The Renaissance is being blogged

I received a very nice email today from someone working with Aisling Kavanagh, who had noticed my recent Saturday Redneck post about her. That led me to her MySpace page, which led me to her list of MySpace Friends, which led me right down the Internet music rabbit hole.

There is an explosion of popular culture going on right now, where creation and distribution of content is direct from the artist to the consumer. Where this ends is anybody's guess, but the world has never seen anything like it. The Long Tail is getting longer by the day. Suddenly (and unexpectedly), I have a month of Saturday Redneck material, and I've only scratched the surface.

I also found a bunch of non-Redneck* stuff that's well worth your time. As you'd expect, Miss Kavanagh is pretty wired into the Irish music scene, and while there's an astonishing amount of Country music over there, there's even more from other genres, including traditional Celtic music.

The Blacksmith

Maura O'Connell | MySpace Music Videos

There are also new distribution channels, like Balcony TV, where local artists from Dublin, London, and Hamburg get viral on the Internetz. There's so much content, in fact, that the problem is not is there anything I want to watch, it's how do I find what I like?

Err, other than following Saturday Redneck here, of course.

And that, of course, is the answer. You find people that recommend stuff that you like, as I did with Miss Kavanagh's friends page, or you may do here. This Renaissance is being blogged, for your convenience.

* For anyone new to my ramblings,"redneck" is a term of endearment here, or a badge of honor.