Music. It doesn’t matter if you’re a casual consumer or a fervent audiophile – it fuels all of us in so many ways. Music has the power to shift our mood, enhance our activities and quite literally start revolutions. While the revolutions of sound are seldom seen these days (unless you’ve got a clear case on your external hard drive), the masses have turned to the internet (once again) for their tunes. For those that are on the up-and-up and for others who might like to pretend like they are, we’ve picked out five of our favourite Toronto music blogs that you really ought to turn an ear towards…

Sidewalk Hustle
A blog turned podcast turned website, Sidewalk Hustle is always up to the hip on what’s happening around Toronto’s music scene. Though they cover quite the array of artistic avenues within the city, they’ve remained one of the top sources for Toronto-centric soundscapes since their inception in 2007.

Chart Attack
Chart Attack is one of those organically driven all-indie music sites that constantly cranks out the goods. (Skip the granola please.) This assembly of mostly unpaid music fiends (their words, not mine) have been getting down with the independent, unsigned and eternally underground artists around Toronto since 1996. Aside from their full-scale shift to the web (they used to be the online subset to Chart Magazine) they’ve been kickin’ it old school ever since.

Indie Music Filter
An assembly of individuals that scour the music feeds from all about the interweb for the freshest tracks in the game… so you don’t have to. Indie Music Filter stays primarily on the new indie beat, naturally, and their amalgamation of vids, quick reviews and quality playlists never disappoint. I’m actually listening to one of them right now.

Turn the Record Over
While much of Toronto has forgotten the feeling of planting the needle on a freshly dusted vinyl, or picking through the tattered spines of a record collection, Lisa Lagace has the dust fresh on her fingertips. Also always on the new music grind, her hugely popular blog, Turn the Record Over, catalogues great weekly features and is as well organized as my personal LPs. (Yeah, they’re alphabetized… and categorized!)

Friends with Both Arms
No longer operating with the frequency that she used to, Friends with Both Arms still falls firmly within the list of our favourite Toronto music blogs as a result of the killer monthly mixtapes that get us in the groove. Looking forward to that monthly mixtape in ones virtual mailbox is akin to receiving your pre-ordered album from the band you’ve never heard of but know you’ll love. This is one of those music blogs that industry folk like to follow, as so many of them contribute the the content themselves.