Diatribes…

Twang Nation asks the interesting and completely valid question of whether free downloads are a valuable means to an end or is it simply giving it all away for free.

Catbird Seat takes aim at music geeks and the overabundance of indie music on the net with this mixtape on Muxtape. But reading through the lolz I get a sense (and I’ve picked up on this in other Catbird Seat posts) that Catbird is also taking aim at the new gatekeepers.

There was a short time, a few years back, that the arguement was that mp3 blogs were going to replace traditional gatekeepers (radio, magazines, traditional press). Although no one would admit it, mp3 bloggers were thrilled with that new power. They hardly got a chance to use it however.

Now, though the true egality of the net is taking over and anyone with a broadband connection can upload music to sites like iMeem, iLike and now Muxtape and have just as much influence the nascent bloggers.

Readers lose out - Stereogum gets paid in full

According to Paidcontent, Buzznet (I site I truly don’t get) has received even more funding, this time with $$$ from Universal/Interscope. Also mentioned in the article is the fact that Stereogum is now wholly owned by Buzznet/Interscope. I’m not so worried about Stereogum’s potential conflict of interest, as with the fact that they’ll lose whatever original voice they once had (under Scott’s tenure) and become an even more boring place filled with exclusive previews of new songs/videos with little editorial content.

Daily Music Blog Update

Hate Something Beautiful written up by 944.com.

The Wheels’ Still In Spin named “best of” by Cincinnati’s CityBeat.

Hype Machine got a lot of love from Wired and ReadWriteWeb.

“Magazines To Music Blogs” courtesy of The Daily Tar Heel.