Bido Lito!

The Problems with Music Blogs pt. 1

Having run an awful new music blog for a period which has now reached over 3 years, I have something of a bachelor's degree in blogging, and feel unfortunately over-qualified to share with you just some of the many immoral practices that we engage in. In fact, given the many advantages of music blogs, these could be some of the reasons why music blogging is still a largely untrusted, even derided, music outlet, and why physical media survives in relatively good health…

1. Posting popular tracks for an increase in traffic.

Almost by default, music bloggers are self-centred, egotistical individuals who solemnly believe that their music taste is just so sophisticated that they feel compelled to share it with the world.* There are also those who really have a passion for music, but let’s just forget about them for a second... This means that the amount of people validating the blogger’s taste in music by clicking on the page is very important to them, so they will often post things that they don’t like, simply in order to get hits. A quick glance at the Hype Machine suggests that many users are currently enjoying a Deadmau5 remix of a Radiohead song. But they aren’t, it’s simply an atrocious mp3 posted by an insecure music blogger desperate for peer-approval, who is currently sat at his desk, ecstatically watching those hit numbers rise. Ironically, this only goes to show how unsophisticated their music taste actually is. But they’re probably American, so they will never understand.

2. Scrabbling around for money.

Music blogs are a literally one of the worst ways that you could possibly conceive to make money.  Honestly, I could make more money incessantly busking than I could from a music blog, and I can’t sing, or play guitar (so basically, it would be begging). So the fact that so many small to medium sized music blogs have ads is a never-ending source of visual depression. It’s a feigned professional edge thrown over a web-site that a smallish herd of monkeys or even David Cameron’s cabinet could probably muster just about enough mental dexterity to run. In many cases it looks a lot like the person running the blog loves money, not music, and if that’s the case, then why would you trust their opinion on music? You shouldn’t even trust their opinion on money, because they’re not making any, so they’re utterly useless; even more out of touch than Sepp Blatter and probably of similar moral standing.

3. Thinking that you’re a minor celebrity because you have a music blog.

In an extensive list of the world’s most irritating things, this is up there with Simon Cowell’s arrogance-exuding face, and is closely followed by the rest of his arrogance-exuding body. It’s beyond unbelievable that, for some people, having a music blog defines their entire person. They spend their time waddling around, weighed down by their bulging egos, telling you that they run aratheraveragemusicblog.blogspot.com before you’ve even initiated a conversation. Ultimately, the one and only aim of music blogging should be to try and share good music with people, and it’s definitely not to enhance your social status, so if you ever encounter such a blogging celebrity, just tell them to pipe down. Violence is partially justified as well, go for it.

…Part II will be yet more angry and derisory, just to bring some much-needed cynicism to the Christmas period. On a more positive note, for just a couple of the many brilliant music blogs that none of these rules can be applied to, waste some time constructively on Abeano and The Recommender. Here’s one of the best things that I’ve found on one of these music blogs in the past week.

*I am the exception that proves the rule, obviously.