Why would anyone start an undertaking with few prospects of recognition or remuneration? I suppose that’s a quandary that all artists, writers and musicians especially, can understand.
My blog, Music Ruined My Life, was borne of raw necessity. Listening to, and reading about, music consumed so much of my free time (hence that cumbersome title) that I needed to share this particular affliction. I wanted people to hear and get excited about music far off the cultural radar.
All the great material popping up in the clumsily named blogosphere did give me a serious kick in the ass. I envied the success of a friend’s sharp, funny personal blog (a blog that details the day-to-day minutiae of an individual) but felt my own life wasn’t fitting fodder for such a work. Then, the now-shuttered sharity blog (a blog which posts albums for downloading) Power-Pop Lovers, with its huge cache of obscure but brilliant rock n’ roll albums, gave me the final hoof. I began a blog detailing the congested intersection of my life and music, mixing the narrative writing of a personal blog with the musical offerings of a sharity blog.
Though some sharity blogs inexplicably post albums that are widely available, MRML, I decided, would offer only functionally out-of-print releases and constantly badger people to buy what they could from the artists or at least pester labels to re-issue dormant albums.
The blog, created in the shards of downtime I scrounged up, gradually found an audience. People read, listened and then began to add their own take on the music, their own memories to the whole stew (the comments section at the bottom of each post is the crucial measure of MRML’s health).
So after two years, I only find myself posting more and more often. There’s just so much music you haven’t heard, music that languishes forgotten or ignored; Clash bootlegs, Dylan covers, Joe Jackson rarities and ultra-obscure singles like the B.T.P. Folders.
As a music-obsessive I had to blog, it was the only outlet left, after all I cannot sing, play or write music. Writing about music, a vicarious thrill at best, is what is left to the unmusical. After all, all art, even blogging, constantly aspires to the condition of music.
Jeff Nielsen is a thirty-something teacher and writer from Canada who grew up listening to folk, classical, classic rock, and sixties rock records and has dabbled in everything from managing a band to booking tours to promoting and everything in between. Jeff feels he found his calling in music blog, which he describes as his own personal way of getting people from all over the planet worked up about unheard music. Find out how on his blog, Music Ruined My Life.
Why would anyone start an undertaking with few prospects of recognition or remuneration? I suppose that’s a quandary that all artists, writers and musicians especially, can understand. 
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