In the world of music, there are several blogs devoted to finding the newest and edgiest tunes. Oftentimes, the more offbeat an audiophile’s tastes are, the rougher the journey becomes.
Gorilla vs. Bear represents just one distinguished voice within the cyber-haystack of emerging and evolving music. A blog dedicated to providing its readers with “stuff selected by people with respectable eardrums,” Gorilla vs. Bear has been featured as the “Blog of the Year” for 2008 in the annual readers’ poll held by URB Magazine and has even been described by Rolling Stone as one of the web’s “Best Music Blogs.”
As for what makes Gorilla vs. Bear so dissimilar from the rest of the music blogosphere, the list isn’t painstakingly long. Among its succinct reviews and artist spotlights, the reader can see that the blog relies heavily upon aesthetics.
To some, Gorilla vs. Bear is best described as a “hipster blog.” Its posts are accompanied by antique-like photographs of the featured artists, lots of embedded YouTube spots, and a simplistic hardwood background to contrast with the somewhat avant-garde graphics. Elements of the site layout are also comparable to microblogging sites like Tumblr and Pinterest.
The music that’s found on Gorilla vs. Bear isn’t easy to confine to one genre, let alone one aesthetic, however, ranging from lo-fi rock to something describable only as “psychedelic sexed-up scifi R&B,” it’s a silent guarantee that pretty much anyone could find likable tunes in the 6-year-old blog’s archives.
To get the best idea of what to expect on Gorilla vs. Bear, one doesn’t need to veer too far into the past – two options present themselves as less headache-inducing. The first option is to check out the site’s January 2012 playlist. Another option is to check out the “Best of 2011” songs.
Whichever is chosen, there’s no need to begrudgingly fawn over The Road Not Taken.
