State of the Blogs, Sept. 2006

My only response to Marathonpacks’ epochal analysis of the musicblog phenom as it stands is this: When I started, the desire was to join the best conversation I heard going. Now, I read my favourite blogs (like, say, Mike’s) as the isolated testimony of individuals. I likewise blame the MP3 blogs, but at the same time I consider joining them, because, you know, web 2.0 and all. But today my comments section went down due to hosting issues and I immediately felt like the whole enterprise had lost its meaning. So it’s still about conversation, but on a manageable scale. Yes, the “blog bands” are mostly negligible, but still, there’s Junior Boys, Sunset Rubdown - better this than nothing. My interests, admittedly snobbishly, are more in the realm of extended criticism rather than hegemonic fannishness - while I see the utility of that perspective, as Eric proposes, there still seems at least some space for music blogs to work as a new critical territory, not just a Star Trek convention. (And the diversity stats don’t spook me because pro crit is worse.) I don’t know what SFJ or Simon Reynolds’s traffic stats have been like, but I know mine have been dropping after a couple of years of exponential growth for Zoilus, even as I think the quality of the site’s improved. Isn’t that just what we have to accept as the ‘net gets more and more populist, as choices multiply? It’s no reason to be less excited about talking to one another, unless the accrual of cool points is what it was about all along. You know, adlajfwo.com, tuwertoi.be, wroeiutnv9s.org.