Music Blogging
A few ways that music is blogged
Alice Kahn once wrote, “For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three”. Well, this is no soapbox performance that seeks to draw inspiration from Carl Sagan’s rant about how people have become so dependent on science and technology, yet know nothing it nor does it seek to encourage the idea that man have become the tools of their tool courtesy Henry David Thoreau.
In subtle fashion, Alice does make a point about technology permeating slowly but surely into our lives. For starters, whether you’re a chef, janitor, computer programmer [the most obvious choice of them all], teacher, writer, interior decorator… the bottom line is that most of us… if not all… are certified techno-geeks minus the know-how. Of course, the world has become a smaller place with its jaw-dropping inventions relentlessly burning the fires of industry to satiate one man’s desire to automate. Er… the point’s been made, so on to more pertinent things.
I might like to interest you in an exposition of musicology and the deep-rooted relationship it shares with the world of technology but for the fact that you would leave this page while caught napping or would prefer to spend your time with the finer things of life. Perhaps an activity that trivializes this rather less obvious fact which I so pedantically would like to bring to your attention, of course. Maybe turn on the radio, listen to your selection of music on your iPod or watch MTV and so on and so forth. And who would hold that against you?
Just so you don’t go, let’s take a look at another interesting technology-related development that’s been a phenomenon in taking music to distant lands with the power of the internet along with this already burgeoning array of options that are at your disposal. Music Blogging, which consists of uploading one’s favorite songs while also penning their thoughts, openly declaring their unmitigated devotion to these artist and their music with fervor to match the obsessive-compulsive types.
In the year 2003, people who considered themselves ‘power-internet’ users decided that pictures and text were just not enough to express themselves over the World Wide Web so they decided to post music that showcased the work of mainstream artists or indie bands that were obscure enough to have not yet ‘arrived’. Some of the early audioblogs were Fluxblog and Stereogum that gained popularity to such an extent that well-known record labels sent them samples of music releases so that they could review on the internet, and hence reach a larger audience. Indie labels also did the same, and today it has become a normal practice as this concept of ‘audio blogging’ has grown and with it, a change in ideology as well. From being a medium with the freedom to express one’s fetish-like affinity to a particular band or genre of music, it is now used as a tool to promote music by bands, labels and well, the Robert Ehrers of the music fraternity apart from touring, releasing records and podcasting. Some of the most popular audioblogs todays are Slap You in Public, 88 Days, Aurgasm and so on and so forth.
Alterhit works on similar guidelines except for the fact that it, in comparison to other audioblogs, allows people to showcase their music. In addition to that, they take it a step further and allow the listeners to work as ‘distributors’, enabling everyone to get a piece of the pie, through their efforts.
