Now this is a good one (MP3 blog/aggregator thing)

the idea that instant music download make music criticism irrelevant is so wrong. if anything it should make music writing better.

using music reviews as a buyers guide <<<<<<<<< using music reviews as a starting point for discussion

Music reviews still do act as filters too. None of us have time to listen to everything. Shit like Metacritic, Pitchfork's Best New Music section, ILM threads, etc. suggest stuff to us we might like.]

But deej, you're definitely correct in saying that "the idea that instant music download make music criticism irrelevant is so wrong. if anything it should make music writing better."

kshighway, you said exactly what i was going to. i use criticism as filters for the vast amount of shit out there. i won't even bother reading music blogs that don't at least have embedded flash samples, though. i want to be part of the process and be able to make my own judgments while reading.

rockapads, I totally agree that criticism + actual audio is the ideal way to go.

I wasn't sure where else to put this but:
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/catching-up-with-the-mp3-bloggers
ten years. so old.

http://www.bkmag.com/2014/12/01/what-happened-to-all-the-music-blogs
with love from maura. this is kinda what happened to the mp3 blogs: they sold out or bought in or kept ongoing low profiles

Where have all the bloggers gone, forks have pitched them one by one

Fifteen years! explaining to younger people what an mp3 blog is has become much more complicated than i ever imagined but it generally starts with "okay so before youtube got popular"

it's like youtube but if the video description was interesting and made sense

I wonder how long we have until nobody under a certain age even knows what MP3s are