Papa's Got A Brand New Blog

Sorry, I couldn't resist that title... But yes, I do have another blog (Crazed by the Music, from a Josephine Baker quote) that I'm doing now for the stalwart folks at PopMatters. Though they cover some of the same area that I do with my own zine, I have a lot of respect for the work that they do- I see them as fellow travelers, not competitors. I don't always agree with what they have to say either but I appreciate the fact that they put some thought into what they say. I'm tired of the purposely contrary articles/think-pieces purposefully done to raise eyebrows and the amateurish gonzo B.S. that too often passes off as online journalism, giving the whole field a bad name. I'm glad that there are more voices out there speaking about music and related topics but that doesn't mean that all of it's worth reading (or writing). End rant.

What I intend to do is keep Ye Wei around but change the focus to reports on new/old artists that I like and want to get the word out about, which I always wanted to do anyway. The diatribes and rants about music industry news and issues I intend to keep at PopMatters. I find that I don't always have time to do one blog, not because I don't have ideas but because I have too many ideas and not enough time to form them in even an off-the-cuff blog post. I'll try to keep up as best I can though because I do feel strongly about what I say online (and offline). I'm fine if people don't agree with me but I'd just like to believe that people can at least start thinking about these issues.

Just so that I don't get too full of myself and the whole idea of blogging, there's this sobering report: Did you say dogging or blogging? Brits confused. Note this in particular:

"A survey of British taxi drivers, pub landlords and hairdressers -- often seen as barometers of popular trends -- found that nearly 90 percent had no idea what a podcast is and more than 70 percent had never heard of blogging... Our research not only shows that there is no buzz about blogging and podcasting outside of our media industry bubble, but also that people have no understanding of what the words mean," Carter said. "It's a real wake-up call.""

Granted that the one survey of drivers and hairdressers isn't the last word on the influence and ubiquitous quality of blogs but it's funny to see an article like this go against all of the other reports about how many people are blogging now and how many are springing up each day. Then again, maybe they're right and maybe we're all fooling ourselves here. If so, that's fine with me as long as we all enjoy ourselves doing it.