It’s about time. National Public Radio has recently bolstered it’s music destination. The site seems pretty comprehensive and well rounded. It also has a great deal of offerings that compliment the broadcast side. Mainstay’s such as All Songs Considered and a Song Of The Day feature make it simple to really tap in to the NPR music mentality.

They also had the insight to tap Carrie Brownstein, former guitarist for the band Sleater-Kinney to host their blog. Which immediately gives them some indie darling street cred.

Project Song is a very cool brand/franchise which kind of shows off just how well funded NPR is. They locked Stephin Merritt from Magnetic Fields in a studio with a bar and a 70’s Moog synthesizer (oooh!) for 48 hours and asked him to write and record a song. He delivered. It’s all on video. This ain’t my bag but the format could lend it self to some real greatness. I.E put M.I.A in there or Hall and Oates or Feist. Actually I just listened to Mr. Merritt’s song. It ain’t bad. Now I gotta go back and listened to the Magnetic Fields to see if it actually is my bag.

Another added bonus is the live stream from KEXP in Seattle. What is conspicuously absent is a live stream from KCRW in Los Angeles. It’s just not there. I would consider that to be a perfect fit as Nic Hardcourt et al’s taste always seems to lead the nation.

The news section of the site does not seem to be updated as frequently as I need it to be either. ( I would need it updated every couple of hours. If I wanted bi-weekly updates I can read my own blog). A two week old story about how kids in Dallas are wearing their pants too saggy is not only ” not hard hitting journalism”, but as it’s one of the only stories offered it does make NPR seem stuffy. Or “even MORE stuffy” . This story may have been re-appropriated from the on-air side to the online side. However people at NPR please understand that your online audience is a bit more savvy than that.

I was going to say the same thing for the reviews section however since yesterday someone has gotten on board and started updating that page. (November 6th , 3 of the post were all the same regarding Jay-Z Un-retiring again). Now if someone just reviews another album to push the M.I.A post from August out of the way. We’d be groovy.

All of those grievances are nit picky. I do appreciate the NPR opinion. It just seems like they don’t have a dedicated staff to create that opinion.

Inversely. The word on the street ( and by street I mean something someone emailed me) is Nerve. Is attempting to bloster their music page. The only reason I bring this up is, why not? I would probably be more inclined to listened to someone’s opinion on the merits of the new White Stripes album if I thought there was a possibility of seeing even partial nudity. ( Too bad you gotta pay for it). What I do like that is directly in contrast with the more decidedly more high brow site I mentioned early is. The writers at Nerve do seem to know their audience. Because they probably are their audience ( Does that make sense?). in articles like this the writer gives more information to the reader about Nerve and what they offer and what to expect. I appreciate that.

In conclusion, I think you need a bit of both sites one site to give you high end production value and indepth interviews with Yo Yo Ma and insight to Mickey Avalon’s writing process ( did you know he used to do drugs?). Even if that insight is delivered with a somewhat condescending tone by people I would imagine don’t like getting the bottoms of their feet wet when it rains. AND the more raw, acerbic, burlesque attempt at music journalism. If you pay $35 a year you get to see all the amateur photo contest. Perhaps they can incorporate your favorite bands into that.

I had know idea that people were still into mash ups. I was sure it was an early turn of the century phenomena that was only celebrated by middle age media executives that wanted to be reminded of how cool Blue Oyster Cult was all set to a out of time 808 beats.

That is true.

Be that as it may there seems to be a new life for Mash Ups found at The Hood Internet. The cool thing about this blog besides their hipster links and the boast about hundreds of thousands of myspace friends is they actually sound like they know what they are doing.

Instead of tired classic rock with stale beats . These guys find current indie rock/ indie pop and mix it with the likes of R.Kelly and Dr. Dre. So most of the music is from this decade.

Besides what seems to be daily post they have a couple of full length releases which I am trying to mauw my way through. One with featuring the group The Pack. I haven’t made it through this yet.

Here are some of the good ones:

Dr Dre vs Fujiya and Miyagi

M.I.A vs New Order