Sorry Mog, I've been tearing you down rather than building you up
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Artist:
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I've been whining lately about the addition of the Music Blog Network thingy, in part because the posts show up everywhere and there's little or no "social" aspect to them. Mog's gotta make money to survive I suppose, (it is making money off of these things isn't it?), and I've found so much good here that I really ought to be able to take the good with the bad and just remain grateful. Trying to say what I mean without being mean about it...
And it seemed like just another way to vent the frustrations of my girlfriend not feeling well and the construction project next door, financial insecurity, and whatever else.
Which brings us to this song "Light of this World", originally written by the good Reverend Gary Davis performed here by Jorma Kaukonen and David Bromberg, (eons ago), I may have posted this vid previously but in a different context, and the wonderful arrangement Joan Osborne has included on her newest release, "Little Wild One", (click the red button now then watch the first vid if you so choose).
I'm not a particularly religious person but this song is one of those that lives in my head as a reminder not to be a "hater", (Paguma recently brought the subject up), but to aspire to be a person that brings some light into an otherwise dark space, not to feed into the cynicism, sarcasm, and negativity of a situation. It's not always easy and sometimes it's nearly impossible.
We Loves you Mog, and we have faith that you'll get this worked out in time and not become just another Music Magazine online.
<b>Joan Osborne - 'Cathedrals'</b>
[via FoxyTunes / Joan Osborne]
and from Joan's site - "Joan Osborne has reunited with producer/writers Rick Chertoff, Rob Hyman, and Eric Bazilian on her new album 'Little Wild One,' scheduled for a September 9 release on her own Womanly Hips label in partnership with Plum Records. The team last worked together on Osborne's breakthrough, debut album 'Relish,' which sold five million copies worldwide and yielded the smash hit "One Of Us" as well as scoring six Grammy nominations.
'Little Wild One' features eleven new songs, most of them written by Osborne in collaboration with Chertoff, Bazilian and Hyman. Highlights include "Hallelujah in the City," "Sweeter Than The Rest," "Cathedrals," the haunting title track "Little Wild One" and the stripped-down "Bury Me On The Battery," an ode to Osborne's coming of age hometown, New York City.
In a career that spans over fifteen years, Joan has proven to be an artistically restless yet consistently enthralling performer. In 2002, she cemented her reputation as a top tier soul singer with an incredible turn in the acclaimed documentary film 'Standing in the Shadows of Motown,' followed by a tour with legendary Motown backing band The Funk Brothers. In 2003, Osborne toured with the Dixie Chicks and then surprised and wowed audiences touring throughout America for two years as the lead singer for The Dead. In 2007, she graced the stage of the Grand Ole Opry."
Chill out Gustav...
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Locating MOG account...
Comments (29)
An excellent post Bruce. You have admirably voiced some concerns that some of us have concerning the rapid "outward" growth of our beloved MOG. I, like you, am concerned about the MOG becoming just one more glossly slick place to advertise wares. The web is rife with such places and they are uniformly boring. And as for the blogs, I've followed a few links but I've yet to find one that I'd bookmark. I don't want one person's opinion all the time, I want myriad opinions/views/discoveries/reveries and general camaraderie of the MOG. When someone links me to a page I feel vaguely resentful, unless its a real interesting place and that doesn't happen with enough regularity (for me anyway). (I'm talkin' mainly about when people link me to their personnal blog. WTF?)
On to ms Osborne. I'm not sure one body can contain her creative spirit. She has such an easy mastery over any style or genre without ever coming across as a dilettante or poseur. She ain't really "show or flash", just talent that glows, smolders, or blazes.
All well put Jeff, Joan is a goddess and Mog can sometimes be a monster but all is well if I can just manage to keep it in perspective.
I don't think speaking your mind is whining..I think its Mogging.
And I don't think caring about MOG is the same as tearing it down.
As for Ms. Osborne..she seems to have followed the career path of Jimmy Carter. The post -fame part of her career seems to be the most rewarding for her and her fans. Love the record she did with the Holmes Brothers. I've never heard the stuff she did with the Dead (well maybe a little), but I would like to hear more. One thing for sure..a talented musician.
Everyone I've talked to is underwhelmed about the blog linkups. Essentially, ANY posts that have are without interest in socialization are of no interest to me. Included are these new blog links and musicians who post endlessly about themselves but wouldn't be caught dead commenting on something someone else has to say.
You've been whining? Not publicly. Isn't that part of MOG - bitching about the site? Thanks for this.
i FORGIVE you
move on
One of the terrific aspects of MOG is that there's no love-or-leave-it attitude here. I've always felt that genuine criticism is listened to respectfully. And Cody's right - pointing out shortcomings in a constructive way is evidence of caring, not ingratitude. That said, I will say that though the blogging network has done little to win me over, its presence doesn't trouble me overmuch (with one exception, which I will get to momentarily). So far, like dermahrk, I haven't seen any posts that strike me as superior to what I've been reading from MOGgers, either in terms of musical information, prose style or insight. And the folks in the network seem to me, on the whole, a little too much like many of the musicians here - they appear to be much more interested in having their voices heard than in being part of a conversation. But all of that is OK. We've all dealt with far more serious threats to the republic. Live and let live, etc. The only thing that annoys me is that when one clicks on "Most recent posts from my Trusteds," the blogger network posts appear automatically. Makes it feel as if they're being forced down one's throat a bit....
Blogging network? I haven't even bothered to notice.
Mog on, Bruce.
I agree with ivy, I'dlike to be able to filter out the blogs, but besides that, its no biggie...
And B, mog still loves ya!
I'm here, just trying to get some work done outside.
With the whining I was trying to find an excuse to post "Light of this World" and this seemed like a decent way to tie it in without posting this song -
and here's Joan again with another cut off the new album, the song is- "Sweeter than the Rest"
In this situation the saving grace seems to be that the MMN posts use a different color for the title font, making it possible to skip them without more than a cursory glance. I would just as soon be able to filter them out altogether, but this does seem like a workable stopgap for the time being.
On further investigation Live Music Blog is here, uh, but they haven't put any posts up, just the link? I've been reading that one in rss for awhile now and it's pretty informative, and maybe Jamaican Music TV might be worth checking out every now and then....
I just pushed the "Magic Button" and 15 of the 19 posts that came up were blog network posts...hehehe
thanks for staying with us bruce
You can't get rid of me that easily Steve ;)
Don't really mind the blogs myself, B. Found quite cool ones (especially those that got MOG accounts to answer back to my ramblings!) and MOG is pretty much the only site I check daily, so the more content the better. Like to have it all in one place, I'm demanding {and spoiled} like that :P
Wuve you!
the reality is, 80% or more of the people that come to mog everyday are coming to read, not participate. and we're very okay with that. mog is starting to resemble tripadivosr, or yelp for music in that most people who come come to consume only. most people are not content creators. same with youtube. BUT, THE people who do contribute and are content creators make it their own community and form bonds with eachtoher.
we've also just created a MOG 101 for the bloggers so they better understand how things work around here. happy to share with y'all when it's completed.
i gotta say, this attitude kind of bums me out. if there was a more welcoming attitude, and we brought the bloggers into the community by commenting on their posts, they'd be happy and more involved in others.
bloggers are just people too. they might have been moggers had they found our toolset before they started down the path with something else. i don't see why they should be treated differently. we built the feature out of requests from bloggers who asked us if there was a better way to get their content on mog than have to copy and paste from their blogs.
the way to avoid mog becoming a music mag is in your and everyone's hands. welcome them and involve them like you would a new mogger.
Music bloggers are no different than any other Mogger. They post about things that they find of interest. But because they have an inside track sometimes to information and to music, they can turn us on to cool new sounds and info.
Myself, I crave new info about music. I want info about the artists I already love and I want to get hipped to new artists.
MOG is big enough to contain music bloggers, Moggers and artists.
I'm really surprised to hear some people don't like having artists Mogging. I mean how cool to have posts from some of the artists we dig right here at MOG.
We are hoping that the music bloggers and some of the artists will start responding to comments about their posts. But if no one comments on his or her posts, how can they become involved in the MOG community?
And the music bloggers can add a lot to the MOG community. They are all serious music fans, just like the rest of us.
But why have them bypass the filters?
I just went to "My Trusteds" for the past 24 hours, I'm currently subcribed to one of the music blogs, and they didn't have any fresh posts but 75 posts came up that are from bloggers not on my trusteds list and 30 posts came up from my regular (beloved) Trusteds.
I don't really represent the majority here, and I don't pretend to; my posts are weak and infrequent and I don't comment nearly as much as I used to or would like to, (it's been a busy summer).
Maybe it's a bit of feeling intimidated and if I'm feeling that how about the newcomer that hasn't got a lot to contribute at first, how are they going to get their feet wet if they have the slightest feeling that they're up against the "pros" here?
and furthermore if I published a post that looked like this at least I would go back and take the time to get the html right.
Mogging 101? Looking forward to it David!
ps- I'm just sayin'
pps- love you guys :)
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I have no problem with bloggers, but unlike people who come for content only, they are bringing something to the table and asking us to look at it. I have commented, but I haven't got anything back yet.
I feel the same way about bloggers and moggers:If you start a conversation and someone takes the time to answer it, you should answer back. I mean I don't expect an answer when I just say "nice post," but if someone brings dinner and I bring dessert...
All I'm saying is that if you want comments, give comments. Maybe if the blog doesn't want comments it should be designated a NEWS Blog..
At first I had a little trepidation about commenting on MOG newspeoples posts, but I started to comment and newspeople commented back, and all of a sudden we were Mogging. That's what I'm talking about.
I remember long ago when David was telling us that as the site got larger cliques would develop just by the nature of the size of the MOS. He was right about that and it seems to work out fine. Still though, a MOG 101 is a good idea, because we never want the community and conversation clique to be over run by the information clique. Ultimately it would be great if the two did not have to be seperate. I'm willing to see if that can happen.
MOG: Where bloggers are people too
all this is fine and dandy....just fix the trusted filter
actually i just noticed it may have been fixed already....thank ya :)
Hey, it works now, yay!
Thanks for getting the ghost out of the machine and for pointing it out, B42 is a happy mogger again ;)
40 freaking 2
i was thinking bout going on some sort of rant here
but i'll just go hang at multiply instead
lol
haha
wooty woot
Conversation on the pro and cons of the Mog Music Network blog posts continues here - http://mog.com/deadmandeadman/blog/189795
thanks mang