are blogs influential? can they help sales? do they have any real clout?

I suppose if you mean can a blog or blogs in general push sales up, my guess is probably no, since most of the blog readers are probably also downloaders, and attention span in blogging is so short that no-one will build a particularly loyal following (i.e. fatigue sets in early -- 'I loved the first track, but by the time the album comes out I'm bored'). But since the press are always willing to rip off ideas from the cyber coffee houses, it could help to build the kind of buzz journos like to report (if they can't be arsed to just make it up) I suppose. But without major cash for promotion (and a commercial sound) most artists are unlikely to sell big, no?

Are newspapers not part of this "real world" either, then?

So I'd assume music blogs aren't nearly as influential as political blogs (even aside from the "blogs toppled Dan Rather!" incidents). And if M.I.A. becomes a star in America it'll probably be because even papers like the Boston Globe are running features on her - though I'm sure the blogs helped get those writers on her.

Well, I think music blogging, at best, is a cottage industry (in relation to the "big business" political blogs), & won't ever even come close to that level of success, esp. since I imagine writing about music (either reviews, or features) is frowned upon by most folks that consider critics to be jealous of the works they're critiquing. After all, it's not like any print music mag is poised to pass Time or Newsweek in circulation. I'd also argue that the influence political blogs have is overestimated, as well, despite what the right-leaning blogosphere would have folks believe. Despite where the information came from, straight-up INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM toppled Dan Rather, from both sides: the folks that debunked the memos, and the folks that didn't bother to doublecheck the memos in the first place.

The biggest thing about the blog v. print schism - they're doing the same damn thing. Bloggers might have more stylistic freedom, and less editorial influence (both w/ their good & bad points, obv.), but it's not like they're doing anything that different than what print journos do. The failure of folks in the print media rioting against / dismissing what they don't (want to) understand, when it's eminently understandable, blows my mind.

Last year most of my CD's were purchased after hearing a track off a good blog like fluxblog or music for robots, 20jazzfunkgreats, soul sides etc.

About 4-5,000 sounds right.

Sorry, I don't mean that, on either count.

inasmuch as george w. bush is still president and republicans are in control are of every facet of american life and politics, what makes you think wonkette and talking point memo, for example, are influential?

I'm sure that Dizzee Rascal won the Mercury Music prize in part due to blissblog & co (and here). The original run of I Luv You must have been what, 500 or a 1000 copies all sold in about three different shops, but the exposure nationally and worldwide due to the combination of blogs and downloading was huge.

House of Jealous Lovers and dfa/LCD generally were another 'blog hit' first. I'm Losing My Edge was again originally a really small pressing but had an very wide audience that it wouldn't otherwise have had.

Because I know a lot more about social security and anal sex now.

But seriously - political blogs seem to have picked up a broader audience; music blogs are still an echo chamber. Josh Marshall at TPM has helped rally the Democrats into a (so far) effective opposition to Social Security; he's part of the discourse. With a few exceptions, music blogs don't interest anybody but other music bloggers. You might as well blog about model trains.

The music press in the UK is dead, buried and ov-ah. This is due to a mixture of more coverage in the newspapers and people getting their music info on the net - either through official/fan sites of artists or blogs.

I'm not a critic but I read a few blogs in the same way I used to get the melody maker or whatever.

Blogging is the perfect medium for music criticism (as opposed to mindless boosterism and repeating press releases)- not driven by release schedules, plenty of room for pictures, mp3 blogs (or you're sat at yr computer anyway so you can slsk what you're reading about), realtime debate in comments boxes rather than a crappy letters page once a week.

Music bloggers play a similar function, influencing critics and execs a lot more than they do the general public. They're much nearer the start of the promotional food chain, and as such, aren't even supposed to have a big effect on sales. They're more supposed to be starting agents, helping to get over those first few initial humps. And there's no question--trust me on this one--that music blogs help get bands signed.

About 4-5,000 sounds right.

This would be nice, but actually you gotta crack 30-40k before you have even a chance of the top 200, and that'd be in a slow week.

The Diffusion Of Innovation And The Adoption Of New Music
http://www.mediathink.com/audience/diffusion.asp

There is the cascading effect of: The diffusion of innovation curve:

...Consumer perceptions, attitudes, and tolerance for creativity should be the main concerns of the music marketer. It makes little difference whether it is a radio station, music video channel, independent, or major record label.

What is tolerance for creativity? What is the psychological entry fee? What are we labeling? Tolerance for creativity is merely a reflection of attitude. The attitude one has about new ideas directly reflects tolerance for creativity. The psychological entry fee is the risk an individual takes to try something new. Risk aversion and tolerance are reflections of attitudes. Attitudes can be measured and associated with groups. This needs no proof - it is the basis of marketing research. Now that attitude has been identified for measure, a paradigm is needed to put attitude into context for use in a research model. The best, proven paradigm for information dissemination is the diffusion of innovation curve.

The diffusion of innovation curve has been used for many years in the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, and marketing. It is an accepted theoretical framework. Developed for analyzing technology adaptation by farmers, it is now used in all the social sciences. It can be meaningfully related to the familiar model of the product life cycle with its five phases of introduction, growth, maturity, saturation, and decline. In its application to the music industry, the noncumulative curve is the one most applicable since I believe that adaptation of new music takes place at different creativity tolerances.

The noncumulative diffusion curve partitions diffusion into groups of adopters over time. Extensive research shows that is has a fairly normal or bell-shaped curve. Five classifications have been developed based on using the mean and standard deviation assuming a normal distribution.

The classifications of adopters and their general distribution in the population are:

The classifications of adopters and their general distribution in the population are:

INNOVATORS 2.5%

EARLY ADOPTERS 13.5%

EARLY MAJORITY 34%

LATE MAJORITY 34%

LAGGARDS l6%

the first level innovators requires immense effort and critical judgement, the people who influence at this level have access to resources: e.g A&R community, advance promos [some journalists], have direct connections to musicians or music scenes, some specialist radio djs or club djs etc.
One some occasions bloggers can be at the innovator level, however the characterists of music bloggers are more commonly found at level 2:

music bloggers would be in the level 2 category [early adopters], [they are the information gatekeepers, they demonstrate good judgement and are respected, they manifest attitude - they influence and can shape opinion] this would then kick in to the early majority [level 3]

I was the first to mention in the blogosphere: Ulrich Schnauss [after hearing his astonishing music one Sunday in the autumn of 2001 on a specialist radio programme just before the release of his debut album], Patrick Wolf [way before the release of his debut single] and even Interpol way before the release of their debut album.

Level 3 ..early majority [other bloggers, blog readers, agreement on music forums, social interaction word of mouth, more media coverage...the snow balling effect]

the late majority could be acceptance by the more conservative/ established media channels, which in turn influences the masses

then come the last group the laggards, who are unsophisticated NON information centric people.

..in terms of new music / new artists - bloggers are [early adopters] they can be influential in bridging the gap between the innovators and the early majority.

I bet LCD has sold fuck all, as will MIA, because both of them appeal primarily to the downloading demographic.
-- Jacob (jwrigh...), March 30th, 2005 10:04 PM. (Jacob)

That's partly because the industry is a mechanism for identifying and building up stars : a small number of artists who are very well known. Blogs are not designed for this. If blogs show their influence, it won't be by identifying and creating new super-stars; but by contributing to the decline of the star system, and the fragmentation of taste into niches.

Other question. Is ILM counted as a "blog" in this context? Are we really talking about online / democratic media vs. big commercial media or a more strict genre of online writing?

After all, are "fanzines" influential? Yeah, most underground music that became huge was nurtured by a dedicated fanbase, and fanzines often were part of that. I think we saw something like that with blogs and bootlegging / mashups. It's hard to imagine a mashup scene without the blogs that carry those MP3s. And where would Dangermouse be then?

OTM. They can cultivate and grow small cults, but they can't break anything big without corporate help.

blogs

Those were the days.

songs that made the hype machine...

I got a press release the other day (from someone who obviously isn't up to date on who is writing about music these days) that described a track as "blog friendly". What does that mean, and am I justified in being angry about it?

(why) did blogs become obsolete? maybe they were closely related to p2p networks and now with spotify/youtube music isn't shared as mp3 files as much, maybe the internet is faster or more organized now so blog knowledge is less needed, maybe social networks took over a lot of the social aspect of blogs, maybe it was all a fad? i dunno

this list is silly http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/permalink/2014/03/26/20blogs

I mean, Pitchfork saw that Stereogum et al were eating their lunch and started the Forkcast as a deposit zone for legal MP3s. Indie rock labels started going straight to them, and all the middle-tier blogs dried up because they couldn't compete with exclusives. Then they combined all the popular lower-tier blogs into Altered Zones, funnelled all their audiences into one site, and then deaded that.

As for "premieres" and "exclusives" in 2014, you can now drop those on literally anywhere (as Weird Al proved this week), so the whole endeavor doesn't even need music blogs to help them

the constant trumpeting of music blogs as the future of music was possibly the most near-sighted music-related "news" story of the 00s, and should go down as the music industry's version of the tech bubble and Ted Talks

who was trumpeting music blogs as the future of music other than music blogs

the constant trumpeting of music blogs as the future of music was possibly the most near-sighted music-related "news" story of the 00s, and should go down as the music industry's version of the tech bubble and Ted Talks

this honestly feels like a humblebrag

IT WAS THE BIGGEST BLOOPER OF ITS DAY

re Forkcast etc. that seems like a good analysis, but I'd also imagine that nowadays a lot of p4k traffic is reviews and that users are interested in following consensus more than curious to see what quirky bloggers think? As a news site (especially if you want to keep up with who's playing what tv show or doing what commercials) it's probably also doing pretty good but who's reading all the features?

I'd agree blogs were totally hyped in mainstream media (and also by the 'industry', I got free passes to everything because I did a tiny blog in Denmark)

who was trumpeting music blogs as the future of music other than music blogs

― iatee, Friday, July 25, 2014 1:59 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Xeni Jardin did a report on NPR, there was like a four page spin article with photos of noz and perpetua, ultragrrl and gvsb got major label a&r gigs,

stereogum sold for like $5mil

sarah lewitinn @ultragrrrl · Jul 11
I've held it off til now bc I was scared of how I'd feel: I finally watched the @Interpol vid and I can't deal with life and it's glory.

sarah lewitinn @ultragrrrl · Jul 11
I was sitting at the front of the bus while watching and it was the most intimate thing I've ever done in public.

Replied to 0 times

wasn't perpetua in the NYT

xp

Forgot About Z.U.N.E.

http://macdailynews.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/070514_zune_dock.jpg

like yeah the media got up its own ass a bit re blogs but honestly i'm not shocked its a media person saying the media should never forget when it oversold the media

there were definitely grander follies in the music industry than when some bloggers got profiled and a media brand was purchased for a couple million

i guess i mean the music media, not the music industry

the constant trumpeting of music blogs as the future of music was possibly the most near-sighted music-related "news" story of the 00s, and should go down as the music industry's version of the tech bubble and Ted Talks

― dilligaf escape plan (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, July 25, 2014 6:56 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Word

stereogum sold for like $5mil

stereogum for like 5 million vs. beats for like 3 billion.

blogs are still big, it's the music that got small