Wanted: links to good writing

I put out a request for links to good writing a few days ago and I got...one response. Thanks to the one person who still cares, but you can consider me quite disappointed with everyone else who may be keeping great blogs to themselves. Either that, or everyone is stuck in the vicious cycle of reading blog aggregators that bring up the same 10 news stories/press releases every day. However, I know that people are still out there who make an effort to produce strong original material, beyond just the mainstream outlets we all know about.

So what do I think is good writing?

To start with, some of the best consistently well written material comes from Aquarium Drunkard. It takes no small effort for me to list them first, considering that I think L.A. is a cold dead place. Speaking of, check out their decade in review article about Explosions in the Sky, and maybe read their Bon Iver post for good measure.

As Muzzle of Bees shows, you don't even have to write that much to provide compelling reading - you can also ask good questions to good people.

A great blog from the great state of Colorado, that I hope you've seen, I am Fuel, You are Friends posted some great pieces back in the spring not only about the music at SXSW, but also about the trip home from Austin. I love writing like this, as opposed to blogs that post tons of poorly taken pictures and or videos and then say one or two things about a band using fancy wordy language that doesn't even fit the music.

Two final blogs I will mention are Nine Bullets and songs: illinois. I love the fact that no matter what they post, the writing always reflects that they have put some actual thought into what they write, and more importantly, that they have actually listened to the music they talk about more than one time through.

So now, how about some recommendations? Don't be scared.