Mrs. Mecomber’s Scrapbook

My husband is a musician. He listens to everything. Believe me, I’ve heard it all! Country, metal, grunge, gospel, funk, pop, disco, and indie. Indie is short for “independent” and is the musical branch of the “do it yourself” culture. Technology and education has really contributed to its rise. There is a ton of great talent out there. Rather than wait for the recording industry to “discover” them, musicians are just playing their own songs, making their own CDs, and distributing their stuff thanks to the Internet. One of my favorite bands, Third Day, started out independent (but were “discovered” and later went mainstream). When I was younger, we called them “garage bands.” Indie music usually has its own subculture built around it, too.

Allan’s World Music is a multi-authored blog highlighting different indie groups and music, and offers reviews of indie albums. Allan seems to be the master of ceremonies at the blog. He and the other authors are media-minded and include short audio or video clips of the groups they blog about. This is very helpful, especially to visitors who are out of the indie loop (like me). I listened to a few clips, and really liked the Red Sparrows.

The blog design is classy, but the background is dark. I’m not too fond of dark backgrounds, but for this blog it seemed OK. It’s an appealing theme- I like the Scotch-tape effect on the virtual notebook paper. I also love the big blue RSS feed badge. I’m a sucker for big shiny badges like that. The blog header is a little plain for the stylishness of the theme. It looks like Arial font, and the title description bleeds over the header image. I don’t think the header font should get any smaller, but maybe the header could be enlarged, if possible. It’s not terribly noticeable, but it is slightly awkward when the rest of the blog looks stylish. (I love the “Allan’s World” script font at the top of each sidebar; I’d like to see it more noticeable, or use that design idea for the rest of the fonts– like, the post title).

Going to the blog content: I think the posts’ title font is Arial, too, which is dull, and a tad large. Because some of the posts’ titles are several lines long, it might be better to make the post title font smaller.

The writing of the posts is good– not too long, not too short. The transitions in thought kept me reading, even though I can’t say I am terribly interested in the world of indie music. The content is very readable. The pictures and sound clips are incremental to its cohesion. Very good job. Posts are short and sweet and keep one’s interest.

The font in the sidebars is a bit too small for me, but it does go nicely with the overall design; it’s just a tiny bit difficult for me to read. The categories lists is extremely long and a little difficult to follow because the font is so small. But as a blogger who has long categories lists myself, I understand that sometimes organization and thoroughness must trump brevity. If I was looking through the categories for a specific group or topic, I’d appreciate such a thorough list.

I like that there are “about” pages for each author. I can’t say I like what’s in some of the about pages (I’d really rather not know about belly buttons and bongs, thanks anyway). I did like that they have an “Upcoming Album Reviews” schedule for the organized indies among their readers. Allan has a good, well-organized, and well-written blog. A few tweaks, and it’ll look perfect.