In the self indulgent world of blogging where everyone thinks that their opinion is right and must be heard, founder of Whiteboydancefloor (wbdf), Chris English was no different. With his general hatred for most music and his intense love for a small amount of it he started wbdf in 2006. At the original conception he brought along Pix who he’d worked with on previous projects; for the first few years they worked as a duo until they decided on an expansion. SoundProof Magazine spoke to the two on their positions as official white boys.

Pix: “The blogosphere is no place for just two arrogant know it alls from Western Sydney, so we gradually expanded the crew to take in other musical tastes and perspectives.”

Covering most genres from small local acts to large global entities, these four white boys and one mixed race female, use this as a platform to share all things music and occasionally pop culture wise, the good and the bad music.

What attracted me to the wbdf blog in the first place was their unapologetically blunt and brash style, whether they liked something or loathed it. There are no gimmicks, slew of competitions, fancy graphics or unashamed advertising. This is just a straight up blog of people sharing their opinions.

With the music industry’s realisation that bloggers now play an important role in being another outlet for them to promote their music, I posed the question to Chris about what he thought the role of a music blog plays within the industry. Chris has very definitive ideas about what that was.

Chris: “Honestly, as more and more blogs are created, the role of the blog in the music industry is being diluted. As the old cliché goes, too many cooks spoil the broth, and there are too many cooks trying to cook the same dish in the blogosphere (i.e. plugging hipster friendly bands by providing free mp3’s). I think there is a niche for blogs like us who (try to) offer something different, who aren’t merely a glorified Napster or Limewire or who aren’t a mouthpiece for a label PR machine.”

Although with varying opinions on the Australian music scene they both agree that Australian Hip Hop barely qualifies as music. This is not to say they aren’t prepared to be proven wrong however they are not holding their breath. Both of them also agree that there is an immense amount of talent in Australia but in saying there has to be some effort in discovering it.

Chris: “I think there are too many tossbag DJ’s, rubbish electro acts, mediocre Idol wash-ups and white rappers out there. There is plenty of talent floating around on community radio and in small venues, however they need more exposure. I guess that’s where we as bloggers have a responsibility to showcase these sort of acts to the world.”

In the foreseeable future see’s wbdf trying to differentiate themselves from the millions in this saturated market by possibly adding new aspects such as presenting information through a variety of media aside from picture, text & mp3’s.

Chris: “There is still an audience for interesting music writing, and there is still an audience who love to read something that makes their blood boil. That’s what we try to do and what we and other blogs can do better”.

The guys from wbdf don’t make lightly of their readers intelligence either, by purposely not just throwing a bunch of mp3’s at them they try to focus on writing posts that have a poignant perspective. Whether the reader agrees with their opinion or not is of no importance.

Pix: “Hearing comments from people that hate us is more exciting than the lovers, keeps the bastards (like us) honest.”

So in saying that; I highly recommend you go have a read. If you find something you disagree with, be sure you leave a scathing comment, they’ll rather enjoy that.

Published on SoundProof Magazine – 17/05/2010