Originally Posted by demonrail666

The problem as I see it isn't blogs, or any general decline in standards either with music or amongst listeners. It's about types of blogs and types of music and types of listeners. Fortunately the worst of each tend to find each other.

I personally think it's safe to say that rock music (be it 'indie'/'alternative' or otherwise) has been fairly dead in the water for at least the past decade or so. The enormous rise of a band like Radiohead is surely the product of a similar realisation amongst those 'indie' fans that accept this fact but don't want to stray too far from their comfort zone. The same could be said for the emergence of genres like Nu-Rave and before that, the elevation of gig-friendly 'techno' by the likes of Orbital or The Prodigy. This is 'innovation' for people that crave it, but appear to fear its consequences.

Those people have their blogs (and their magazines) but that isn't to say that blogs are a problem in themselves. Blogs like the ones being discussed here, and the average indie fan are like dealers and junkies in that they tend to stick together - which at least keeps them away from those of us with better things to do than trying to find the new Pixies/Fall/SY/Radiohead, etc.