rich girls are weeping

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Catbirdseat

@Catbirdseat: Ryan, your sarcasm (?) confuses me.

the rich girls are weeping

janine

You know the way I find most of my music? By asking people--friends even!--I trust what they like. That still works for me most of the time.

Big Gray.

Not to be too harsh, but lately I think Idolator has been a little too much about what's not good and/or great. I enjoy snark as much as the next dude, and I know you're a Gawker entity, but I could use some genuine loving on something other than '80s nostalgia trips. You know it's bad when I'm watching the VH1 Hip-Hop Honors the other night and automatically thinking "what bad would Idolator have to say about this?"

G3K

The part of this whole "blog overload" argument that holds up the most is the fact that a hundred new bands are announced every week, each with a shitload of unwarranted fanfare, and it's obnoxious. I'll throw my chips in on that one too. I love them dearly but there's no denying blogs have created (or simply given an unwarranted platform to) this whole caste of "good enough" indie rock music. It's competent, it's not obnoxious, it features a delay pedal or a french horn, the lyrics are obtuse, yadda yadda. Basically, it passes the test of having enough superficially interesting or cool qualities to be considered post-worthy, but there's nothing really there beyond good intentions and a lot of reverb. It's why I'd rather turn on Z100 than scan Hype machine. The material there might be sort of unfulfilling on a spiritual level, but there's usually a reason why a song passes through all the gates it has to pass through before it ends up on the radio. Try as I might to fight it, my iTunes play count does not lie. Kanye is currently killing Le Loup. Just murdering them.

gregcoff

mike a

TheContrarian

rogerniner

i could have more horrible problems than getting 12 emails from you (like getting none). but can we keep an open line of communication where if i'm interested i write you back or i post up what you send me? your job is very difficult and complicated, i've done your job, and i know.

please don't take my slice of joy and turn it into a job.

loudersoft

I know for our site it began as a sort of "hey this is what we're into" and check us out every day if you dig. I'm proud to say we haven't veered off too far from that angle, if you can call sharing real actual opinions an "angle".

The problem, in relative terms to our insignificant existence, is when that drive to share intense burning passion dissipates and it becomes a chore. IMO, the cardinal sin to alleviate the need for content in the absence of inspiration is cut and paste jobs from PR emails that flood the inbox. God forbid a day goes by without a new post! I don't deny there is pressure to post something (exacerbated in times of drought), but at the end of the day self-compromise is a weak out.

Swankster

Catbirdseat

the rich girls are weeping

janine

Big Gray.

It's even clearer on the other side of the equation: a lot of people in bands are surprised to find out that blog coverage doesn't really amount to a whole hell of a lot on its own.

Fraid

DavidWatts

There's just not always a million "great" new records coming out from bands every week, and it seems pointless to update when there's nothing moving your fingers.

I could sit down and cut-and-paste every promo email I get and probably drive my page rank higher or or my readership up, but for what? I'd rather have my feelings about the music I like be taken with some degree of reasonable belief precisely because I'm not doing that.

If that's not good enough, oh well. Go buy the new Britney Spears and jam it in some orifice of your body where it can be appreciated and forget about the bloggers.

loudersoft

Catbirdseat

Funny how we're all starting to figure that out.

I always tried to avoid pimping a band that was currently on the press release rounds -- but yeah, when the "promo mp3" started to equal the "radio hit" and even the Forkcast was just reposting press releases (which, natch, they got before the rest of us peons -- because, don't you know, PITCHFORK BREAKS BANDS!), I had to give it up.

The good thing is, some of the best and longest-lived music bloggers are still out there, doing what they do best. Eventually, one hopes, the press-release and promo mp3 posters will move on, and the stalwarts will persist. In other words, the bubble will burst eventually. It has to, right?

I'm much happier since I stopped being a slave to the new release; I can listen to old Shakira, or The Joshua Tree for the 9 millionth time and not feel bad about it. I can spend more time with Neon Bible, and say, "Hey, this record was actually pretty good, not just merely adequate."

It's true -- deciding what's great as opposed to what's good takes time, something that the Culture of the Blogs does not allow for. Snap judgements will only get you so far -- and you know what? They're usually wrong.

the rich girls are weeping