Read a Review & Hear the Music!

Last week, I was bored and surfing around the Net, and I stumbled upon Fluxblog, which calls itself "the very first MP3 blog." I'm not sure how accurate that statement is, but for what it's worth, I've never come across another one so far. Fluxblog reviews albums and singles from well-known, emerging and unknown music artists. Unlike print media and other Internet sites, however, this blog actually provides readers with playable MP3s so that readers can hear the music for themselves. Readers can then use the review, as well as the actual song, to decide if they'd like to purchase the entire disc. (The songs cannot be downloaded and only remain on the site for a limited amount of time in order to protect the artists from piracy.) I've always wondered why more music sites didn't provide clips of songs with reviews or news articles. With the technology available today, it seems only natural to provide people with as much information as possible. In the case of a music Web site, that means providing actual music to accompany the text. Fluxblog is just another example of an independent site using the technology available to provide its readers something not found elsewhere in the mainstream.