May. 26, 2004 - Issue #449: Super Size Me

Last night an MP3J saved my life

Musical weblogs spread the gospel of offbeat, independent music

From pirate radio stations on seabound ships transmitting American rock to the youth of England in the early 1960s to bedroom disc jockeys broadcasting groundbreaking hip-hop, decades of bland corporate radio have forced people to find countless ways to get underground music distributed and heard. But today, thanks to the Internet, those floating radio stations and DIY studios have given way to a new medium for free musical expression: the MP3 blog. Blogs first began to rise to popularity in early 2000; most took the form of free-ranging online journals in which ordinary Netizens would share political and cultural opinions with the wider world, report on the detritus of their daily lives and post links to other people’s blogs. But it wasn’t long before music fans took the concept one step further by posting MP3 files to accompany blog entries in which they rhapsodized over certain songs or tried to create buzz around hot, emerging bands. Instead of just reading and imagining what the song sounded like, the reader was actually able to listen to the track while reading what the MP3J (a term coined by Ben Walker in an NPR radio story about the phenomenon) thought about it. It’s a far cry from the predetermined setlists of corporate-owned radio stations, with barely an artist credit to be heard. The forefather of MP3 blogs is said to be Matthew Perpetua, who began writing Fluxblog (newflux.blogspot.com) in February 2002. Frustrated by the lack of a college radio station in his area, the 24-year-old art school grad took his existing blog and began posting MP3s on it to express his musical tastes. Perpetua readily admits that other people experimenting with the MP3 format at the time were a strong influence, but after settling into a daily routine of posting songs and writing, word-of-mouth made Fluxblog the only MP3 blog worth hitting. “It’s very flattering when they give me credit for inspiring them,” Perpetua says of the sites that have sprung up in Fluxblog’s wake. “I think that there is a lot of potential in the [MP3 blog] format. It’s all about curating, so I like to see how different people do it. It’s a lot like mixtapes and mix CDs—everybody can do it, but people who are really good at it find a way to express a point of view.” As for the content of these blogs, most MP3Js show a preference for harder-to-find music, from esoteric indie-rock to obscure jazz, music that tends not to see the light of day on the radio or in industry magazines. “I see my weblog as music evangelism, saving the world from the top 40 one listener at a time,” says David Gutowski, proprietor of the Large Hearted Boy blog (blog.largeheartedboy.com). Karen Wickman, a 20-year-old Los Angeles college student who updates her blog, Burned by the Sun (burnedbythesun.blogspot.com), with weekly MP3 postings ranging from rare Beatles outtakes to highlights from the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers soundtrack, agrees with Gutowski’s sentiment. “I’m one of those dorks who always has to make everyone listen to an album I love,” says Wickman, whose site receives more than 1,000 hits a day, “because I want them to love it as much as I do. It’s a good feeling to present a buried treasure to an audience, and to champion your favourite underappreciated band.” For many MP3Js, it’s the freedom the medium provides that motivates them. Said the Gramophone (www.tangmonkey.com/blogs/music) administrator and McGill graduate Sean Michaels sees MP3 blogs as a way to expand his music writing beyond the constraints of more mainstream avenues. “There’s something really liberating about the free-for-all blog format,” he says. “You can really play with stream-of-consciousness, abstract and near-delirious imagery, without an editor breathing down your neck.” Obviously, all this unauthorized posting and distributing of copyrighted music is bound to have its legal complications. In a cursory attempt to cover themselves, nearly all MP3Js run a disclaimer on their blogs proclaiming that the tracks are for evaluation purposes only and highly urging visitors to purchase the album if you enjoyed the tracks. As well, the files are always rotated and never kept on longer than a week—a move to discourage other sites from linking to the songs. But luckily, since the type of songs these blogs tend to post travel well below the radar of most big record labels, lawsuits have yet to reach the MP3Js. Michaels did once receive a cease and desist order through the server that hosted Said the Gramophone, but was never told which file was the offending one. On the other hand, he has been contacted by numerous artists delighted to find their songs on his weblog. Brian Michael Roff was thrilled to see his song “Magazine Memories” posted on Gramophone, as was Dave DeCastris, whose song “Upchuck” was also championed on Michaels’s site. “It made me feel good to see one of my songs being shared and reviewed,” DeCastris said, comparing the feeling to “seeing your juicy new boobs sans scars three months after they were created, being drooled over by horny men and envious women.” For some artists, the benefits of appearing on an MP3 blog are substantial. When Fluxblog posted LCD Soundsystem’s dance-punk song “Yeah (Stupid Version),” for instance, the track spread across the Net like wildfire, appearing on countless message boards and eventually making it onto college radio playlists. “A lot of what I post is quite obscure,” says Perpetua. “And it can be hard for them to find an audience, so if I can help them out, then I feel as though I’ve done my job.” Michaels agrees with the perception that MP3Js do more good than bad. “I know for a fact that Said the Gramophone helps to sell records,” he says. “I’ve spoken to many readers who have picked up albums or gone to shows after hearing a band on my blog. It’s the most gratifying aspect of the whole affair.” But MP3 blogs may be sitting beneath a sword of Damocles. Matt Ness, a 35-year-old technical writer who runs the blog Ready Rock (www.livejournal.com/users/ moebius_rex), worries that as more and more blogs start popping up, it’s only a matter of time until the music industry sits up and takes notice. “There’s plenty more self-styled Lester Bangs and Phillip Sherbourne imitators out there who will jump on the bandwagon as soon as they catch wind of what’s going on,” he says. “Everyone’s a music critic, you know. I’m sure that eventually we’ll end up with some dude who’s determined to cover every nook and cranny of the Dave Matthews Band/Phish/Hootie and the Blowfish bootleg universe—and that, unfortunately, will probably be the point where the RIAA starts running around with its collective hair on fire.” “I think that we will start seeing a mainstreaming, and I think that will be when the bubble collapses,” prophesies Keith Causin of Teaching the Indie Kids How to Dance Again (teachingtheindiekidstodanceagain.blogspot.com) prophesies. “The RIAA will start staking out the blog circuit, Matt Perpetua and Sean from Said the Gramophone will get fat A&R deals, and the rest of us will be shut down or start going corporate, taking ads and asking permission. And that’ll be the death of it. I hope that doesn’t happen, but that’s where I see this going.” V

More stories in front »

New comments for this entry have been turned off and any existing ones are hidden. We apologize for any inconvenience.