Though so many people are going about this in a rather tragic fashion! Any schmuck can set up a blog and upload albums these days, and give the blog a "clever" name. We need better music blogs! And we need to appeal to both the music elite and the neophytes! So here are some guidelines on how to make any music blog better.
For this exercise, you made a blog called Folk Hippo. How you related music that can be as twee as folk to a vicious goddamn hippo is irrelevant. You made it, it has a cute little banner with a hippo playing an acoustic guitar, and your personal picture is Bob Dylan from his yesteryears.
Step 1:
Make all downloads available only on Rapidshare.
We want people to listen to our wonderful folk, correct? What better way than having them eagerly anticipate it, as they cope with shitty download speeds? And once it is finally downloaded, they will listen to it with an increased interest, and then, possibly by the time they are finished, their hour wait for another download will be up! Then they can download ONE MORE album! The excitement never ends, and they can spend a whole day just downloading a few more albums from you. The longevity factor is why we choose Rapidshare. Why have fast, efficient, and clean downloads from Mediafire? When will they ever listen to that shit? Thanks for making everything easy, asshole. Stay slow. Stay prolonged. Don't leave Rapidshare. Constantly click refresh.
Step 2:
Make all tags exactly what the artist or band's name is.
Why bother listing subgenres? How could their possibly be a subgenre of folk? This is all bearded men (and bearded women) playing an acoustic guitar, crooning about problems in their suburban mountain homes from the safety of their cottage. What the fuck else is there?
Knowing this, make sure to label Cat Stevens with the tag "cat stevens". This is just in case our reader has a memory loss problem like the guy from Memento, and needs to be instantly reminded exactly what the hell they were just looking at. We don't want our reader to download Cat Stevens when he might have wanted an AC/DC record! Though, if your readers listen to AC/DC, you probably should just close down your blog for your own good.
Good examples of tagging:
Bob Dylan - "jew"
Nick Drake - "/wrists"
Fleet Foxes - "pitchfork"
Iron and Wine - "manbeard"
Step 3:
Make sure your links die out quickly.
Remember, our music is too good to be shared for long. If a link to a download lasts longer than a week, you are doing it wrong. Complain to your download host, which would be the smart choice of the lovely Rapidshare crew, and tell them you need your links abolished right away. Chances are, they probably were about to delete it anyway, since Rapidshare graciously deletes content rather quickly...I wish they were called Rapidiscard.
We need the music elite to realize they NEED your music as quick as possible, or else its gone. If they dick around for too long, they will never hear your treasure cove of folk EPs that were recorded in a bear cave somewhere near the Canadian border with a cassette tape. And since they can only download so many of your albums a day due to our lovely Rapidiscard provider, they really are pressed for time.
So in addition, make sure to put up an unsurpassed amount of content that all expires quickly. Make them pick and choose. Make them take risky decisions. Do I get that later era album from a once well respected artist, or do I gamble on the EP his brother recorded with some no name halfwit? Decisions!
Step 4:
Never write anything useful in the descriptions.
Why do you need to provide these people with easy access to band information? Let them look that shit up themselves!
Besides, it adds to the decision factor. Why make their decisions about your downloads any easier? You need to keep them guessing, and writing "lol i bought this three weeks ago" as the description provides just the right amount of guesswork.
Or you can test their patience. Write a story about your nephew. Write an excruciating account of how you fell off your scooter and badly injured your shoulderblade. Give them a baking recipe for your mother's homemade tera misu. Just don't say anything about the goddamn band or artist, unless you mention that later on in the day after you fell off your scooter, you met a band or an artist, and they said something inconsequential to you. You will bait the reader in just to smack them in the face with disappointment.
Step 5:
Do not use album art, instead use the most obnoxious/absurd/terrible/deprecating picture of the artist/band you can find.
I don't think much else needs to be said about this. Doesn't he look like a scheming, devilish oil field owner of early America?
And that, my friends, is what you need to maintain a respectable music blog. So go out there and start Folk Hippo. Hopefully it generates more than 5 viewers.
And that, my friends, is what you need to maintain a respectable music blog. So go out there and start Folk Hippo. Hopefully it generates more than 5 viewers.
