The online world of blogging has taken the globe by storm. It’s considered a form of self-expression, an outlet for creativity and a space for anonymous or a full-disclosure style of conversation to take place. As is already apparent, blogging has recently taken on a more legitimate form and usually establishes itself as a credible source of information, regarding any topic under the sun. Music has advanced in previously unimaginable ways because of the Internet and websites, such as blogs and Twitter. I truly believe that very few could claim to have predicted such a radical shift in the music industry resulting from the advent of the Internet, the labels did/do not seem to have be prepared for it. Yet, such a shift indeed took place and now we remain with just four major music labels, all of which are scrambling to discover new ways to maintain revenue now that so much content is available for free online. It’s ultimately impossible for them to prevent.

I took on the role of trying to understand what contributed to this major shift. How are the music blogs changing consumers’ tastes and desires? Does the act of receiving constant updates on music and news related to that music, change our expectations of how music is to be acquired? I take a stab at answering these theoretical questions by observing the “movement” on three hip-hop music blogs, The Chuckness, Smoking Section and We Wore Masks, and also reached out to each blog’s contact person (also the main contributor),all of whom assisted me in obtaining valuable information. Read the rest of this entry »