Music blogs: what are they, which are good?

[modsquad]

I'm looking for new sources of music online and I want to start using the music blogs. I don't quite understand them, however. What are they, exactly? What are some good ones and can I legally download music to my hard drive through them?

 

[Sartorian]

My friend who's a diehard music junkie recently turned me on to Pitchfork. More of an online magazine, but a lot of hippest latest on there.

 

[Dedalus]

Music blogs are blogs where people post some songs. Try The Hype Machine. It is a blog aggregator, so you don't have to look at a bunch of different blogs. As for online magazines as suggested above, I've often preferred the writing of Stylus Magazine to Pitchfork.

 

[shoreman1782]

hypem is good if you know what you're looking for or want to know what's "hot," but it's less useful for thoughtful content. Pitchfork is OK, but you have to keep in mind they make their name by having strong opinions--not necessarily good opinions. I look at metacritic.com when I want the consensus on a new release.

I don't follow blogs that closely anymore but those I've read regularly before are fluxblog.org, stereogum.com, my old kentucky blog, said the gramophone, gorilla vs bear, you ain't no picasso, and brooklyn vegan. Sorry I don't have the web addresses handy, but I bet they're googleable.

I'd recommend emusic.com as a good, cheap music source for independent music (as opposed to iTunes), but they've lost some label support lately, and you sometimes have to sift through a lot of crap there.

 

[appolyon]

You could also try:

http://aurgasm.us

 

[Brian278]

There's also aso Prefix Mag, which I often use for a second opinion. But they're sort of a poor man's Pitchfork, who I still prefer to anything else I've found.

 

[whodini]

I don't read it regularly but this chick is pretty in tune with my tastes and ALWAYS has the hookups with live/rare/promo tracks: http://fuelfriends.blogspot.com/

 

[chronoaug]

Back when i was into finding new music 2 years ago, i loved www.tinymixtapes.com . They were into hip new music, but they were insightful, humorous, and 1000x less pretentious than pitchfork. They had articles and and running columnists every once in awhile and there was one guy whose articles always really spoke to me. Plus, one of the people who added news about cds and tours name was "Mango Starr" which instantly made me like him.

 

[modsquad]

These suggestions sound great. I'll check 'em out.

 

[poly800rock]

Originally Posted by Dedalus

Music blogs are blogs where people post some songs. Try The Hype Machine. It is a blog aggregator, so you don't have to look at a bunch of different blogs.

As for online magazines as suggested above, I've often preferred the writing of Stylus Magazine to Pitchfork.

i love stylus over pitchfork. pitchfork is so marsupialed sometimes. stylus have the "
playing god" articles where the rearrange tracks and also the revisited one...

 

[Manny Calavera]

Yeah, totally. **** Pitchfork!

I'd say gorillavsbear, stereogum (they're currently doing a fantastic album covers series), tiny mix tapes and brooklyn vegan are the best blogs.