The music industry is notoriously slow on the Internet uptake. To drive that point home even further, EMI Australia’s new blog, “The In Sound From Way Out,” is apparently the first ever from a major record label. It’s appropriate, then, that the title is borrowed from a 13 year-old Beastie Boys album.
Posts began unceremoniously in late February with a few Pet Shop Boys videos (kudos to Wired for picking up on this now) and continues along at a post or two per day, with sporadic days off. On its face, the blog looks like any other site dedicated to the latest music happenings. There are announcements regarding a variety of groups — the text doesn’t explicitly mention that they’re all EMI bands, but they are — and embedded links to music videos. Today, there’s a post on a really interesting demo package that showed up at the A&R office.
The bloggers seem open to hearing about unsigned bands, too; a box at the top of the screen encourages readers to send tips, and promises to sign groups that the staff really enjoys.
Scanning a couple pages, I quite like the relaxed and open feel of the blog, and that seems to be the point. “As far as we can tell, we are the only major label with this level of openness about who we are and what we do,” the blog’s About page reads. “We hope you respond to that with openness of your own.”
Indeed, the music industry is often stigmatized as a bunch of cold, careless suits. Whether or not music industry blogs such as this can translate into sales is up for debate, but the young, smiling faces of the In Sounds staff are, at minimum, great PR.
The media biz is such a vale of tears these days that it’s a delight whenever a scrap of news that isn’t completely depressing comes along. And here’s news that’s all good: 
I’m tickled to report that the new edition of PCMag.com’s annual roundup of its hundred favorite blogs includes…the very site you’re reading.