Seattle Music Blogs

One of the deepest and most trenchant problems surrounding Seattle's music is the single-mindedness on the music press.  Though the styles in vogue do change over time, you will find that 90% of the music writing in (and about) Seattle will focus on one specific style, and everything else has to struggle to even get mentioned.  This myopia is perpetuated almost entirely by Seattle's free papers and popular blogs... which is to say, writers with no more official claim on the city's musical tastes than you or me.  The bands they hype play the same clubs as the bands I like, and though they draw similar-sized crowds in town, the musicians that aren't spotlit by the hip Seattle music literati are all but invisible to out-of-towners.  For a city with as much variety in its musicians as Seattle, that's a real shame.

Worse, we've got to accept that 90% of the writing about Seattle bands focuses on a specific, popular genre because the rest of us are only contributing the other 10%, and it's only disproportionate because we're not doing our part to fill the internet with Seattle's varied and interesting music.  Other writers can take up the slack, not unlike:


Seattle Passive Aggressive is both an online presence and a free zine being made available at music stores, bars, and venues, and leaning towards the heavier side of the Seattle Music Scene.  Their website and feed also include posters/listings of upcoming shows. Seattle Audiophile does show reviews of varying genres, as well as providing articles for bands, musicians, and engineers & recordists, with general tips and tricks, and detailed video tutorials for Ableton Live.
Seattle Rock Guy has a rock & metal news feed, along with reviews of albums and shows, and upcoming event listings. Blogs Is Watching is a Seattle hip hop blog, which is one of those musical genres people simply don't associate with this city, and the blog provides new content, reviews, and show listings from the area.

Sound on the Sound tends to focus on the poppier, janglier... well, there's a heavy focus on glasses, beards, and sweaters.  Though I do believe this stuff is slightly overrepresented in Seattle, this is a good, solid blog with a lot of music, good writing, and expansive exposure. Local papers:  it's worth noting that the Seattle's free newspapers have music blogs. The Stranger has Line Out and Seattle Weekly has Reverb, and the local radio station blog at KEXP.also deserves a mention.