With a passion for music and a knack for discovering new artists, junior Mikayla Moyer decided to take her hobby a step further and create her own music blog.

Moyer began her site Loose Lips in May of 2010 with the slogan, “Loose Lips sink ships, but good music shouldn’t be kept secret.” She worked single-handedly to format the site and began to find music, contact artists and labels, network and write reviews.

“Loose Lips” is one of many student-run music blogs to hit the Web this school year as music blogging grows in popularity for students to display or find new tunes.

Although Loose Lips features predominantly indie rock, electronic and house music, it is all what she calls “middle ground music.” That is, music that she thinks the vast majority of her readers will enjoy, regardless of whether or not they are familiar with the band or the genre. 

Without any personal advertisement of her blog, Loose Lips was added to the Hype Machine in late December after someone submitted her work.

“It was somewhat of a fairytale when I got listed on the Hype Machine—which is arguably the most ‘elite’ aggregator of music blogs that has a really strict application and acceptance process,” she said.

On average, Loose Lips now receives 1,000 page views per day, up from 100 page views per day less than two months ago.

“Since then I’ve had to kind of legitimize myself and focus on keeping my blog more regular and formal, like a real magazine,” she said. “If other people are watching, I should very well try to make it the best that I can.”

Record labels, promotion companies and bands have contacted Moyer about her blog and have presented her with new music to post.

Recently, Moyer received her first promotional e-mail from Sony Records to feature one of their artists on “Loose Lips.”

“Web blogs are essentially an extension of their advertising and promotional campaigns.  Minor labels are sending blogs their songs in order to help garner their artists more publicity,” Moyer said.

When Moyer receives or finds music, she is mostly concerned with the promotion of the artists. She listens to the song at least five times and will only post it if she enjoys the song more with each listen.

“When I post a song to my site you can be guaranteed that it’s been tried and tested, and I believe fully in it,” Moyer said.

SMU senior Connor Davidson, creator of Samplethemusic.com, frequents the Web for music, including “Loose Lips.”

“Once you find a couple that you can rely on, and you know that the writer is sifting through and picking out only the best tunes, you really don’t need to go anywhere else to find good music,” Davidson said.

A follower of “Loose Lips,” SMU sophomore Katie Roberts shares a similar thrill in music blogs because of a sense of freedom and control the reader and writers feel.

“When you listen to the radio, the only control you have is what station to listen to. On music blogs, you can choose what you want to read, pay attention to, download, or listen to,” Roberts said.

When students like Roberts turn away from mainstream media and look to the Web for new music, they are presented with an overload of music and information. This is where Moyers hopes for “Loose Lips” to play a role.

“My goal is to get these under-appreciated-but-supremely-talented musicians a little bit of recognition,” Moyer said.