Best Music Blogs: Consequence of Sound
Every week, we will be profiling the best music blogs on the
Internet. But instead of writing a simple blog review, we've decided to
give the blog creators the opportunity to tell you a little about
themselves...
The Background: Consequence of Sound began in September of 2007 as an outlet for founder/publisher Alex Young to voice his opinions on the world of music. Since then, our site has exploded to a full-fledged blog, providing news, reviews and a variety of other features to some 6,000-plus daily users.
Over our first nine months, CoS has earned acclaim and recognition from a number of various outlets including New York Magazine, Filter Magazine, Timeout Chicago and MTV.com for our vast coverage of all things music and unique music festival content. What's more, the blog has also been accredited by Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, the Monolith Music Festival, the Popped! Festival and the Sled Island Music Festival, allowing the site to provide live and on-site content to its readership.
"Festival Outlook". Updated daily, the page offers a summary of every North American music festival, along with a number of European ones, complete with the latest news, confirmations and rumors.
The Staff: Consequence of Sound currently features a staff of eight full-time writers, including publisher/founder Alex Young and editor-in-chief Michael Roffman. Our staff spans the country, located everywhere from New York City and Chicago to Victoria, British Columbia and Raleigh, North Carolina. We also have a number of frequent contributors who publish articles on a weekly basis.
The History: As noted, the blog was primarily started as an outlet to provide commentary on the daily goings on in music. However, by December, Michael Roffman jumped on board and from that point on, the blog has quickly developed into something none of us ever could have dream of. We now average more traffic in 12 hours than we received in our entire first month!
The 'What Sets Them Apart': Aside from our vast amount of daily content covering all genres of music, Consequence of Sound's most popular and unique feature is our "Festival Outlook". Updated daily, the page offers a summary of every North American music festival, along with a number of European ones, complete with the latest news, confirmations and rumors.
The Coolest Experience: Earlier this month, our own Matt Friedman had the opportunity to interview renown musicians Tiësto and Stephen Marley while at Bonnaroo. I think at that point, we finally started to realize how far we had come.
The Craziest Feedback: For whatever reason, Michael Roffman's review of the Offspring's most recent effort, Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace, generated a particularly incredible response. Apparently more than a few folks, or fans, didn't take to kindly to Michael's belief that the album lacked a mature, developing sound. The result? A pretty lively debate in the review's comment section.
The Worst Decision: When transitioning to a new website back in April, we rushed the launch due to fear of losing our growing readership. However, once up, the new site was met with many problems, including the fact it couldn't be viewed on the Internet Explorer browser. A week later, we found ourselves in the same position we started in - a website. Only this time, we took our time and listened to reader's suggestions. The moral of the story? A little downtime is never a bad thing, especially for the long-run.
The Future: We have both a number of short-term and long-term goals, but ultimately, we would like to be mentioned in the same sentence as music's most notable blogs. Oh and of course, making Consequence of Sound a bit more profitable would be nice as well. However, whatever comes about, as is the case now, we would like to stay 100% independent.
Regardless of what does transpire in the future, the blog will always remain an outlet for what is essentially just a bunch of fans writing about the thing they love most - music.
so let's see. CoS is an advertiser on WNEW.com and coincidently they have been named best music blog. how old media of you guys!
Posted by: craig | July 02, 2008 at 05:51 AM
Hey!
I read on a review for The Offsprings Rise And Fall Rage And Grace about the oppurtunity of a job on your site? If the offer is still open can you please leave an email address for the person I would have to speak with?
Cheers,
WestCountryRocker!
Posted by: WestCountryRocker | October 30, 2008 at 04:54 AM