Tune in to These Truly Unique World Music Blogs to Really Expand Your Playlist

In their never ending pursuit to locate a rarely played original composition by some kids in a basement with an electric bass, a keyboard, and an electrified gayageum (a Korean zitherlike musical instrument) that sounded like unholy racket at the time, or a X-ray bootleg with some unimaginable sounds on it, or even some loss cassette recording of a U.S. pop hit re-rendered in Swahili, there are obsessed ethnomusicologist around the world seeking out and compiling playlist for music listeners with adventurous ears. Streaming MP3 capabilities and easy to setup blogging platforms have created a new breed of music experts who host world music blogs for the extremely discriminating musical taste.

With playlist selection consisting of arrangements from the North Korean Orchestral rendition of "We Always Look Up to the Central Committee of the Party to Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru by The Roots of Chicha, these ethnomusicologist archaeologist host and post world music compilations not quite the typical fare you are likely to hear. These playlist have limited to no mass market appeal, are generally too experimental for the average lazy Sunday afternoon world music enthusiasts, and include some way-off kilter psychedelic jams but these world music blogs are amassing a loyal following and listenership from all over the map, from China to Persia to Canada and back.

The blog masters of these world music blogs are not just posting links and music in any type of haphazard fashion. They are savvy amateur digital ethnomusicologist who after scouring the planet for their weird, wonderful, and often forgotten musical treats, switch hats and become journalist, story writers, diarists, and teachers to provide liner notes and descriptions of the history of each sampling. To truly appreciate what they do you must stop by and give them a listen.

A few of my favorite world music blogs are: Benn Loxo du Taccu which consists of Nigerian made American influenced pop rock music from the 1960s and 1970s, at bennloxo.com. Other African world music blogs worth listening to are: Voodoo funk Blog at woodoofunk.blogspot.com, Awesome Tapes for Africa at awesometapesfromafrica.blogspot.com and Likembe Blog at likembe.blogspot.com. Radiodiffusion Internationaal offers a very diverse playlist of various genres at radiodiffusion.net.

Many of these MP3 bloggers have established their roots in the fertile ground of Africa but that is not the only repository for great indie-rock type world music. As the spirit of discovery drive newbie and transitional ethnomusicologist archaeologist you can look forward to other interesting genres to appear on these blogs because MP3 scavengers know no borders.

Resource: World Music Blogs Expand Your Playlist - Musicworks - Winter, 2008