The very, very sad disappearance of music blogs

   Most of the music that I've discovered during the past five or six years I've done so through music blogs. I was going to say most of the new music I've discovered, but the reality is that almost none of the music is new at all. In fact, most of it is at least one generation or older, as well as being otherwise unavailable or extremely difficult to find for purchase in any form. Of course, I am aware that there is new music being released all the time, but I find so much of it to lack the soul of older music, due in part to modern production techniques, but also, I believe, because the artists who are making new music are writing during a time when the expectations of who will be listening to it are an audience of people raised on smartphones with, in my belief, less patience for imperfection and a differing view of what it means to be in the world than I have. I'm trying not to be bias in this idea, but we all generally respond to the eras when we are born, and I am very much a product of mine.
   I wish that this blog entry was written only to praise the writers and researchers who brought to my attention (and made available) so much of this music, but unfortunately it is being written as a kind of eulogy, because very few of these blogs exist anymore, and the ones that do don't make any of the music being written about available to hear. I find music to be most moving when I can listen to it.
   The reader who knows nothing of this subject might wonder why it is that such a wonderful service, one that helps people to broaden their musical horizons, maybe the ways that see the world, and share the discoveries they've made, would be written about in a sad memorial; and the answer is, unfortunately, because these blogs are all but dead.
   It seems that the music industry (and their trade association/watchdog, the Recording Industry Association of America), in an over reaching effort to combat file sharing, has put the lean on the blog sites that post this music, forcing them to fold under legal threats from this powerful group and their financial allies.  From what I can tell, the music industry is not really interested in music at all, because their laws and lawsuits against music sharing services have had the effect, planned or not, of making otherwise beautiful, forgotten or unknown unavailable music now completely unavailable and unknowable.
   When I think about how many wonderful and varied artists I first learned about by reading and downloading music from the numerous blogs of just a few years ago, it makes me sad that it will be that much harder to have these kind of consciousness expanding musical experiences going forward.