Backhanded praise for music blogs

Just as the music blog network launched, the NYT gave a amusingly backhanded compliment to two of the blogs in the network in an article on music blogs:

Only a handful of music blogs, with names like Fluxblog, Stereogum and Largehearted Boy, have any influence, but even those still have a long way to go to fundamentally alter the landscape of the music industry. Many labels view blogs as little more than potential providers of free publicity; even a blog like Music for Robots, which gets about 8,000 unique visitors a day, is little more than a blip on the radar of major labels.

But blogs are acting as incubators for new talent like the Hysterics. It’s doubtful that MTV would have discovered the band as quickly otherwise.