Digital distribution has made it much faster to discover and download new music. Kids today switch from cool new synthpop to Japanese rock to Mexican folk songs to minimal techno way more quickly than I can say “CDs and maxisingles.” Friends’ recommendations and links can help change one’s musical taste from pop to bizarre and back in a day. New musicians can look for exposure for their music on hundreds of sites without having to put out a physical recording first.

However, friends’ recommendations aren’t the only guide in finding new music. The Hype Machine follows music blog discussions and has put together a list of the best music from 2008 as chosen by music bloggers. The lists of the 50 top artists, albums and songs are laid out beautifully, and the user can play songs directly on the site and add them to a list of personal favorites.

Bloggers’ opinion does not equal “people’s voice”, but music bloggers can act much like DJs. If the writer is someone who’s judgement is trusted as an arbiter of quality music, then he can probably exert a greater amount of leverage than the average fan recommending new music to a couple friends on Facebook.

The days of traditional Billboard-style charts – whether compiled by magazine editors or hundreds of bloggers – may be over, but new authorities have emerged in the digital era. Sites like Pitchfork have been growing exponentially in popularity and influence over the past ten or so years, and Last.fm and the like offer users a quick way to share playlists. Digital tools have made finding the cool and independent much easier than before, which isn’t necessarily all positive. Some of us liked it better when you actually had to work quite hard, check out handmade zines and blindly attend shows to investigate what was going on under the surface.

Karri Ojanen, with help from Fang-Yu Lin, Michael Miller and Daniel Turman