This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply. For as long as I can remember I’ve been doing some version of “first impression” blogs about music on the internet. It started back on AbsolutePunk.net in my blog as I’ve always loved being able to offer some thoughts on an album without the full pressure of an official “review.” My original idea was a more free flowing and less structured way to comment on music usually after having only heard an album one or two times. Today we’ve got things like our forums and social media to serve as a similar medium for putting together opinions on something without it needing to feel too official. I like that. It’s freeing. One of the things I’ve been doing for supporters in our supporter forum is these first listen/first impression live blogs for certain albums. The basic idea is the same as always: I listen to an album and I do a little live blogging of my thoughts, impressions, and feelings as I listen to it. It started out as a fun little way to talk about music and once again helped me feel free from some of the pressures of “official” reviews on music. It’s been a lot of fun and it seems like everyone really enjoys reading them. Now, one of the downfalls of using the forum for this is that it’s not as easy to archive and save these pieces for posterity. And they’re behind the community package paywall and therefore unaccessible to patrons of the main website. Today, I’m fixing both of those problems. First, I’m bringing a selection of my first impression threads to our review database. I’m starting with a few of the more popular ones, and I’ll be importing the rest within the next week or so. All the first impressions will be cataloged in our review section and they’ll be prominently marked as “first impressions” to differentiate them from regular reviews. I’ve also formatted the posts themselves a little differently to make it clear this is a running collection of thoughts, and not a traditional review in paragraph form. To begin with these are remaining exclusive to supporters of the website, and for the first time they are available to patron level supporters as well. If you’re logged in to your supporter account, you’ll have instant access to all the first impression blogs. I think this extra exclusive content is a nice little perk as a thank you to everyone that continues to support this website. I hope you enjoy. First Impressions (Batch One) Manchester Orchestra – A Black Mile to the Surface Jimmy Eat World – Integrity Blues Thrice – To Be Everywhere is to Be Nowhere Saosin – Along the Shadow PUP – The Dream is Over Expand - View Original
My bad for not including this on the main post, I wrote it in the supporter forum: Currently the main site's patron system and the forum system are two different ones ... so most of you probably won't be able to see those posts. However, if you want to move from the forum system to the main site system ... I can probably help you do just that. My next huge project is to combine the two. So that the same system that powers the main site will also be what works here in the forums. So someone signing up here, will also have all the same access to the main site, and I can ditch using PayPal because it sucks as a payment processor. That's going to be a massive project to integrate with the forums, but, it'll be worth it. Basically, if you're a supporter via the forum (community package $5/m) you can view all of these in the supporter forum, if you're a patron via the main site (patron $3/m) you can view these via the main site but not the forum. I am going to be combining both systems soon, cause the forum system isn't great and the main site version is wayyyy better (no more PayPal!), and if you'd like me to walk you though how to instead create a community package membership on the main site (same $5/m), I'll make sure your forum account stays upgraded -- and it'll give you access to both versions of these first listen blogs. Hope that makes some sense. Sorry it's a tad confusing. When I added the $3 a month option for people that don't want the community/forum account, I knew it would add a level of complexity until I was able to integrate the two better. It's very close to next on the to do list though. And then you'll be able to login to both places.
Oh, okay. Honestly, it's fine for now, I can just view them in the supporter forum. Thanks for clearing the air though!
What are you going to use instead of Paypal? I use paypal and i don't own a creditcard, so i'd be bummed if i couldn't support anymore!