Science & Tech Quote by Carl Wilson

There is a little myth-making tucked into Wilson's confession: he narrates his own conversion to blogs as a scene of discovery, like stumbling into a sweaty club where the real band is playing while the mainstream venue down the street sells VIP packages. The phrase "critical-thinking action" is telling. He's not praising blogs for access or speed; he's praising them for argument, for the feeling that ideas are in motion and up for grabs. That's a musician talking, not a media theorist: he judges writing the way you judge a live set, by its charge.

The comparison points do the heavy lifting. "Rock writing of the 1970s" invokes a period when criticism flirted with literature and politics, when a review could be a manifesto. The nod to "e-mail discussion lists a decade ago" adds a different kind of nostalgia: not glamour, but community - messy, threadbare, intensely participatory. Wilson positions blogs as the latest container for that same urge: fans and critics building meaning in public, in real time, without institutional permission.

Subtext: he is quietly demoting legacy outlets. The action is not "there" anymore; it's migrated to wherever people can write fast, link aggressively, and fight in the comments. It's also a defense of seriousness inside pop. By calling music blogs a site of "critical thinking", he insists that enthusiasm and rigor aren't opposites - they are the same voltage, when the culture feels alive enough to argue about.