KENNICOTT What are the implications on music criticism of a writer jumping on to the blog bandwagon? There's only one way to find out

I've begun a blog. Wait, please, come back. I promise not to talk about it. I won't even tell you its name. I know there's no bore like a blogger bore. All that narcissistic self-expression.

survivors economise by eliminating music critics, it seems a foregone conclusion that bloggers will increasingly carry the burden of daily music criticism. What that new world looks like, no one is quite sure. But some basics are emerging: local arts coverage will be focused on a few central websites, with links to a scattered network of individual concert and record reviewers.

Some of these sites are already well established and can be relied on to do what newspapers once did — cover the field, reliably, on a daily basis. But it's the emerging network of individual bloggers I'm interested in, especially now that I belong to it.

How reliable are we? How judicious and objective? Can you trust us?

Here's the main problem: bloggers are forced to play two very different and sometimes conflicting roles. They are publishers and critics. Good newspapers divide these functions, so that writers aren't influenced by advertisers, or anyone else offering blandishments on the publishing side. General readers may doubt the inviolability of the firewall between advertising and editorial. But at professional newspapers it is a real divide — and scrupulously observed.

Now I'm flogging my little blog. I want record companies to take it seriously. I want links from other bloggers and newspapers and magazines. I'm in the self-promotion business as much as the writing business and look how quickly my priorities change.

A staff job at a newspaper insulates you from much of the potential for corruption. You don't have to beg record companies to send you new recordings. You don't have to beg for tickets. Your review reaches its captive audience without the ministrations of other writers and bloggers and website linkers. A few thousand trees are converted to fish wrap, and your crabby pettifogging hits the breakfast tables of a half million people. Ah, the good old days.

In my first week of blogging, I reviewed Catrin Finch's new recording of Bach's Goldberg

Variations performed on the harp (on Deutsche Grammophon) and contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux's Schumann recital (on Naïve). I loved the Lemeiux so much I was going to write a column about it for Gramophone, but the insatiable maw of the blog kept crying out for new material, so I ran it there. About Bach on the harp

I remain very dubious. It's a bit like hearing a pianist play Bach with too much sustaining pedal, and I miss the richer sonic spectacle of the piano.

Now let's go to the blog stats, that instant-read thermometer (available through most basic blogging software) that tells you what people are viewing when they visit your website. My happy review of Lemieux is gathering readers about 20 times faster than my little screed about Bach on harp. What a depressing comment on human nature.

I realise there's nothing scientific in this analysis. But unless a negative review is such a well-turned piece of pure literary spite that people read it for pleasure, there is not much incentive to seek it out or link to it. The vast middle ground of criticism — the neither great nor bad, the B-plus work that deserves neither brickbats nor praise — is not very marketable in the web world. And as a website writer, you are constantly in the business of marketing.

Perhaps when I'm a rich and famous blogger, when millions of people remain hooked to my daily tweets, I'll hire someone to manage the "publishing" end of things Luckily, my other work as a journalist means I have plenty of occasions to hear new recordings and attend concerts without having to establish the legitimacy of my new website. So I don't feel personally inclined to alter the way I do business, to tailor reviews or avoid the hard subjects. But

I can see how people might be tugged by the forces of the new media world. I can see how they might be tempted to mention that they blog at philipkennicott.com.