With a heavy shout-out to the quickly encroaching Bmore Musically Informed blog, Aural States takes the title again this year. Hosting a mammoth mid-winter music festival full of Baltimore's finest didn't hurt, of course--nor did the addition of video content--but Aural States continues to demonstrate a commitment to smart, diverse, and honest music writing. We like that the content is mostly local--it's hard to justify otherwise in a town like Baltimore--and we like that Aural States continues to nod to classical and other sub-hip sorts of music. This goes much farther than your average get-me-on-the-guest-list music blog into intelligent yet populist musing on the country's best music scene.
