Write What You Hear, Hear What You Write: The Art of Music Blogging
By Mary Iannone
Every night, thousands of music fans crowd into the hot, stuffy general admission-only music venues all around the five boroughs. The lights go down, the strobe lights go on, and for the next few hours, each band’s loyal followers struggle to get closer to the performers they hold in such high regard. Most concert hot spots quickly turn into a sauna, as the crowd eagerly awaits THE song they came to hear.
As soon as the opening chords begin, all bets are off – the throng turns into one colossal dance party, as the fans find themselves thrown up into the air or thrust up against someone they hadn’t even met an hour earlier. When the show is complete and the lights come up, the hoard quickly makes a beeline for the door, gulping in the fresh air that, even in the dead of summer, feels cooler than anything they’ve been breathing for the past few hours.
Some will head to a nearby bar or club and reminisce about the nonstop action of the night. Others will go straight home and crash, exhausted. But a select community of music fans will do none of the above; instead, they’ll go home and write about every detail, from the venue to the sound quality, the opening act to the encore. That’s due to the massive movement of Internet blogging, which has spawned a rapidly growing subculture of online music reviewers.
Write It: A Blogger’s Inspiration
“It’s about writing about the music we love when we want, and how we want,” says Matt Tyson, editor-in-chief of EAR FARM (www.earfarm.com), a blog he established in 2005. “Hopefully it’s done in a professional, friendly, and attractive enough manner to warrant people reading.”
For bloggers, the hobby is taken up simply for the enjoyment of being able to freely write about what they love. The community stretches out to all professions. Tyson is a freelance video producer. Keith Profeta of Indie Band Guru (www.indiebandguru.com) is a firefighter with the FDNY. “I love my job with the FDNY,” Profeta says. “Blogging is just something I do for my passion of music.”
Matthew Perpetua of Fluxblog (www.fluxblog.org) created his website back in 2003, when the culture was just beginning to surface. “It was a drop in the bucket back then,” Perpetua says. “The people who knew about it were very much the ‘right’ people. My site started with an audience of people I knew from various places online. People told other people about it [and] it started getting mainstream press in 2004.”
Six years later, Fluxblog is one of thousands of its kind. Aggregator sites like Elbows (www.elbo.ws) and The Hype Machine (www.hypem.com) have pulled together links to nearly 4,000 music blogs, hundreds of which are based in the New York metro area. Some, like Perpetua’s, have long established fan bases due to their early inception. But others, like Anthony Cuellar’s Tastes Like Caramel (www.tasteslikecaramel.com) are only in the early years, and are gaining fans with every post.
“In the beginning I struggled with creating a digital identity,” says Cuellar, who created Tastes Like Caramel in 2008. “We’ve undergone so many stages of evolution from site design, creating our voice in the blogosphere, and gaining press credentials.”
Cuellar, like some music bloggers, has also gained attention from bands themselves, which has led to multiple interviews, a feature music bloggers highly covet. “I am really proud of some of the band interviews I’ve been able to land, specifically Miike Snow, Friendly Fires, Sleigh Bells, White Lies, and La Roux, who I worked hard to land,” says Cuellar.
For some music bloggers, creating a voice and gaining popularity includes offering free mp3s to their readers. By and large, these blogs receive more hits, but this creates yet another obstacle for the writers. Just a few months ago, Google shut down hundreds of music blogs operating under its Blogger system due to violations caused by posting free music samples.
Tyson has taken precautions against such an event. “We moved to ceasing the posting of mp3s that haven’t been cleared by PR agencies, bands, or labels. With that, we’ve lost some traffic to be sure…but what’s the ultimate cost? Posting an mp3 rather than a link to a streaming file is not worth getting sued over, or having your site shut down.”
For the bloggers, the focus is more on the writing than offering free music. Alexandra Serio of The Morning After Pills (www.themorningafterpills.com), which was established less than a year ago, hopes her writing can inspire discussions amongst her readers. “I am most proud that I am contributing content about a subject matter that everyone has an opinion on. I hope people are reading my blog for my opinion, not to say that they should agree with it.”
Another obstacle they find themselves up against, however, is whether or not to post about artists they don’t necessarily enjoy. “I try not to post completely negative reviews,” says Serio. “For all the “flash in the pans” like Ke$ha there are 10 bands around the globe doing something very special and I think that merits a discussion. Every band has an audience and I don’t feel like giving Ke$ha a censorious review is going to change any of her followers minds. It’s not worth my time to perpetuate negativity.”
But Madalyn Baldanzi of The New York Rockmarket (www.newyorkrockmarket.com) disagrees. “Bad reviews are constructive, help bands grow, and help us to put good music in a proper context. When I see a band that is bad I always try to write about them and say why I thought they were bad and what they could do to improve. I definitely think it’s important to always be honest about their performances.”
Baldanzi also advises other bloggers to steer clear of cultivating strong relationships with artists. “Once I start talking to any one person in a band outside of a professional critic relationship, I might end up posting on that band less. It’s difficult to know when you really like someone’s music, or you just like them.”
But other relationships, like ones with the expansive scene of music venues in New York City, help music bloggers. “You end up seeing the same people at these events,” says Cuellar. “They know exactly how sleep deprived, hungry, tired, or drunk you are and it feels like you’re not in this alone, which [creates] a small community.”
With web hosts like Blogger, WordPress, Livejournal, and Xanga, anybody with a passion for music (or any other subject) can get their voice heard. While it may be more difficult to develop that voice as not only a fan, but a critic, the important thing is to share your fervor for the art.
As Tyson says, “There’s enough shitty music out there that one could spend five lifetimes writing about [it]. Who has all of that negative energy? I’d much rather have [blogging] be about what we love.”