As previously indicated, this blog is now kaput, ya!
I have written about 3 clever posts for the grand finale - something about Sky Atlantic and why TV content can be traded so much more valuably than music - a post about my 30 years of record buying (like Ian Rogers did on his blog) - and a really nice essay on Death Cab For Cutie. I also did a really good 'tag cloud' graphic about who was my favourite artist and when (I've always had a current running favourite). It all started with Queen and for the last 10+ years has been about me finding any number of substitutes for Radiohead. I might even post that one as an epilogue.
However - I couldn't get the damn things finished. It's all down to pressure of time. Time closing in like day changing to evening to night. Don't worry I'm not about to disappear completely - I'll be back with my new blog 'Culture Content' (about popular culture and how it seamlessy blends with our lives and teaches us how to live, maybe) soon. I'll notify you where to find this unique gem of a publication in due course.
You'll still come across me working in music too, via the continued excellence of the BPI Innovation Panel, or my other digital strategy projects and my pet project - the UK's first ever Music Film Festival - which I'm launching next year with some very cool partners. It will be great.
You won't see me at conferences though, I don't do those.
But as to the JB, it's done. I'm sorry I didn't get around to the post about ECM, Nonesuch, Coffee and music and Merz (who didn't release his album in time). But I can always do a special one-off - like a culled TV series.
The blog posts here - all 70 of them - will stay of course, for posterity. The stats weird me out anyhow. Yesterday for some reason there was 103 page views, so you never know how & when the blog or any particular post gets around. Besides I know it has won accolades in academic circles, which is both puzzling and flattering. So it will stay as an archive - even though that seems anathema for a weblog.
Stats wise this blog did okay. If you subscribed by e-mail - at its peak - you were one among circa 600 or so, and the page views would occasionally rocket if it got covered in any one of the (excellent) music publications - Record of the Day, MusicAlly - or the bigger ones like Wired, Billboard, Music Week etc. The profile views stand at 2292 - is that good? I dunno. But special thanks to other blogs that linked through - like Coolfer before it wound up, Mark Mulligan's still good Music Industry Blog and TMV.
Most of all thanks for reading - and to all those artists, managers, execs and others just interested - who e-mailed or got in touch as a result of something I wrote - big love - appreciate you 'reaching out' so to speak.
Music is the best thing apart from my wife & daughters and I'll continue to do everything in my power to get the message out about who I'm listening to, why and why you should too.
If all else fails, give Songs From The Big Chair another listen...bonjour!
