A path to the future, some may say.
The know-it-all idealism of youth is on full display here--every college student interprets the lack of parental control as a sign of wisdom, in case you haven't noticed--but it's telling. And prescient to a degree.
MP3 bloggers, which are bloggers that evangelize their favorite music (which they of course refer to as "good" music) and post MP3s in order to spread the word, are the latest hip element of the music world. It's a pretty obvious extension of the DJ trend, where anyone with a large record collection has the capability of playing scenemaker.
Oddly enough, the bloggers in the roundtable are hestitant to dismiss the signs of decline in brick-and-mortar record stores. The newest generation of music lovers--early teens and tweens--continue to leave behind traditional retailing in favor of digital distribution, yet this roundtable seems oblivious to the demographic immediately below them. Part of this is a metropolis-centric worldview where hipster record stores are still highly influential, but part of it is the same myopia that has guided the major labels for the past decade.
Other clues of this are the repeated references to "good" music, a cornerstone of narrow-minded, indie-centric thinking that places significant value on scarcity. In this case, scarcity determines hipness--bands that get "overlooked" are more valuable to in terms of discovery. Even though the major labels release hundreds of albums each year, the people at this roundtable will almost certainly place a greater value to smaller labels
simply because they are smaller labels and not on objective merits. Which is fine, but it is what it is.
Despite the blind passion of youth and egotism of being recognized as trendy, the link is a good read.
