Filed under the category of "Not bloody likely." Coolfer recently quipped about the influence of music blogs, and remarked that a Stereogum endcap in a retail store wouldn't surprise him. It drew some ire from music fans who want to keep the blog-o-sphere pure, saintly and (most of all) untainted by outside influence.

Worry not campers, hear me out on this one...

Radio payola works for a reason.. there is a significant barrier to entry. You can't just come home from the pub one night and say, "I'm going to start a radio station, and it's going to ROCK!" It just doesn't work that way. There's a limited amount of frequency space, licenses are expensive, you have to build an antenna, there's all sorts of things that stand in your way. No matter what distorted Tenacious D fantasy land you live in, the likely-hood of you starting a radio station from scratch is practically zero.

But, Blogging isn't radio. You really can come home from the pub one evening and say "Man, I'm gonna start the best music blog, EVER!" It'll take you dedication, time, tons of effort and, your ears will bleed from all the music you review on a daily basis. Your friends will abandon you, you may lose your marriage but, in the end, it's completely plausible for anyone with the determination and a little bit of writing talent to start a completely successful blog. The barrier to entry is so low that you could roll right over it on your skateboard and barely even notice.

So, when your favorite music blog finally does become a cesspool of pay-for-post poppycock... you can easily just "turn the dial." There will always be something new and hot, some blogger laying out the truth without the influence. The ugly monster of payola can only thrive when it exists in a vacuum.