Post by @ricmac@mastodon.social

Simon Reynolds, one of my favourite authors, on blogging in the 2000s. He still blogs to this day, unusually running multiple Blogspot sites, one for each book and/or genre he writes about. I subscribe to all of them in my Feedbin / NetNewsWire setup, and dip in from time to time. Also some other music bloggers, especially of the esoteric variety. Alas, tech bloggers aren’t as active these days…or as interesting, tbh. I like that early 2000s energy of the mp3 bloggers.

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AFTERWORD / AFTERWARDS
represented a riposte to Oasis at Knebworth: a convocation of future-facing people blithely indifferent to Britpop.
Having said that, the internet did birth something that gave me a thrilling second taste of the same synergy between writers, and between writers and readers, that had fuelled the heyday of the print-and-paper weeklies. I'm talking about the blog scene of the 2000s. Here, it seemed to me, was the music press in exile, magically reconstituted online. Arguments raged, enthusiasms roiled, pretentiousness reigned supreme. As a blogger you were free to play games with structure and tone even more so than in the old-school weeklies. You could connect music to politics, philosophy, and all the other arts. You could wax theoretical or deeply personal. And the pace was even faster than the weekly rhythm of the music papers: with no intermediary editors, you responded to other bloggers' provocations in almost real-time, as I did with Mark Fisher's now legendary K-Punk blog among many others. Only downside: no pay, not even the measly word-rates offered by the inkies. So like a born-again fanzine writer, I blogged just for the pure love of it. And I still do, even though most of my first-wave contemporaries from the 2000s have moved on to other things. — AFTERWORD / AFTERWARDS represented a riposte to Oasis at Knebworth: a convocation of future-facing people blithely indifferent to Britpop. Having said that, the internet did birth something that gave me a thrilling second taste of the same synergy between writers, and between writers and readers, that had fuelled the heyday of the print-and-paper weeklies. I'm talking about the blog scene of the 2000s. Here, it seemed to me, was the music press in exile, magically reconstituted online. Arguments raged, enthusiasms roiled, pretentiousness reigned supreme. As a blogger you were free to play games with structure and tone even more so than in the old-school weeklies. You could connect music to politics, philosophy, and all the other arts. You could wax theoretical or deeply personal. And the pace was even faster than the weekly rhythm of the music papers: with no intermediary editors, you responded to other bloggers' provocations in almost real-time, as I did with Mark Fisher's now legendary K-Punk blog among many others. Only downside: no pay, not even the measly word-rates offered by the inkies. So like a born-again fanzine writer, I blogged just for the pure love of it. And I still do, even though most of my first-wave contemporaries from the 2000s have moved on to other things.

Bill Bennett

@billbennett@mastodon.nz 1 hour ago

@ricmac I think it’s become much harder to write anything independent and skeptical or critical about tech for a variety of cultural reasons. And the audience isn’t there. I try occasionally, but I see less than 10% of the reader numbers I was getting 15 years ago. My telecoms writing is much better received.

Jay

@jaygooby@mastodon.social 1 hour ago

@ricmac I found so much great music via the mp3 bloggers!

Richard MacManus

@ricmac@mastodon.social 1 hour ago

@jaygooby Me too! I wrote this post a little while back about that scene: https://cybercultural.com/p/mp3-blogs-2003/

Cybercultural

2003: MP3 Blogs and Pitchfork Shake Up Music Media

Online music and blogging were two key trends in the first decade of digital culture. In 2003, they combine in the form of MP3 blogs. Together with Pitchfork, they revolutionize music journalism.