Too Much New Music ?

Are music blogs too obsessed with new music? Every day blogs post up the latest band or artist they’ve found and use words like ‘incredible’, ‘amazing’, ‘awesome’ and ‘outstanding’ until the power of those words nearly loses all meaning. No wonder blog aggregator the Hype Machine takes the title it does.

“There’s too much new music out there for me to keep up with.” It’s a statement we’ve read on a variety of blogs and tweets this year – often by highly respected music bloggers who often (like Breaking More Waves) run their blog as a hobby, balancing busy work, family and social lives with their obsession and love of music, for no reward other than the pleasure of doing it. Even those who are more time spare such as students, the unemployed or part-time workers can find it difficult keeping a blog regularly active and up to date with new music, particularly when their personal circumstances change and life gets busier. Sometimes the blog writing and researching process stops being fun and becomes a chore.

As we’ve identified before, quality blogs can act as filters, posting only what they consider to be the great and good, or (in our case at least) what we consider to have some future potential. There’s a danger here though - the constant search for new music means that things get quickly passed over, the blogger moving on to the next thing, discarding or ignoring an artist or band that only six months ago they were raving about. A time limited new music blogger can become the equivalent of a guy or girl who simply cannot commit to a long term relationship – every new song or new album simply becomes a short term fuck buddy, and then its time to move on. It’s part of our disposable mass turnover culture we live in that rears its head wherever you look - from Primark to X- Factor to I Pod Shuffle facilities.

In the case of an artist that has gone from being blog celebrated to receiving mass media coverage this hump ‘em and dump ‘em attitude is not such a problem – the blogs have done their job of promoting the artist to a level where the mainstream media can take over and propel the artist onwards if their material is good and the public take to them. This year in the UK Ellie Goulding has been a classic example of this, receiving initial blog love a long time before she vaulted into the middle stream - but what of the good artists that don’t make that jump? Often the bloggers have moved on – like a hot-blooded bunch of nymphomaniacs looking for another new stranger to indulge in their orgy of musical let’s be friends for a while loving. The artist is left with their window of opportunity quickly having the curtains drawn and the shutters bolted. This short-termism is potentially leaving some great bands without the coverage they deserve, unless of course they go away rebrand themselves under a different name and refuel the bloggers music lust for the new.

Now of course there’s nothing wrong with an exciting one night stand now and then – pop music is full of glorious one hit wonders that bring us to a shuddering climax before being dumped hot, sweaty and slightly dirty feeling in the bargain bin, but without longer term relationships there will always be an empty feeling, no matter how passionate the moment was.

It’s something we’ve always been conscious of at Breaking More Waves. It’s why sometimes we will continue to post about a band that we believe in even when the majority of the music blogging community has moved on. We can’t cover everything we would like to – we’re very time restricted – but where there’s something we love, we try our best to continue to support those acts, although like any other person who enjoys the creative process, the pull of change, of something different, is always exciting.

However, from next January we’re changing things a little. In our own small way we want to counteract the danger of the short attention span relationship with music.

We’re starting a new feature from Monday 3^rd January which will run weekly. It’s called Music That Made Me. Consider it a very personal and autobiographical trawl through the songs that we have established long term relationships with. If most of Breaking More Waves is the first hot date that may lead onto something more, the Music That Made Me posts are the moments where songs were found which we would bed down forever with.

So what creates a special long term relationship with a song? It’s more than just being a great tune. To continue the human relationship analogy if a song was a partner it may have a great body (sound / tune) and good personality (lyrics) and that would be fine for a while, but there needs to be something more.

That is why Music That Made Me will be full of memories, snapshots of our life and journeys (musical and otherwise). Its intention is to give you an understanding and insight into the cookbook of tastes, opinions and personality that forms Breaking More Waves. Each post will have a deeper sense of intimacy than our standard new music posts. They are intended to offer something a little different from the average new music blog.

Then after Music That Made Me on Monday we will continue business as usual blogging our way through whatever new music that’s tickling our fancy for the rest of the week.

We’re still obsessed with new music, but want to give at least a hint of the past as well – it helps give context to the rest of Breaking More Waves.