2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 100,000 times in 2010. If it were an exhibit at The Louvre Museum, it would take 4 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 34 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 318 posts. There were 40 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 96mb. That’s about 3 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was March 14th with 852 views. The most popular post that day was Melody Maker review of May 1987 with staff picks by Carol Clerk.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were blissout.blogspot.com, facebook.com, guardian.co.uk, en.wordpress.com, and twitter.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for damon albarn, sinead o’connor, kurt cobain, the cult, and caitlin moran.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Melody Maker review of May 1987 with staff picks by Carol Clerk October 2008

2

Steve Sutherland interviews Damon Albarn, 16th September 1995 June 2009
4 comments

3

Sinead O’Connor N.M.E. cover 1988 May 2008

4

Barry Egan interviews Sinead O’ Connor, 29th October 1988 November 2008
6 comments

5

Damon Albarn on the cover of NME, 16th September 1995 July 2008
1 comment

Backlash edited by Simon Price, 9th December 1995

“Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Romo?”

Yes I’ve dusted off the scanner and once again sit scanning ephemeral pop trivia late into the night. There’s been too many requests in the intervening months for me to try and fulfil, this just caught my eye. Got love Pricey tearing Pearl to shreds, although I do quite like her Price Cube dig. Anyway…I guess this goes with this.

Oh and Andy Catlin got in touch. Go to his website to see nice pictures. http://andrewcatlin.com

Taylor Parkes reviews The Stone Roses, 9th December 1995

Taylor Parkes reviews The Stone Roses, 9th December 1995. Photo Mark Benney.

“…and the collected non-old people of Bridlington and its surrounding villages go bananas (raisins, coconuts, sultanas)”

It’s terrible but it made me smile; and the glaring indignity of the fact that Brown has managed to carve out some sort of post-Roses career while Squire has retreated to his painting is underlined by the subsequent review.

Blur Oasis on the cover of Melody Maker, 9th December 1995

Blur / Oasis on the cover of Melody Maker, 9th December 1995. Photo by Tom Sheehan.

So last night I saw the Blur doc, No Distance Left To Run which left me feeling a little disjointed. It’s hard to put my finger on why. I suppose, as the cliché goes, I’ve grown up with Blur. But it’s more than simple nostalgia. They’ve somehow bisected with my life in a way that no other band has and while I watched Blur’s youthful exuberance become slowly grubbied by alcohol, cynicism and (whisper it) heroin, I was repeatedly reminded of my various triumphs and failures. Mostly failures. Fuck it, it is just nostalgia isn’t it?

I was at art college in London in 1990, not Goldsmiths, but one very close by. One group of friends had come from Colchester art college and were good friends with Damon’s sister. One even ended up marrying her. It all came back last night and more.

I remember how I heard Leisure at a BBQ weeks before it was released. I remember Damon running off to get the tube after coming to our graduation show; and how shortly afterwards, Modern Life is Rubbish, ended up sound tracking my hateful commuter walk during the misery of my first full time job. I remember the lonely walks from Hackney to The Barbican on Sunday afternoons. I remember the Subterranea and how you could often find Damon puking his guts up in the toilets. I remember Britpop, the Loaded parties and the hangover that kicked in around 98 when we all suddenly realised we weren’t young anymore and had stopped talking to each other. I remember the scurrilous rumours, the friends boyfriend who’d shagged Justine and how I’ve had to leave that life behind me. I remember thinking how much they’d done and how little I’d done. I guess I felt sorry for myself.

But most of all…most of all, I remember thinking…make another fucking record.

Here’s a great recording of the pre-Blur Seymour, clips of which were shown in the doc.

Carol Clerk R.I.P.

Carol Clerk lost her battle with cancer over the weekend. If you’ve arrived at AMP to find out more info then there’s some discussion about it here on the ILXOR forum with some links to her work. Clearly The Quietus are planning on running a tribute in the week to come but until then ET has posted up a piece on his blog. Here’s a real-time Twitter search and here’s a memorial Facebook page.

Only 2 pieces from Carol in AMP unfortunately, type Carol Clerk into the search box to find them. Hopefully more to come soon.

Ian Gittins interviews The Happy Mondays, 28th November 1987

Very early interview with the Mondays. Oh how the time has simply *flown* by. Don’t believe me? Well compare and contrast the above with this recent gem.

Hofmeister Advertisement, 28th November 1987

Further proof that Hofmeister Lager definitely wasn’t deliberately marketed to under age drinkers. I mean just because George the Bear is pictured with party balloons, clutching a Virgin megastore bag and blowing a streamer it’s just CO-INCIDENTAL! Ten years later you could flog 2-4-1 vodka Hooch lemonades and no one gave a shit. Thankfully, these days it seems like some of us have finally grown-up.

Best thing I’ve seen this week is this fantastic (and growing) Flickr set of scanned in Smash Hits. 1979-1980 there so far but looks like it’s being done chronologically so one to keep checking back on. I’ve thought about doing this with AMP over the years (gosh years! plural) and this convinces me I should.

Jonh Wilde interviews Public Enemy, 28th November 1987

Jonh Wilde interviews Public Enemy, 28th November 1987. Photos by Andy Catlin.

Good to hear from Kulkarni regarding this issue in the comments. Here’s the interview that “utterly changed [his] life forever”. Hope it stirs happy memories.

Public Enemy on the cover of Melody Maker, 28th November 1987

Public Enemy on the cover of Melody Maker, 28th November 1987 in response to another request that came through. Photo by Andy Catlin

And so here’s the first post since the BBC announced the planned closure of 6Music. Who knows if it’ll happen or not but I’ll be one of the many to be sad to see it go if Thompson does pull the plug. I often sit scanning to Freak Zone on the iPlayer – why not add to the sites traffic by taking a listen too – I guarantee you’ll hear something new and incredible.

Over at the continually amazing Quietus, Luke Turner nails the situation completely and drew my attention to this revelatory Information Is Beautiful graphic breaking down the BBC’s annual budget across major categories. To summarise, in terms of cash spent; Norton, Robinson & fucking Clarkeson = 6Music. And really; £2m for 3 days of Jo Whiley et al driving everyone absolutely fucking mental at Glastonbury, that’s a fucking disgrace! Only a fraction of the bands are actually filmed and then the footage can only be shown on iPlayer 7 days due to rights issues – how is that value for money? It was all very different not so long ago and much the better for it.

EDIT: Worth drawing everyone’s attention to this link from the comment left by Matt

Good points about 6Music. Why not tell the BBC this (I have) via their consultation survey? The more who do so, the more likely the station will be spared the axe. https://consultations.external.bbc.co.uk/departments/bbc/bbc-strategy-review/consultation/intro

Ian Gittins reviews Street Fighting Years by Simple Minds, 6th May 1989

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