Music Blogs, Music Scenes, Sub-cultural Capital: Emerging Practices in Music Blogs

Beatrice Jetto

AbstractDrawing upon theories largely used in popular music studies I

propose a new approach for the analysis of music blogs using concepts such as music scene, sub-cultural capital and authenticity. I first consider music blogs as an emerging form of commercially independent fan production, a more recent digital reincarnation of fanzines, creating and circulating sub-cultural capital within indie music scenes at a local as well as at a virtual level. I describe how music blogs act as cultural gatekeepers filtering information in different but often overlapping contexts. Using Bourdieu’s Field of Cultural Production as the main theoretical framework, I argue that contrasting dynamics of hierarchization and commercialization, operating within music scenes, might influence music blogging and, consequently, how they filter information. Although music blogs have been considered as operating independently from the music industry I raise some issues in regards their authenticity and cultural autonomy from pressure of power within indie scenes. I argue that music blogs’ cultural production is often shaped by personal motives as well as more commercial motives such as popularity and professional status. The considerations presented in this paper are based on primary ethnography data on the Australian indie scene and in-depth interviews with Australian music bloggers.

Key Words: Music blogs, Music scenes, sub-cultural capital, authenticity, field of cultural production, cultural gatekeepers, music industry, co-optation.

*****

1. Introduction

Wodtke defines music blogs as a combination of music/magazine, diary/journal, fanzine, pirate/alternative radio, because they combine elements of all of them into a single media form.1 Music blogs first emerged from a passionate community of music lovers posting MP3 files, usually from non-mainstream artists, accompanied by personal reviews of songs, information about the artists, and any other personal input that the author

Music Blogs, Music Scenes and Sub-cultural Capital: Emerging Practices in Music Blogs

decided to include. As such, the personal touch of music blogs makes them comparable to musical diaries.2 What gives value to many blogs, is the writing personality. Personality gives the feeling that the writing is produced by a real individual with enthusiasm for the music they feature and not by a professional and distanced writer. Music blogs serve as a medium “through which like-minded musical connoisseurs would share, show off, and cultivate their common appreciation for music”.3 By focusing on niche contexts such as genre-based music scenes or more local geographical-based scenes, music blogs have recently developed into a prominent source of information especially for special interest groups, rather than the masses.4

The emergence of music blogs has paralleled changes in the recording industry and shifts in music consumption behavior. An unprecedented availability of music, with a drastically increasing number of bands and artists made selectivity and filtering extremely important to music consumers in order to find what interests them.5 Excess of music availability and fragmentation of interests have favored the emergence of a new category of grassroots intermediaries or filters that assist audiences in navigating their preferred areas of interests. Several authors have already emphasized the importance of blogs as intermediaries between fans communities and the music industry.6

Although blogs have a potential reach of millions of readers and some blogs aspire to a large audience; in fact, the vast majority only get few hits per day.7 Most blogs are concerned with blogging to those that they know and to those like-minded people that are part of the same community.8

Therefore, this paper is primarily based on an ethnographic micro-analysis of Australian music blogs, within the specific context of the Australian indie scene. Previous studies have already discussed the role of music blogs within specific scenes and subcultures.9 Baym argues how music blogs’ practices - especially the ones with small readership - are often influenced by the offline music scene in which the blogger participates.10 Morris argues that music blogs rarely feature music found at the top of popular music charts and they mainly showcase independent bands focusing on up-and-coming artists in indie music scenes.11 These studies lead me to think that a meaningful approach in studying music blogs would have been to focus the analysis on a specific music scene.

2. Music Scenes, Sub-cultural Capital and Music Blogs

Music blogs first emerged as a manifestation of fandom that soon replaced more traditional forms of commercially independent media, such as

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fanzines, because of social and cultural shifts in music scenes caused by technological developments such as the Internet, in the first place, and web 2.0 after.12 Over the past decade, several studies have illustrated the capacity of the Internet to contribute to the development or the reinforcement of music scenes and subcultures.13 I argue that the emergence of music blogs is consistent with such trends.

Bennett defines music scene as the clusters of musicians, promoters and fans, etc., who collectively share a common interest for a particular genre of music or musical taste usually related to a particular local setting, such as a city, where a particular style of music has developed14. He also distinguishes among three types of music scenes: the local, the trans-local and the virtual.15

A local music scene “takes place in a delimited space over a specific span of time”.16 O’Connor considers indie scenes the assemblage of indie bands, venues, infrastructure such as record stores, recording studios, indie labels, fanzines and audience to support bands and attend shows.17

A “trans-local scene” connects local scenes that are geographically separated through the exchange of cultural production such as music genres, and bands. Members of trans-local scenes embrace a specific local style of music but, at the same time, they also connect with parallel expressions of musical taste in other region of the world.18 Indie music, for example, can be considered a trans-local scene in that the same indie ideology connects a variety of local music communities, organized around independent music, into one cohesive group sharing the same indie principles. Indie music, however, is a very broad umbrella term including different subgenres coming from a variety of fusions of more established genres such as indie-rock, indie-pop, indie-dance, indie-electro, post-rock.19 Kruse, however, argues how the spirit of independence and the construction of indie’s identity in opposition to the mainstream, are sharing values across all indie scenes.20

Virtual scenes are formed in virtual spaces on the Internet such as chatrooms, online forums, Web sites. Members rarely meet personally instead communicating online.21 More recently, the spread of technologies collectively falling under the Web 2.0 banner have changed the shape of virtual music scenes from single site-centered toward more networked collectivism of fans spreading their practices among a number of sites and social media all networked one with another.22

Irwin states how relations with scenes often overlap so that one’s social identity can be associated with a number of scenes rather than only one.23 Music blogs can be seen to stand at the crossover of these three different types of scenes.

First of all, music blogs can be considered as an independent fan-produced media catering for the local scene. Baym observed how individual fans participate in the Swedish local indie scene through mp3 blogs.24 By listing events, reviewing gigs, featuring local acts and, more in general, by

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Music Blogs, Music Scenes and Sub-cultural Capital: Emerging Practices in Music Blogs

creating awareness about what is happening in the local scene, music blogs provides a major portion of the infrastructure that support the local scene.

As an online medium, music blogs are capable of networking with other fans with the same interests as well as reaching a global audience. In doing so they participate in the trans-local indie scene by creating, interacting and sharing opinions and information in a trans-local environment. Hodkinson examined how music blogs became an important platform in the UK Goth scene for exchange of information and interaction among Goths from different geographical location enhancing, in that way, sub-cultural participation.25

Finally, blogs are also part of the music blogosphere. Creating links and networking with other related music blogs is a common practice that music blogs perform in order to integrate into the desired online music scene.26 In fact, each music blog, through an articulated system of linking and commenting, can be part of a bigger online community of other blogs, generally with shared music interests27. Wodtke, rather than situating music blogs within the context of particular scenes, considers the music blogosphere as a separate online subculture since they are a form of refusal of traditional music press and mainstream music.28 Music blogs create their own virtual scene through a shared identity in opposition to the mainstream and through connecting one with another via hyperlinks. In each context blogs will generally filter content based on individual personal taste. For example, some may focus on a local indie scene or on the trans-local by featuring international artists, whilst others can be a combination of both. However, they all share the same principle of independence from the mainstream.

An important aspect to be considered in relation to indie scenes is that, despite an appearance of egalitarianism among members, in fact they reproduce social hierarchies based on status. Members, not only share the same interests, but also compete over cultural knowledge.29

A useful theoretical model to explain how these hierarchies work and how they impact on music blogs practices at a local as well at a virtual level is Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of Field of Cultural Production.30 Following Bourdieu’s theory, indie scenes are artistic fields where power dynamics and hierarchies exist.31 Bourdieu defines two logics of hierarchization often contrasting with each other within the same field. The first logic shapes how art is created following the principle of art for art’s sake that rejects the pursuit of profits and condemns the power of cultural institution.32 In opposition to this, is the creation of art according to what audiences expect and that to which critics and institutions give legitimacy. The latter is derived from the logic of the market and economic power, where success depends on commercial sales and honor from established authorities. Bourdieu

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recognizes a divide between those who dominate the field economically and commercially, and those who see themselves as independent from the pressure of economic power. This dichotomy is responsible for constant hierarchical struggle. On one side there are hierarchies based on economic and commercial forces and, on the other side, there are hierarchies based on authentic free artistic expression.33 Members of the scene can therefore gain status following one of the two types of logics.

Considering the local indie scene as the artistic field, it can be seen how these two contrasting logics might impact on music blogs practices. Within indie scenes, the logic of art for art’s sake creates hierarchies and confers status based on levels of authenticity, one of the core principles of indie ideology, and autonomy from the commercial music industry. In the indie community authentic means something personal, perceived as real, and created because of artistic expression instead of commercial motives.34 For example, successful indie bands might lose the support of the indie community because mainstream popularity negates their authenticity – colloquially it might be termed as selling out. Fonarow argues that authenticity is acquired differently for different members of the indie scene. For the audience authenticity is expressed by liking credible bands and showing some distinctive personal taste or they will be considered by the community as followers, who cannot differentiate between the true artist and the poseur.35

Elitism is also present among music bloggers, where authenticity is expressed by operating against the traditional mainstream and promoting music that is obscure.36 Therefore, music blogs which value the art for art’s sake principle will be considered authentic and autonomous from pressures of commercial power. Consequently, they will have higher status among the scene members following this logic.

In this context, the idea of authenticity is also tied with the notion of sub-cultural capital as it has been adopted in music scenes to build social hierarchies.37 Thornton introduces the notion of sub-cultural capital in a study of club cultures.38 She explains how sub-cultural capital, which is expressed through taste, “confers status on its owner in the eyes of the relevant beholder”. Sub-cultural capital is accumulated through taste in music along with clothing, hair-cuts, etc. For Thornton, DJs and music journalists possess high level of sub-cultural capital and are often seen as masters of the scene because of their direct engagement with music. 39

In the same way, I argue that music bloggers can be considered to have sub-cultural capital because they influence fans’ taste by discussing about particular artists and create a sort of hype around them. The sub-cultural capital of music blogs is expressed through the music they feature. Music blogs are often considered as taste-makers because of their ability of discerning good music in the face of an overwhelming music choice,

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Music Blogs, Music Scenes and Sub-cultural Capital: Emerging Practices in Music Blogs

demonstrating a unique taste as well as broad breadth of knowledge. Through their musical taste and recommendations, they define and construct what is considered as sub-cultural capital in a particular music scene.40

The second type of logic operating within indie scenes is based more on commercial interests than on aesthetic values and involves the relationship between the scene and the corporate music industry. Fonarow argues how professionals are considered to have high status within the scene because of a series of advantages they can benefit, such as guest lists or invitations to parties. These privileges distinguish them from the ordinary fans. Professionals are not the only scene members showing status within the indie scene. There are also specialized groups of fans that have learned how to gain access to bands. Many of these types of fans might themselves become professionals in the future. The desire of gaining contacts with bands pushes them to liaise with professionals and those relationships can often turn into career opportunities.41

I argue that music blogs practices fit into this discourse. Despite the desire of music bloggers to be perceived as authentic through the music they feature, some music bloggers consider their music blogs as a step to gain status in the music industry and to possibly become professionals. There are several examples where Australian music blogs (started as personal outlets) ultimately became involved in the music business. Dom and Jerry the two founder of Whothehell.net, one of the most recognized Australian music blogs featuring new emerging Australian acts, after a couple of years persistently spent writing their blog, eventually started their professional career in the music industry. Jerry currently manages few bands and still writes for blogs. Dom left Whothehell.net and now works for commercial Sydney radio station Triple J’s blog. Angus, the author of the Australian blog 12MajorChords, now works for Modular Record, one of the most internationally recognized Australian labels. Dan, from the Sydney blog Boudist, says:

“Jerry and Dom did it as a way to boost their careers. They wanted to get more attention in the music industry, where some people just start a blog as like a bit of a hobby or a side project. They actually did it very seriously more like.. if we are going to do this, we are going to do it right, we are going to post almost everyday and weekend, we are going always to keep it current, we are going to try and make the writing as good as we can.”42

Therefore, although the motives of music blogs should be only about the

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quality of music and to promote artists who are not famous or successful, the reality is that some bloggers often see their work as an avenue to increase their popularity in the local scene and gain validation in the music industry.

A way for music blogs to gain status within the local scene is to collaborate with record labels and PR agencies for the promotion of artists. As already discussed, music bloggers are becoming extremely influential across fans communities and, like radio DJ’s and music journalists, they can be considered as cultural gatekeepers.43 As Duncombe argues, once the commercial industry recognizes that some form of underground indie media starts to become influential within the indie scene, they will attempt to incorporate them into the system through a co-option process.44 Ideally gatekeepers should maintain independent status for their opinion to be considered as a trusted source. Some, however, might turn into the commercial counterpart to which they were created in opposition. The consequences of deviating from the ‘indie path’ could include losing support from the indie community. In a recent Music Bloggers Roundtable several bloggers expressed their disappointment:

“Some blogs have become nothing more than press outposts for major labels and the handful of indie artists with strong enough publicity beyond them”

“I though that music blogs would be a real and intellectual critical movement. It seems to have settled into hipsters copy-and-pasting press releases” 45

The co-option process of music blogs is generally structured around the offer of free tickets to events, free CDs, invitations to parties, etc. These are all things of appeal to music bloggers since they might increase their status as professionals in the local scene. According to Dan:

“As soon as you are a music blog you start receiving free CDs, tickets to shows, people offer you merchandise to give away, they invite you to listening parties. The PR industry has realized how influential a music blog can be and they are now chasing music bloggers as back then the traditional press. I know a blog that is giving away CDs for free of an American band and I know that a representative of Sony gave them these CDs”46

Joe from Joe.Blog and Sean from A-Reminder affirm the point made by Dan:

“Record Labels are being very active in trying to look after

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Music Blogs, Music Scenes and Sub-cultural Capital: Emerging Practices in Music Blogs

bloggers. I tend to get a fair bit of CDs, press releases on my email … they seem to be very eager in starting a proper relationship with the blogger”47

“I usually get between 25 to 30 emails a day from artists, labels, mainly form PR agencies but I only occasionally post what they send to me. If I’d say a percentage, it would be very very low. Mostly PR agencies, lower down the list, it would be managers and artists”48

A more recent practice seems to be offering exclusives to music bloggers. Being the first to post about a new song, album, artist, is seen with a particular regard among music bloggers and, as Stuart from New Weird Australia (a Sydney based music blog featuring experimental Australian music) says “blogging is becoming pretty much chasing the exclusive”. He then continues:

“Blogging it very much became about cachet based on being the first as opposed to cachet of having a good volume of curatorial work behind you. It became this kind of race and now there are way too many blogs which do that maybe taking a far less serious and professional approach to the leaking of track as well”

“It is very difficult for a music blog to be authentic. They will always be compromised because they are holding to very different agendas: their own personal curatorial agenda and the other agenda which is get products, be part of the scene”49

The issue then becomes to what extent music blogs can maintain a level of cultural autonomy by distancing themselves from pressure of commercial power within the indie scene and, hence, being considered as authentic. Stuart clearly elucidates the struggle that often music blogs experience:

“I found a time when I was writing fat planet that I did feel caught in that sense. There were certain labels that I wanted to favor because I wanted to continue to get releases from them because I was using them for the show and I didn’t want to be cut off and I felt quite compromised for a little while. Eventually, when I brought myself back to what was the purpose of doing this then I was fine but I understand

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that the temptation is there and you can be drown to it”50

At a virtual level, if we consider the music blogosphere as the artistic field of production, it can be seen how dynamics of power operate in a similar fashion. Music blogs which follow commercial motives generally aim to be popular in the blogosphere by having high levels of readership. An easy way for music blogs to gain fast readership is by blogging about hyped artists. Wodtke argues how writing about music in the music blogosphere is deeply affected by the immediacy of the cyberspace and the trend-shaping of MP3 blog aggregators.51 As blogging is a genre based on immediacy, music bloggers often find themselves competing with each other in the discovery or promotion of new music. By putting different posts into the same context, aggregators create a sense of hype around artists that most bloggers post about. Blogging about hyped artists is becoming quite common, especially among new bloggers who, instead of showing a personal taste, believe that, by featuring what is popular among the music blogosphere, is a way of remaining relevant and gaining readership. Lee from Local Fidelity believes that:

“Sometime blogs are more obsessed with trends and with what’s cool. I have the feeling they are more powered by what they think it’s cool rather than what they like”52

Bloggers who are more susceptible to hierarchies based on being popular will then tend to feature music that they believe will promote their blogs the most effectively. As a consequence, bloggers experience a conflict between remaining independent by showing a discerning music taste and swarming around hyped artists in order to increase their popularity.53

Music blogs that value the art for art’s sake principle often express a sort of criticism toward music blogs that subsume their personality by merely reproducing record labels press releases or posting music that is going to attract the most possible traffic. Stuart explains how Australian bloggers, for example, often try to gain cultural cachet by replicating what is happening overseas while, he asserts, in order to gain status overseas, music blogs should not replicate what is there. He expresses a sort of criticism toward some Australian bloggers who ignore Australian music:

“There are still Australian blogs talking about Grizzly Bear and still doing what the Americans are doing, what the English are doing. Hey guys watch what’s in your backyard, there are bands as good if not better that those bands and the world he’s not used to hear them. If we don’t blog about it, no one else is going to find bands playing at

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Music Blogs, Music Scenes and Sub-cultural Capital: Emerging Practices in Music Blogs

warehouses in Marrickville. We do have a responsibility because if we don’t blog about it none of the American is going to blog about it, they are never going to find their work”54

This quote demonstrates how music blogs showing an authentic music taste are usually considered as credible by other bloggers which tend to judge and classify other music bloggers not only by the artists and music they feature, but also by how susceptible they are to pressure of popularity. Stuart further articulates his take on that:

“I think authenticity is consistency and that’s not necessarily consistency in terms of regularity but consistency in terms of the music that is being pushed through. I have a slightly different take on it because I am still on a lot of mailing list of record labels so I see the sort of stuff that is sent to blogs and I post pretty much none of it or less than 1% of it. So I see the stuff that has been pushed through and generally blogs that are avoiding that and seeking the alternative to that so they are not just responding to what’s being pushed to them but they are actually pulling from other places. Blogs able to show a unique taste, dissimilar to other blogs that are out there. 10 months ago I was following maybe 100 blogs and now I follow 5 because I know these guys are giving something really unique, they are consistent, they have quality, comments are interesting and valid but there are very few blogs that cover all these basis”55

Blog’s authenticity might be difficult to grasp for average readers. Many interviewed bloggers commented that a typical music blog’s reader might not recognize if a post is a typical PR story or the fruit of the blogger’s personal taste. Many fans do not have enough depth of knowledge to distinguish a blog’s degree of authenticity. Authenticity is normally questioned among bloggers or very knowledgeable fans only. The majority of music fans consider music blogs as a trusted independent source, where they can acquire music knowledge, as well as free MP3s. Wodtke suggests how ultimately the only way to define the authenticity of music blogs is by other bloggers’ reaction toward them and how they, as social group, define themselves.56

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3. Conclusions

This paper has argued that music blogs are a form of independent media forming the infrastructure and media network that support the development and continuation of local and trans-local scenes. Music blogs have become very important intermediaries between fans and the music industry. Through the creation, and circulation of sub-cultural capital, music blogs have become so influential to a point that they have been considered as the new cultural gatekeepers. The way in which they construct and circulate sub-cultural capital is deeply affected by often contrasting hierarchies of power and autonomy from the commercial industry. Many music blogs often express a tension between the desire of being valued as authentic by few loyal fans and the desire of being popular in the music blogosphere and gaining status in the local scene. Music blogs that follow the art for art’s sake logic are those that demonstrate a consistent and discerning taste over time, independent from the hype generated by the music blogosphere at a virtual level and independent from pressures of the music industry at a local level. This type of blogs embraces more an amateur philosophy by favoring personal motives instead of professional motives and popularity. Other blogs might sacrifice their indie ideals of authenticity in favor of their professional status. Ultimately the logic that will prevail will depend on the subjective value that the blogger gives to each context. Therefore, I argue that despite the general belief that music blogs could operate as democratic cultural gatekeepers of the music industry and authentic filters between the music industry and the masses, in fact, they might act in a way that might allow the music industry to influence the content of their sites. To conclude it must be alleged how the framework provided is purely indicative and it doesn’t reflect all the complexities and nuances of the music blogosphere. Several blogs today embrace more than one logic. In the Australian scene, for example, there are blogs collaborating with record labels but still showing a discerning taste, there are blogs which are not very popular but showing high levels of sub-cultural capital, blogs featuring hyped artists as well as local more obscure acts, blogs with high status in the music industry and low credibility in the music blogosphere. Ultimately, this very first attempt of questioning about the cultural logic behind music blogs should account for recognizing that concepts such as status, authenticity, sub-cultural capital, they all are seminal to speculate how the phenomenon of music blogs might evolve in the future.

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Music Blogs, Music Scenes and Sub-cultural Capital: Emerging Practices in Music Blogs

Notes

12

1 L. Wodtke, Does NME Even Know What a Music Blog Is?: The Rhetoric and Social Meaning of MP3 Blogs, VDM Verlag, Germany, 2008, p. 9. 2 C. B. Morris, ‘Friend or Fiend? A “Fair Use” Analysis of Audioblogs’. Kentucky Law Journal, Vol 96/2, 2008, pp. 323-241.3 A. Pasick, ‘MP3 Blogs Serve Rare Songs, Dusty Grooves’, in USA Today, 8 July 2004, viewed on 20 April 2009, <www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/musi/2004-07-08-mp3blogs_x.htm>. 4 J. Lenarcic, P. Sarkar, ‘The Long Tail of Blogging: A Nurturing Mechanism for Sustainable Online Communities with Niche Interests’, 21st Bled eConference eCollaboration: Overcoming Boundaries through Multi-Channel Interaction Proceedings, June 15 – 18, 2008, Slovenia, viewed on 10 June 2009, <http://ecom.fov.uni-mb.si/proceedings.nsf/Proc2008Research?OpenPage>5 C. Anderson, The Long Tail. How endless choice is creating unlimited demand, Random House Business Books, London, 2006, p 54.6 C. Anderson, p 108; H. Jenkins, Convergence Culture, New York University Press, New York, 2006, p. 215; D. Net, Blogs and Rock & Roll, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London, 2007, p. 88. 7 C. Shirky, ‘Power Law, weblogs and inequality’, in Clay Shirky’s Writings About the Internet, February 2003, viewed on 15 April 2009, <www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html>.Shirky states how blogs follow a power law distribution with a minority of them receiving a high traffic and the vast majority only few readers. The power law distribution leads to a further distinction that I have considered in this paper between A-List music blogs and B-list music blogs. A-list music blogs are blogs with high level of readership, high numbers of incoming links and they are considered to be extremely influential at an international level. A-list blogs generally appear at the top of the most popular lists of blog aggregators. They are generally run by a team of people with the scope of making a steady income out of it. Many A-list music blogs are considered to be more influential than traditional music press. B-list music blogs, on the other side, cater only for very small audiences with very specific interests such as a local scene or a particular genre of music. 8 D. Boyd, ‘A Blogger’s Blog: Exploring the Definition of a Medium’, in Reconstruction, 6 (4) 2006, viewed on 20 April 2009, <http://reconstruction.eserver.org/064/boyd.shtml>.9 N. Baym, ‘The new shape of online community: The example of Swedish independent music fandom’, in First Monday, 12 (8) 2007, viewed on 10 September 2009, <http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_8/baym/index.html>P. Hodkinson, ‘Subcultural Blogging? Online Journals and Group Involvement among U.K. Goths’, in Bruns, A. and Jacobs, J. (eds), Uses of Blogs, Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 2006, 187-198.10 Baym, The new shape of online community: The example of Swedish independent music fandom.11 Morris, pp. 323-24112 Hodkinson, Subcultural Blogging? Online Journals and Group Involvement among U.K. Goths, pp 187-198.13 P. Hodkinson, ‘Communicating Goth: Online Media’, in The Subcultures Reader, Gelder, K. (ed.), Routledge, London, 2006, 564-574; S. Thornton, Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital, Polity, Cambridge, 1995, p. 150. 14 A. Bennett, R. A. Peterson, ‘Introducing Music Scenes’, in Music Scenes: Local, Trans-local and Virtual, A. Bennett & R. Peterson, eds., Vandervilt UP, Nashville, 2004, p. 8. 15 ibid., p.6.16 ibid., p.8.17 A. O’Connor, ‘Local scenes and dangerous crossroads: punk and theories of cultural hybridity’. Popular Music, vol. 21/2, 2002, pp 225-236.18 Straw, W., ‘Communities and Scenes in Popular Music’, in The Subcultures Reader, Gelder, K. (ed.), Routledge, London, 2006, p. 473.19 ‘The Indie Family Tree’, in Indie Music Scene, 3 September 2009, viewed on 10 November 2009, <http://indiemusicscene.net/what-is-indie-music-scene/>.20 H. Kruse, ‘Subcultural identity in alternative music culture’. Popular Music, vol. 12/1, 1993, pp 33-41.21 Bennett, A., Peterson, R. A., p.11.22 Baym, The new shape of online community: The example of Swedish independent music fandom.23 Irwin, J., Scenes, Sage Publications, London, 1977, p.18. 24 Baym, The new shape of online community: The example of Swedish independent music fandom.25 Hodkinson, Subcultural Blogging? Online Journals and Group Involvement among U.K. Goths, pp 187-198.26 Baym, The new shape of online communitiy: The example of Swedish independent music fandom.

27 C. Wei, ‘Formation of Norms in a Blog Community’, in Into the Blogosphere. Rhetoric, Community and Culture of

Weblogs, Gurak, L., Antonijevic, L. Johnson, C. Ratliff, & J. Reyman (Eds.), University of Minnesota, 2004.28 Wodtke, p. 84. 29 W. Fonarow, Empire of Dirt. Aesthetics and Rituals of British Indie Music, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, 2006, p. 79.30 P. Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production, Columbia University Press, USA, 1993.31 ibid., p. 238.32 ibid., p. 40.33 ibid., p. 41.34 Fonarow, p. 188.35 ibid., p. 190.36 Wodtke, p. 84. 37 Thornton, p. 28.38 ibid., p. , p.11.39 ibid., p. 30.40 Wodtke, p.85. 41 Fonarow, p. 125.42 Interview with Dan from Boudist, 24th September 2009.43 Jennings, p. 83. 44 S. Duncombe, Notes from the Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture, Verso Publishers, 1997, p. 155.45 ‘Music Bloggers Roundtable Redux’, The Morning News, 24 July 2009, viewed on 15 September 2009 <http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/roundtables/music_bloggers_roundtable_redux.php>.46 Interview with Dan.47 Interview with Joe from Joe.blog, 24th July 2009.48 Interview with Sean from A-reminder, 27th April 2009.49 Interview with Stuart from New weird Australia, 20th December 2009.50 Ibid.51 Wodtke, p. 65. Together with the increased popularity of music blogs a new category of web sties, called blog aggregators, started to emerge with the scope of aggregating MP3 blogs posts and displaying them as a collective group. The most recognized aggregator is The Hype Machine, which through its organizational and selective functions, has given to music blogs more power as a collective entity than if they existed as scattered opinions in cyberspace. Wodtke states that MP3 blog aggregators accomplish an editorial role in that they help readers in finding blogs and reading them. The importance of aggregators is further confirmed by the fact that many blogs aspire to be included on them, and be in the most popular list. Usually MP3 blog aggregators set detailed rules of inclusions especially in terms of copyrighted material. In that way they set standard of music blog as its own genre. 52 Interview with Lee from Local Fidelity, 24 September 2009.53 Wodtke, p. 80.54 Interview with Stuart. 55 Interview with Stuart.56 Wodtke, p. 36.

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Beatrice Jetto is a PhD student in Media, Music and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University of Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on the cultural and social impact of new media in music scenes and subcultures. Address: Macquarie University, Department of Media, Music and Cultural Studies, Y3A 255, NSW 2109, Australia. [email: beatrice.jetto@mq.edu.au].