I'm from Jacksonville, I'm acquainted with Black Kids and all of their members and witnessed their first show. Their first show was bad, to put it mildly, but at the show I witnessed the beginning flicker of a musical flame that all bands begin with. So naturally I conceded that they might be onto something. Then suddenly when they played the CMJ and received hype around the world among the online-elite, I found it oddly puzzling. As a musician in a band of my own, I wondered if there was something I was missing. But it seems very sudden (too sudden) for a band that has been in existence for little more than a year to be receiving such accolaides for what is, in all honesty, something very mediocre. Perhaps that's what our American society has grown to expect in almost everything: stagnant mediocrity. From our schools, businesses, politicians (especially) and now our most precious entity, our music.

I wish nothing but luck and the best for Black Kids. They're certainly riding the wave now, but I fear that the wave is rapidly approaching the underwater reef that will doom its unwary riders to the cold waters of indie-rock oblivion once again.

In today's sound-bite, 30-minute culture, you can almost count on it.

themeshuggener

kurt300

The mashup of all sorts of music is not an accident, Reggie just has an ear for it and apparently puts it in his writing and lyrics. I definitely am not on "what's hot". I'm the guy who would buy a record from iTunes instead of finding it on [hypem.com] (which I just discovered!), and am glad that the hype is overexposing them. Exposure is exposure.

I agree that people rehash things on the internet, but music is personal. If someone hypes it, either they like it, they think someone else might or (insert some other valid reason here). You are essentially telling people to stop liking Black Kids or give them a listen before writing about them. We all know this won't translate into sales, but even critical feedback like this is good in my opinion. I mean, look at the Coat Hangers (the ones being hated on in the comments here) ([atlanta.creativeloafing.com])

I live in Atlanta, and according to CL, in a year they've gone "band of girlfriends who couldn't really play their instruments" a year ago, to being hyped on blogs like this. Personally, I think they're crap (saw them at Star Bar and around Cabbagetown in some art gallery, I believe), but people will always hype their scene. It's just how things are. Idolator can't put the cap back on this scene; it's what the scene is about. We like Black Kids. Get over it. :)

funkytaco

stopokaygo

Jesus. I've seen more timely rants in college newspapers.

As for:
Whatever the outlet, I spent most of this year writing only about records I loved, under the assumption that life was too short and word counts were too limited to waste time on crap. As a result, I piled up a lot of raves, including raves for a lot of new bands. At the time, it didn't bother me, because I believed in those records and still do, but now I'm not so sure that my all-love tack wasn't just inadvertently feeding into the debasement of popular crit.

Lazy, is what it was. The hardest sentence to back up, in the English language, is: "I say no."

As for your love tack, it was feeding into your age at the time. Young (under 35?) writers have the leisure time to listen to more, therefore they love more. They're eager, not as jaded as they'd like to think, and thus as impressionable as the artists making music like that music made by Black Kids. I can't tell you how many albums I loved in the 90s that I haven't listened to in nearly ten years, and won't. I mean, when you have a half hour to blast music each day, do you pick Smashing Pumpkins' first (and really only) album over the Boredoms' Seadrum? The later is the obvious choice.

In other words, start a family or buy a house or take care of a dying parent and see how little time and therefore tolerance you have for the new Jens Lekman album, aka if James Taylor used pro-tools (and I loved Lekman's ep-collection-album). Your tastes get honed, and real fast. In turn fighting the debasement of any crit.

Jfrankparnell

hhbtmike

Seriously, your article ruled. And, no, we haven't actually heard the Black Kids and we don't mind admitting it.

Eternal love,
IndieRockBaseball.com.

rapmasterjc

Big Gray.

If they wrote a song, it'd be nice.

Big Gray.

Duvalian

rating: 8.6

rating of this comment: 4.3

goldsounds

@maura: OMG, The Coathangers are totes THE WORST. Utterly terrible. Really.

@lastclearchance: I'm telling you people, this whole Oink thing kind of couldn't come at a better time.

@Dodge : My Old Kentucky Blog: The dominance (and struggle for exclusives and readers) of Stereogum (Corporate) and the Forkcast has done more to singlehandedly destroy the former cozy homespun DIY world of music blogging than any other single factor. Really.

the rich girls are weeping

i like Mike A's attitude about falling a little out of touch to be happy with music again. i wonder if i could do it.

i think blogs don't lose credibility/trustworthiness for only focusing on the positive if we keep in perspective that they are just blogs...started for the enjoyment of music and being a fan. the fact that some blogs have picked up large audiences can't wholly be used against them...I mean, most are just doing what they were doing when they first started. one of the big problems is the PR machine that now infects everything internet related. most savvy blog readers are aware of it and have become more and more cynical and skeptical of what their favorite bloggers are writing. Pitchfork and Stereogum fight it out for exclusives, and based on their traffic and relationships, they've pretty much taken over that market. the competition for these exclusives has led to a lot of watered down hype surrounding most of them.

i think the fact that the more powerful/respected media outlets are paying more attention to the blogosphere and jumping on the bandwagon at times is what really expands most of the problems discussed here.

Dodge : My Old Kentucky Blog

Take down oink?

lastclearchance

Bob Loblaw

Maybe it's due to advancing age, maybe it's due to living in the very Middle America that takes such a beating in this post, but sometime in the past couple of years I recognized "keeping up" to be futile at best, damaging at worst. Now I listen to reissues and check out new stuff at my own pace. The result? I'm way behind the curve, but I'm once again able to discover music for MYSELF, at my own pace, rather than worry about being current or not. Result: I haven't loved music so much in years.

I recommend falling slightly out of touch, folks. It really does make music fun again.

mike a

MrStarhead

Michaelangelo Matos

BUT, I think flyover towns see a smaller-scale hype effect that may have something to do with blogs and/or Pitchfork...earlier this year, I saw Cold War Kids and Tokyo Police Club play a sold-out show on a Monday night at our local "indie" club, followed the next night by a v. v. sparsely attended show by the (less hyped but still P'fork-approved) Black Angels. I'm talking sparse like...15 people. I also observed a prepubescent crowd freaking out at the same club when Matt & Kim opened for The High Strung (remember them, the Pitchfork hater-baiters?), then saw at least 75% of them leave immediately after Matt & Kim stepped off the stage.

I racked my brain trying to figure out if all these kids were reading Pitchfork/BV/Stereogum and forwarding links to each other or making mix tapes and trading them around or what, because where were they when Shellshag, another (better) upbeat, punkish boy/girl-couple duo from NYC, played here? Certainly not at the show...because no one was there except the promoter and his wife.

Does anyone else see this happening in their podunk towns, too? Have you noticed any heavily blogged-about bands drawing big crowds that surprised you? Or bands you expected to pack a club not coming close? Hell, even Broken Social Scene didn't sell out their show here last year...

prolixrush

Maura Johnston

The current affection for blog-fed hype is expected for a new medium. When something is brand-new under the sun in the media, a lot of people and media tastemakers see nothing but gold in it. But the overpraise of music blogs' influence will pass over time (crossing my fingers and lighting many prayer candles at the cathedral). A lot of bloggers produce the illusion that 10 of them endorsing a band is equvilent to a million people endorsing the band. Last year's blog-fueled "Snakes on a Plane" hype had sunk the movie and Hollywood realized that its "cult" following was actually tiny but had very loud voices. What's interesting about the rise of music blogs is that they may soon possibly level the playing field with the print publications, if not one-up print pubs since blogs are free and more accessible. And as many posters mentioned, one professional critic's opinion would be no more relevant than a bedroom blogger's. That would not be the end of music criticism, but the arena would be overcrowded and noisy as hell.

Cam/ron

I do think it's a niche problem that's exacerbated by the fact that (present company maybe excepted) no one has a clear idea of what a critic's supposed to do. Is the role to make buyers' recommendations or interpret or contextualize or simply deliver the new to an audience or what... Print and internet critics are just some folk with opinions, though most readers need for opinions to be set in stone. The good writing, even the bad writing, is there to have a dialog with. Ideally, it wouldn't matter who was getting overly hyped, because even hype is an interesting thing to consider.

Have you heard the Coathangers out of Atlanta? Possibly an even better example than the Black Kids... they effin' blow.

janine

Maura Johnston

Michaelangelo Matos

Catbirdseat

And does Idolator like anything anymore? Every single headline is negative and cynical these days.

the_j

jfury

But I work as a critic in this industry, in a town with very little live music, reporting on most of this junk from the very afar, sitback position at the moment. So what do I know.

Well, I know that it's insane to try and keep up with it. And, in most cases, it's not worth it. I can pretty much guarantee that none of my readers know who Black Kids is. And I can pretty much guarantee that if they were to come to my town, they would hardly sell 100 tix at their show - even if I were to give them a flattering preview write-up. (Daughtry, meanwhile, set a record as the fastest sell-out in town history earlier this year. Surprise? Hardly.)

This is not a Middle America problem. This is a critic/music nerd/blogger issue that, really, is a matter of little or no consequence to anyone but us. Is the Black Kids playing at CMJ any different than, say, a band playing SXSW? Not really. Because I would venture to say that Middle America has no idea what SXSW or CMJ means. And the scary part to all of this is that they're the ones out there buying the records. The people I know who are genuinely interested in music tend to download their music illegally.

And what do these music-interested people say when asked what type of music they listen to? Like I say, they say "indie rock." Why? Because it's an easy umbrella to put things under for non-music fans and it generally doesn't draw the same confused response as "Well, right now, I have this song stuck in my head by this crescendo-building sometimes-Springsteen-like kinda orchestral baroque pop band out of Canada."

hotshot

cut it out. it's a blog. amuse us, blogger!

C.R.E.A.M.

Peg Entwistle

Aquemini

the rich girls are weeping

Pop Cesspool

I know the question wasn't directed at me, but my own response is that when a blog isn't being critical, it isn't trustworthy.

@therichgirlsareweeping:
Honestly I think the first mistake many people make(including me, even within this very post), is even deigning to attach a word like "critic" to "blogs," as if writing words about bands is equivalent to being a music critic (amatuer or not). There are blogs--maybe they're popular, maybe they're not--that are simply nothing more than fans. You can't fault them for that, though their thoughts on music are ultimately not very interesting to me.

Part of the problem is that, because blogs are inherently a medium that requires the ability to write--even if only "listen to this!"--people let any old blog with words on it (rather than thought)somehow dictate the trends. And then we start griping about the state of "criticism."

scott pgwp

taylorklong

That being said, on the other hand, you can say the same of a good number of print outlets, and if anyone believes that print journalism doesn't depend on cronyism and PR, they are very naive.

the rich girls are weeping

gorillavsbear

I've put aside blogging for the past few months, and it's one of the wisest things I've done in ages. I'm working on a way to carry the levity and slow-processing of print music writing back into my blogging -- and others' too. Who knows if I'll be successful, however. We'll see. (I'm hoping to be like the slow movement recently toward organic food, or something like that. Stop and listen to the music! How quaint, huh?) I'll be like Susan Powter, y'all: STOP THE INSANITY. Go listen to that Pylon rerelease and repent for all your bloghype sins!

(BTW, I didn't attend a SINGLE CMJ event -- not a one! -- and I'm totally okay with that!)

the rich girls are weeping

sleuthee

taylorklong

I meant that if this was a pre internet time, Nickleback's sales would be even higher than they are now and that Black Kids doesn't get downloaded for free one tenth as much as Nickleback gets downloaded ilegally. Anyway, who really cares about Knickleback or what I think anyway? I thought this was about how much bloggers suck. Ehh. F*ing bloggers.

jmb112485

I must admit, when I first finally heard the White Stripes after a long period of hype-frenzy, I pissed myself laughing. It had to be a put-on, right?

I'd single them out as possessing the biggest gap between talent and ability, and the critical accolades that are piled upon them, but then I heard Art Brut, (who are a perfect illustration of this story, since they seem to have been Pumped and Dumped by Bloggers).

Modern indie rock is dire enough that it has me questioning 80's indie rock, and discovering bands like R.E.M. weren't that great either - they just happened to sound better than 80's mainstream rock, which was particularly putrid at the time.

HomefrontRadio

Jess Harvell

heyzeus

Some of what you say here is true - i.e., it likely is only those of us who are truly trying to keep up that are pissed about how fast things move. But I can't stand it when people--especially bloggers--say "train's already moving, let's just see where it takes us. Can't do anything about it." The issue at hand is not bands, it's bloggers. Any blogger--even Idolator, even Brooklyn Vegan, even you--could chill out just a little and think about their effect on the very music they care about. What their current effect is and what their potential could be. That's exactly what Jess has done in this post and it's most welcome.

The whole issue at hand today is that music and its consumption is dictated by its fans (after all, that's what 90% of bloggers really are, nothing more or less). So for the fans--especially those obsessed enough to try their hand at tastemaking--to claim "that's just how it is, let's see how others adapt," well, that's bullshit.

scott pgwp

well, I wasn't pointing the finger single-handedly at Jess and/or Idolator. and you've basically enforced what I said, which is that no one reads the good crit blogs so their impact is minimal. that's the problem. for the most part, the blogs that get the attention are the shit ones that post press releases and pictures and are all "sup, here's the next big thing." it's kind of like the problem with the bands - the crap gets brought to the surface thanks to hype. but I think that's just the sad truth with a lot of indie consumers - they're a lot more concerned with the next big thing rather than the next good thing. they want to be able to say "oh I saw them before they were big" or "oh, I heard that album 3 months ago." anyone who's been to Bowery Ballroom in the last 6 months and seen it turn into a place where people talk over music instead of pay attention to it will have an idea of what I mean. still, you wouldn't write off independent music just because some crap band gets attention, so you shouldn't write off blogs just because some of them are more concerned about quantity of posts rather than quality.

@therichgirlsareweeping: "ee, and I thought Pareles' pieces was full of subtle back-biting and gently bitchy backhanded compliments -- in a GOOD way. Like, in an "OH BLOGGERS, YOU'RE SO PROBLEMATIC!" kind of way. With a side order of knowing chuckle." YES. This is his humor a lot of the time, and I do think there's some of that in there. He's often rather passive aggressive in his disdain.

@jessdolator: sorry for mixing up your gender. my name is Taylor (and I'm a lady), so I know how that goes.

taylorklong

Jess Harvell

Matthew Perpetua

Are you SURE? Where the hell are you getting your numbers? Like, do you mean the cumulative number of downloads Black Kids got since Pitchfork got a hold of them vs. how much Nickelback sold since 4 PM EST on Oct 22 2007? Uh, maybe????????

"the world passes by in a flash / from the birth of the earth / to the curse of your desperate math"

Matthew Perpetua

Jess, keep that fire in your belly -- I'm too tired and too old and too bored to care about how the indie rock blogosphere is killing baby bands. What I'm interested to see who can adapt and evolve in this insane environment. Because, dearest, take a look around. It's too late to stop the speeding train. Let's sit back and see who doesn't get pulverized, yeah? Because there are up-and-comers who will be able to stick it out. Sure, they'll be the lowest common denominator, but ugh, isn't that just the same old story? And won't we just keep pushing the underappreciated acts, and grousing that no one notices them -- until all of a sudden everyone does? Probably.

And dude, just because we, who are inundated with new music CONSTANTLY, forget that Bjork had a new album out this year doesn't mean that her core constituency did.

This weekend, I talked to one of my galpals from middle school who happens to live a few blocks away from me (this is kind of insane, btw, seeing as that was in El Paso, TX, but I digress...). She mentioned being into the "indie rock" and I was like, O RLY? WHO!?!? What did she cite? Bloc Party. Arcade Fire. Editors. She LOVED Smoosh and Tokyo Police Club when they opened for Bloc Party recently. And it was all I could do not to be like, OMG HOW 2005 OF YOU! until I remembered that normal people, believe it or not, still kind of process new music at a normal rate of speed. Its we gatekeepers that are overwhelmed.

And so I say, perspective, people. Perspective. Deep breaths. It's all going to be okay, I promise.

the rich girls are weeping

The quick hits to the gut these bands receive teaches them a real lesson: man up or sit down. As it stands, I wouldn't even invite Black Kids (I am not racist!) to a House Party.

Iamthegamer

But just for the sake of argument let me go on the redcord for a minute that I actually think Nickleback has some merit in there music. Wait. Wait. Hear me out----damn, I couldn't even keep a straight facing typing that over the internet.

jmb112485

Dancomono

Uh, actually the Nickelback fans are obviously pretty happy to actually spend money on those records.

Matthew Perpetua

seems this gripe is sort of just a general fuck-the-state-of-things. but why rage against a machine that ain't changing, when it doesn't actually force YOU to change. sure, most bloggers are VOLUNTARY street teams for band x or y. and most bands are waiting for their Myspace-or-Youtube moment. but so what? stop reading those blogs. stop listening to those bands. buy it or leave it on the shelf.

rackattack

Big Gray.

In my mind the thing that will always set Pitchfork apart from the multitude of hype blogs is that they h ave an editorial stance. You may like or not like that stance, but they have it. Reading the site regularly enough, you get a sense for the what Pitchfork as an entity likes and doesn't like. You have to have that mix in order to be discerning and credible. The problem is that the blogs pick up on all those "best new music" and "recommended" posts and run with them, leaving the bad shit behind. It's an honest reaction--like you said, Jess, you only want to write about what you love. But that's the difference between why people don't trust most blogs.

Only partly related - why doesn't Idolator start integrating some honest-to-god album reviews? (or do they and I've somehow blocked them from my mind?)Both you and Maura have done a "hype blogs blow" post within the last couple weeks now - why not do more to bring an editorial stance here?

scott pgwp

iantenna

jordan_s

Darth Funk

not to mention that stereogum used to be a decent crit blog until the $ came in and it became a "career," and they realized that "features" about old cindy lauper videos get more hits than real, actual writing.

jordan_s

Can we please not compare today's "fandom scene" with that of the 80's/90's? Time was, if you got into some sort of active music fandom, you actually had to love the music enough to put in some WORK. You had to track down esoteric magazines and catalogs and pore through dusty racks at the local record store. You had to send off a $50 check to a Japanese mail order shop to get those rare b-sides. You had to devote hours to write up/draw up/paste up your 'zine, then hoof it over to your local print shop for some long hours cutting/pasting/binding before running all over town to distribute your work. Time was, you were motivated by sheer excitement about the music, not by the prospect of 50,000 readers, or ad money lining your pockets, or "VIP" invites to some VICE party.

Now, I'm not saying that there *aren't* any music bloggers putting in work today, I'm just saying that today, you have an option: you can be genuinely motivated by the music, OR you can just grab a blogspot account, take a peek at the existing blogs to see what's "hot," start throwing up mp3s, and wait for the traffic, ad revenue, and perquisites to start rolling in.

Catbirdseat

janine

fishnotfried

King of Pants

P.S. Let's also get it on record that I'm a dude.

Jess Harvell

In the meantime, my baser consumer urges are continually sated and I get to be excited about something for a few hours before I go to sleep and wake up for work in the morning. If I still remember who they are in a few months time I download the album and cast judgement accordingly. What really excites me (and I'm not saying everyone looks at it like this) is the potential these bands exhibit, not the expectation of hearing a fully formed product. Sure some bands will be affected negatively by the pressure, but I still believe the good ones will battle through it like good bands had to battle angry audiences and thrown bottles in years past. New age new challenges and all that.

I believe that 20 years from now, (most) of the truly good bands will be remembered (by critics and record collectors) and their influence will be funnelled into radio friendly crap while the rest of the over-hyped bands will fall into the relative obscurity they deserve, and the critics and record collectors will still freak out when some new band cops a few riffs from a record like Wizards of Ahh, becoming the next in a long line of artists reapropriating older records that no one really remembers and/or cares about.

I think the only people who are really complaining about this are the critics and hipsters because they suddenly don't feel as important as they used to.

No offense, jess.

jmb112485

taylorklong

Brilliant post, Jess, good for you.

jetblackturd

umm... he meant "you've got me" in the sense of "i don't have a fucking clue either" not in the way you interpreted it.

iantenna

my point is that a lot of people want their generation to be the BEST, and these people were writing fanzines in the 80s and 90s and are writing blogs nowadays. as a result a lot of bullshit is popular for a time. then there are others who thrive on hating on their own generation and those who sit somewhere in the middle. i'm not trying to argue that the filter of time is the best way to find "good" music as i think some of the most boring british folk has been heralded as genius in the light of the, now not so, recent brit folk revival (vashti bunyan i am looking in your direction). and we all often end up running in argumentative circles when discussing taste/popularity/etc. to the point where i'm not even sure what my initial point was... but this country gazette record i'm listening to right now sure is purdy.

iantenna

Anyway, I hope your post informs your future decisions as to whom you choose to laud as BNM and Recommended worthy. I know I'm more likely to pause and have another read (or spin) before hitting the submit button.

Little White Earbuds

I know this is used so that you can turn a passionate eye towards the idea of blog-hype, but with so many examples and counter-examples it seems the music world tends to balance itself out. I know that your issue is too big too fast, but regulation with some sort of inane timeline is a ridiculous solution to state of music.

It's your duty as an American and a music fan to shame music bloggers until they get their act together and shut you up, or until they quit entirely.

t_immy

The problem herein is its your job to read these blogs (by the way, wouldn't hurt to call a few overzealous folks out here), while it's not for most others. If I can ignore, as Yancey also mentions, I do.

Still, this will undoubtedly be read by most as another aging generation's cry against the shock of the new - a critic mad at insurgents without the depth of insight to correctly determine what's right on. But it's not necessarly "gauche" to call out a crock. You're allowed to do that and ought to. No sense in wringing hands, you've got the big forum.

Fennessey

also, it's a little extreme to paste yourself as the last bastion of honest, anti-hype music criticism ("As for what to "do" about it, well, you've got me.") Did you read Ear Farm's write-up about Black Kids? he didn't hesitate to trash them. you have to read more blogs before you can make blanket statements about them. the problem isn't blogs as a whole, it's the blogs that get attention. there are plenty of honest blogs filled with good criticism - people just don't read them.

taylorklong

@GovernmentNames: While hype's always existed (Counting Crows were signed and gold less than two years after they formed), I think Jess' point about the tremendously shortened news cycle is true. By the time the tour bus comes around you've heard the EP, the album, the remixes, and are sick to death of the whole mess, ready for the next "underground" band that you've "discovered". And even with that REM EP, the band had been doing small shows and and building a fanbase and developing their sound well before they had the money to enter a studio.

Legendary bands have come out of the gate (Pixies), but everyone deserves at least 2 releases (album, single, etc) in near total obscurity before we turn on the spotlights.

Halfwit

Jess Harvell

Jess Harvell

what we are buying into now isn't so much art or culture, but filters. if you self-describe yrself as a pfork guy, then you need to know who the black kids are; it has been deemed thus. that's hardly pitchfork or marc hogan's fault -- their job, as they have defined it, is to merely whittle down the music environment into something barely digestible. what happens, to put it in time magazine 2006 terms, is up to YOU.

the other side, though, is that if you are the black kids, this is a very good thing. suddenly you have gone from guys and gals spending yr free time in a band to an honest to god career, and i can't begrudge anyone that. even if they got panned for their shows this week (which, interestingly enough, most of the people i talked to didn't like but I hardly read that anywhere) (were they good? no. should we feel betrayed? hell no.), they are in a much better place than they were two weeks ago, no matter how little they were prepared for it. they aren't going to get rich off of the review, but they will be able to not have day jobs for at least a year, and isn't that victory enough?

i'm with you on being against the natural tendency towards blogs as quasi-journalism (citizen journalist as a phrase might be the dumbest thing to ever come out of daily kos; are you telling me a blogger is gonna go pull plans from the water board to research some story on toxic waste dumps?), and think the only thing to do is read less. or at least just read the people that you trust, the folks who aren't auditioning for a&r gigs with each post. idolator has been good at calling this out since you came on, jess, especially the drive-by posting style of mp3s without context/reason solely for pageviews, adsense and i have no idea what else. if you asked a lot of these folks to justify their blog you'd get a whole lot of blank stares and not much else.

anyway, although i like this post, it feels somewhat misguided to me because there's no sense in stopping this train, only redirecting to a more beneficial place. like, for instance, how can we work it so that internet hype = actual money for artists? how can we make people pay money for music again? how can an artist actually see a return for yet another mp3 ripped and posted on stereogum? because right now the primary folks who gain from internet phenomenon are the bloggers themselves in cache and the erection they get when checking statcounter. music and records and bands are just springboards to Something Bigger. at it's worst (which it very often is), it's cultural tourism of the worst kind. and fuck that.

yancey

mike a

Fraid

and you might want to just focus on the music and stop worrying about the wannabes of the world. in the end, the music is what counts.

supastah

qyntellspitbull

The Net Hype Factory is pretty much out of control at this point and it's nearly impossible to keep up with the inundation of "next big things" or "bands to watch" who more often than not end up being "meh"- so what's the point of more than casually paying attention?

The only thing you can trust is your own set of ears.

Still, good bands like Arcade Fire still stand the test of hype and time.

AquaLung

mike a

Diglett

tock

Sniffle

Jess Harvell

Al Shipley

Al Shipley

Jess Harvell

unperson

Little White Earbuds

Al Shipley

the problem is, it's hard to ask (or expect) ppl to stop having a voracious appetite for music readily available to them. asking the average blog reader/blogger to scale back on hearing/posting new music for the benefit of the bands they already like (or for the benefit of bands that they still will want to like in a year's time) would be like telling someone that everything in a grocery store is free but asking them not to eat so much.

jordan_s