| Blog rock | |
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| Cultural origins | Mid-to late 2000s,United States |
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Blog rock (also known asblog indie) is a loosely defined style and era ofindie rock that originally emerged from theonline musicalblogosphere in the mid-to late 2000s. Similarly to other earlyblog-related music scenes such asbloghouse andblog rap. The term was used to describe bands who garnered attention primarily through music blogs and online spaces, independent of formal music industry structures.
Blog rock refers less to a distinct musical style and more to the mode of distribution and discovery of an era where bands gained popularity primarily through the early stages of online music discussion onMP3 blogs andwebsites likeHype Machine,Music for Robots,Stereogum andBlogspot.[1][2][3] Other online spaces includedInternet forums,chatrooms as well as earlysocial media platforms likeMyspace and laterTumblr. The blog rock era took place primarily in the United States, with adjacent bands in the United Kingdom being labelled "landfill indie" by the British press.[4] The era later became associated with thehipster subculture and "indie sleaze".[5]
Notable acts includeClap Your Hands Say Yeah,Voxtrot,Cold War Kids,Cults,Tokyo Police Club,Black Kids,[6][7]Black Moth Super Rainbow,Cymbals Eat Guitars,Sunset Rubdown,Islands,Fang Island,[8]Anathallo,[9]Tapes 'n Tapes,The Rural Alberta Advantage,Menomena,Ra Ra Riot,Beirut,The Dodos,The Go! Team,Sleigh Bells,Los Campesinos!,[10][11] andPeter Bjorn and John.[12]
Writer Peter C. Baker ofthe New Yorker, when writing about the blog rock era claimed that, "if the year 2005 were condensed into a single word, that word would be “blogroll.”[13] In 2008,the Quietus stated that though the term blog rock or "blog band" was initially used as a dismissive label, it quickly grew a life of its own, encompassing an emerging wave of indie bands that aimed to be "the nextArcade Fire orModest Mouse", who also drew influences from influential indie bands likePavement and primarily proliferated onMP3 blogs.[1][14][15][16][17] The term "blog rock" was similar to "bloghouse".[18]
During the early 2000s, theNME coined "the New Rock Revolution" to describe a wave of emerging rock bands, spurred by the success of American acts such asthe White Stripes andthe Strokes, with the former spearheading the 2000sgarage rock revival movement whilst the latter led the New Yorkpost-punk revival.[19][20] These bands introduced a renewed interest inindie rock that coincided with the rise of online music discussion,blogging,Myspace, and the very early iterations ofsocial media, which helped to define a new, organic form for bands to connect with and grow an audience, where artists gained attention for their music despite having no record label or promotion team behind them.[13][21][2]
MGMT'sAndrew VanWyngarden, whose band rose to prominence during the blog rock era,[1] cited online music blogs as influential to his musical development during this period, stating:[22]
I got hold of this [A Gift From Euphoria by Euphoria] before we started makingthe first MGMT album. I just found this on some random guy’spsychedelic blog. I spend a lot of time on those sites going through and downloading stuff: records that are super-rare and you might spend $300 to get the physical copy.
By the mid-to-late 2000s, indie rock bands began to emerge that primarily generated hype and attention through online blog sites and music discussion spaces,Pitchfork and the New Yorker cite bands likeClap Your Hands Say Yeah[2] andVoxtrot[13] with pioneering and defining the sound of the blog-rock era.[23][24][25]The Fader claimed that the initial popularity of infamous online music publications likePitchfork was linked to that of the 2000s blog rock era,[26] with the site also becoming instrumental in the proliferation ofshitgaze, an internet microgenre coined in the early 2000s, which developed alongside the original blog-rock movement.[27][28]
The New Yorker cited the rise ofonline algorithms used bymusic streaming services likeSpotify as one of the factors that led to the decline of blog rock, stating:
Now there areplaylists onstreaming platforms for every genre, micro-genre, mood, and vibe. When you hear a song that you like on a playlist, maybe you stream the album, too. When the album finishes, your platform suggests something else it thinks you’ll like. Then something else. Then something else. In the streaming universe, popularity is shaped less by the enthusiasm.[13]
The Guardian argued that blog rock's decline was linked to a growing preference for nostalgia in indie music[29] as well as the genre's lack of a political edge, stating that in a post-Bush world: "There's no machine to rage against any more, no one to be calculatedly hedonistic about."[30]
Pitchfork stated that, "Blog Rock died once all the music blogs got smart and realized they could get more traffic posting new songs by bands that everybody already liked rather than trying to find new ones."[31] Furthermore, they stated thatindie rock bandCar Seat Headrest's albumTeens of Denial stood as "a triumph for the past three decades of indie rock: a unification of ’90s aesthetics, ’00s blog-rock ascendancy, and 21st-century consumption."[32]The New Yorker described the blog rock era as a precursor toonline distribution-driven music scenes likeSoundcloud rap.[13][33]
Some contemporary indie artists have been likened to or influenced by the blog rock era, such asPeter Cat Recording Co.'sBETA बेटा,[34]Video Age's 2020 songPleasure Line which was described byPitchfork as rivaling "the biggest blog rock earworms had it come out any other year than 2020".[35]
During the early 2020s, defining blog rock era bands likeVoxtrot[13] andClap Your Hands Say Yeah[36] reunited.[37]
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