Worldwide music blog began in Duke City

Albuquerque is home to balloons, green chile and a world-famous blog for electro music.
Yes, the Duke City has been home to Chemical Jump since December 2008. The site specializes in bringing the latest and greatest tracks from DJs and producers from around the world.

Nathan Jackson, the site’s founder and Albuquerque native, said he started the site one day after failing to find a blog that catered to his “electro-banger” musical tastes.

“I don’t really know if I had a vision or idea of what I wanted it to be,” Jackson said. “It didn’t have a design or anything at first. It just had the Chemical Jump name. For the first few weeks I didn’t write anything about the tracks. I just posted what I liked, and it eventually just kind of morphed.”

The site gathers 390,000 views a month, and only 40 percent of those views come from the United States, Jackson said.
“Just about every country you can think of has read Chemical Jump at some point,” Jackson said. “That’s the thing about electronic music, and music in general, anyone can get into it. It’s not country specific or even language specific. I read a bunch of French blogs. I don’t know what they are saying, but it’s catchy so I can get into it. In electronic music, lyrics don’t matter at all.”

Jackson usually updates the blog daily. With each post, he includes a brief description of the track, and then lets the community decide for themselves what they think of it. For more in-depth discussions, there is a forum available for rational discourse, Jackson said. He started a merchandise store as well. Other than that, the site is minimal, according to Jackson’s first post.

“I post shit that I like,’ he said. “I don’t write a lot so don’t expect any long posts. I enjoy sushi. That is all.”
Jackson said he is perfectly able to run the site despite being located in Albuquerque.

“Sometimes I wish I was in L.A. so I could go out to all the shows and meet more artists and things like that,” he said. “The Internet is so broad you can pretty much indulge yourself in anything. You can be in the middle of China and still experience Coachella through YouTube videos.”

The site was not always as strong as is it is now. Jackson said the site initially only received about 200 to 300 views per month.
“The first few months it was really depressing,” he said. “It was like, ‘Aw no one is reading this. It’s probably just me checking it more than anybody else.’ I don’t know. I just stuck with it and eventually it got bigger.”

With the site at its current capacity, Jackson’s whole day is dedicated to music. He spends at least seven hours at his computer listening to music. He reads over 160 other music blogs from around the world to stay on top of his game. He said that he’s glad his readers spend less time online than him.

“You can blog a track and somebody still has never heard it before because a person might only be reading your blog and another blog,” he said. “I read almost every blog out there, so I have seen everything. So I think they have probably seen that or heard that. And I post and people are like, ‘Oh, I never heard this before.’ It gives you a lot of freedom to wait on tracks.”

In an age where music is leaked constantly ahead of schedule, Jackson often must decide whether to post a leaked track that might upset some artists, or to wait on posting the track and thereby deny his subscribers the tunes.

“There’s a big gray line down the middle of ethical mp3,” he said. “I got burned a few times. They took down the site a few times because I posted a track. Sometimes you have to straddle it in postings. Do I post this and get into trouble for it, or do I not and deprive people of what I like? It’s that gray line.”