Nov 13, 2007
Replace ‘mp3 blogs’ with ‘the internet’ and it still sounds daft.
The Hype Machine’s Anthony Volodkin did a bit of judicious editing on the ‘MP3 blogs are killing music‘ article in the Guardian blogs that I mentioned the other day. He replaced the words ‘mp3 blogs’ with ‘the internet’, and found that it pretty much continued to make just as much sense as a piece of writing — and just as little sense as a coherent, informed argument.
It makes for entertaining reading and really shows up the whole, laughable, ’sky is falling’ reactionary tone.
When will people learn that insisting things be the way they used to be is not a survival strategy? Adapting and overcoming, as one friend puts it, is the only way forward.
Nov 9, 2007
There’s a ‘Sky-Is-Falling’ article in the Guardian’s Blog about how mp3 bloggers are wiping out independent music. Here’s how to be part of the massacre.
A friend of mine sent me a link to Louis Pattison’s Thursday post on the Guardian Unlimited Arts blog. In it, Pattison claims that mp3 bloggers are killing the independent artists and businesses they claim to promote by giving their music away for free.
As my friend said, “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…”
MP3 blogs, if you’ve missed the phenomenon, are regularly updated websites that talk about music and link to songs that their readers can download and listen to. Typically, the mp3 blog keeps itself to a particular subgenre of music, usually from the independent music end of the spectrum, rather than the more mainstream major label stuff.
Think of them as advocates, rather than pirates.
[Read more]
Nov 6, 2007
Long overdue… but better late than never. Looking to fill your brain with helpful stuff about music online? Go read this man’s book.
David Jennings, rightly happy with his efforts
I met David Jennings at the Music Tank event on Monday night. It was the first time we’d been in the same room together, to my knowledge, but it gave me a bit of a guilty start.
He sent me his book a couple of months back (a few even?) and although I read it, enjoyed it and found it genuinely worthwhile, I am still yet to write anything about it by way of recommendation.
So… let’s fix that. The book’s called Net, Blogs and Rock & Roll — and it looks at the online music world from the perspective of the net-savvy consumer.
[Read more]
