Bribing Music Bloggers Now Easier Than Ever

As Gerard Vs. Bear noted over the weekend, there’s an exciting new way for music bloggers to exploit their last remaining shred of integrity: Signing up for ReviewMe, a pay-for-say program in which bloggers can get up to $250 for writing reviews of specific products (i.e. “If you’re really into the new Decemberists album, maybe you’ll be interested in the original Crane wife, when Lilith makes a triumphant return in season 8 of Frasier, now available through Paramount DVD…”).

Anyway, it’s more proof that most music bloggers would be journalistically outmatched by an eighth-grade yearbook staff. But what’s particularly distressing about this approach is that is doesn’t actually work. A few weeks ago, in fact, Idolator attempted to solicit some positive write-ups in the music blogosphere, and let’s just say we weren’t happy with the results. For example:

– Blog Soup‘s recent claim that Idolator is “so bad…I cant believe Nick Denton allows it to be published. I am sincerely surprised he hasn’t fired everybody over there” cost us $17 and some Ho-Hos. – 15-Minute Hipster‘s review of our “poor and poorly-researched content” and its call to “get some people who actually know something about music and are on top of what’s happening in the industry” cost us $6 and a crappy MP3 of some guy named Johnny Moir (Marr?) playing with Modest Mouse. – The C-Fed says… blog’s succinct “Who cares?” comment cost us $46 a word, plus our dignity.

You see? Thinly veiled bribes just don’t work. We want our money back–and possibly a half-eaten Ho-Ho or two.

BUY BLOGGERS! [Gerard vs. Bear]