Music Blogs-a-Plenty or Too Many Music Blogs?

To me, there’s been some seriously interesting chatter in the music blog world lately.

Regardless of what you’re in it for, “music blogs” have now entered the gadget/celebrity blog status where advertisers are flocking and therefore (seemingly) everyone has to get in the ring — Glide Magazine, Gawker, TechCrunch, Pitchfork, AOL, Relix, etc. I can say that I saw this coming (partially) but definitely not to the extent it’s blossomed recently…

Some questions: Why a blog? I have at least one guess as a response to that question…but why not just beef up the online prescence in editorial-based content? Why have both editorial columns and blogs separate? Why put news on a blog if you have a music news section already dedicated? Does blog inherently mean “mix” of content — mp3’s, videos, downloads, links to others, a blogroll, etc.? Should every good music site be a mix of this already?

All good questions that I’d hope the editors of such sites are pondering, because hell, I think of this s*** all the time while trying to determine what Live Music Blog should be and/or/vs. what it actually is. Sometimes I feel that I’m a little too personal and therefore I’m pigeonholing myself to be some “I like this MP3” sorta blogger. Isn’t a blog, by definition, personal? Then again, post Justin Timberlake tour dates for those that may have some interest in the guy (and maybe not myself personally) and you’d think the world was coming to an end…

But maybe that’s just because my readers have certain expectations…

And I have a similar set of expectations for the sites mentioned above…

All the above sites were all well-and-good enough in my eyes before they decided that a blog was another way to reach out to readers. I mean — for instance — why does Rolling Stone need music news, columns, and a blog? How the hell do they decide where to put what — especially if a post is a mixed bag of thoughts and ideas? When did they decide that they needed to be more than a magazine? JamBase is much more than a tour database now — you can interact and comment on their site now (albeit under Editor moderation) — and they have a blog, too. See a pattern yet?

While I think some might see it as a natural progression of a media business model — “why not start a blog to interact with readers in a new way?” — I’d see this as a distraction from good content that only becomes more confusing to a reader. Magazines are magazines. Blogs are blogs. And maybe we all just need to be a little more upfront with our intentions. I think, at least, we all owe our readers that much…

What do you think? Too many blogs dillute the medium?

I thought I’d publish this here as this blog has significantly more reach than my personal blog. In the future, you can expect to see some more posts like this there and a little less non-music posts here…sound good? Super.