As recently as a year ago, there were perhaps two dozen music blogs. Now there are well over 50, with more appearing every day from all over the world, specializing in everything from hard-core punk to pre-World War II gospel.

Music blogging has developed into a subculture with its own unofficial leaders and unwritten rules, and it's becoming a significant force in the music industry, which mostly seems to be smiling on the phenomenon.

There's a relatively standard format for MP3 blogs that's unofficially evolved: one or two songs a day, each one accompanied by a paragraph or two about the song or the artist. Some bloggers also include photographs or links to places where their readers can buy the CD on which each song appears.

Most focus on little-known musicians or rare and out-of-print recordings; few will post something that's already a huge radio hit or by a very famous artist, and it's frowned upon to post more than a single song from a given album.

"Frowned upon" by our masters, by whose leave we enjoy music? (I haven't read it.) I notice Wolk is reviewing comics for Salon now. He's quite the hip guy.
- tom moody 7-06-2005 3:42 am [add a comment]

quite
- bill 7-06-2005 3:45 am [add a comment]

OK, I read it. God, I hate that typical upbeat journalist style of writing! He's such a little know it all. What about blogs that post mp3s in addition to other stuff? There are hundreds of them! It's like the blogs that imitate art magazines. Why do that? He's so careful to massage his content into a trend, with a growth curve and agreed upon rules. He can't even imply that the industry is a corrupt, decaying empire--they might give him a job at some point. Did I say I hate this style of writing?

- tom moody 7-06-2005 8:57 am [add a comment]