Happy 18th Birthday & Thank You!

This week marks Bloggerhythms' 18th birthday and I can't believe it's been that long!

This little outpost on the web was born in April 2005 as a place for album reviews of mostly new music. Gradually, over time, it's focus shifted toward older material but you'll still find some interesting new releases featured here on occasion.

The first review I ever posted was about a classic old Chicago album, Hot Streets. Later, this review was copied, moved, and re-used again with a more recent date to fill in a gap when there was no time to write something new. This has happened with several other very early posts that absolutely no one read because hardly anyone knew Bloggerhythms existed.

Currently, both the oldest and least read article is a review of a Matchbox 20 album, Mad Season, that was posted on April 29, 2005 and was originally written for someone else's long defunct website. In all these years it only received eighty-six total page views, and a few of those clicks most assuredly came from your congenial host. That's an average of only 4.8 clicks per year!!

On the opposite end, Bloggerhythms' most popular feature by far was published on May 12, 2011. It's called Slower Than Slow: 16 RPM Records, and as of this morning it has 86,974 page views and has generated 107 comments. I had no idea when I posted it that there were so many people interested in this long forgotten vinyl format. At one time it was the #1 listing on Google if you surfed the words "16 RPM records," but for some reason it's now completely gone from the search engines even though it continues to be my most read post every single day, regardless of anything else I write.

Bloggerhythms' readership peaked well over a decade ago and that's something that appears to be true of many privately run, independent music blogs. Fortunately, this year has shown an upswing in visits - maybe it's because I post more frequently now that I'm retired and joined Instagram in addition to Twitter. Currently, this little website is averaging around 200 hits daily - small potatoes in cyberworld for sure - but it's still enough of an incentive to keep going.

I want to thank everyone who has ever been interested in or commented on Bloggerhythms and for making this fun hobby worthwhile.

To celebrate, here is the first song from the first album I wrote about. It's also the coolest song Chicago ever did after the sad demise of Terry Kath. Unfortunately, for the great horn band, it was all downhill from there.

Comments

  1. Casey11:33 AM, April 27, 2023

    A lot of good entertainment and information has been served up here. Sharing what strikes your fancy. And whether everyone likes everything you hit us with, well...that doesn't really matter. We're not supposed to. You just put it out there. You own it. And others hopefully get a chance to experience music with new eyes and fresh ears. And maybe sometimes dig it too. During my times of following your posts...♫ ♪ "It's just I needed!" ♫ ♪ Happy! Happy! And all the best

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Charlie Ricci1:51 PM, April 27, 2023

      Thanks a lot Casey. I follow your blog too. People can find it here. https://www.thecollegecrowddigsme.com/

      Delete
  2. Todd Mason3:51 PM, May 21, 2023

    Glad you're still at it! Sorry my own comments have been so sparse in recent years.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Todd Mason3:56 PM, May 21, 2023

    I suspect that people, certainly most younger people (even those who are sight-impaired) have never encountered any of the 16rpm albums that could be found for at least several reasons up through the '80s, even if music was the least of them after the failure of automobile turntables to catch on...I wondered what the 16 setting was for, and then for other than Talking Books, on our Panasonic turntable till I discovered the Argo Records Shakespeare plays on one LP each in my second high-school library. Meanwhile, I think Google/Alphabet will happily accept your fee payment to put your post atop the list again...

    ReplyDelete

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WHAT'S HOT TODAY!

Slower Than Slow: 16 RPM Records

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Have you ever heard of a long forgotten vinyl format, the 16 2/3 RPM record? They were half the speed of the 33 1/3 RPM albums that were the traditional standard for recorded music. Most record players in the 1950s and 1960s came with a speed setting to play these long forgotten discs that were considered novelties even during the years they were available. Because most, but not all, 16s had big holes and were 7" in diameter many of them were mistaken for 45 RPMs and at that size the speed allowed for up to 20 minutes of playing time per side. However, there was no true standard size and they were also manufactured to be 9, 10, or 12 inches in diameter, and these larger records played even longer. Just like the other speeds and formats 16s could be played one record at a time or stacked on a changer for continuous play. Radio stations often used the discs for pre-recorded radio shows containing interviews, dramas, and documentaries. More frequen...
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The Band - Christmas Must Be Tonight (1977)

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In 2006 Hall and Oates released Home For Christmas , their one and only holiday album, an extremely good set of music that immediately became one of my favorite seasonal listens. I wrote then that I was stunned at how many overtly religious songs the famous duo put on the the disc considering the very politically correct climate of the new millennium. One of them was a cover version of a song that alluded me for almost thirty years, "Christmas Must Be Tonight." I liked the new, upbeat track sung by Daryl Hall and it made me go out and search for Robbie Robertson's never-to-be classic. Sung by Rick Danko, it appears on the great American band's last album, Islands (1977). It's a surprise that a group whose members were not known to have any specific or powerfully strong religious beliefs would release a song that tackled the subject of Jesus's birth as blatantly as our most loved Christmas carols. It's not about a reckless reinde...
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Chicago: An Album By Album Analysis Of The Terry Kath Era (1969 - 1977)

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The original lineup of Chicago has always been one of my all time favorite bands. My affection for this great horn band is such that I want to discuss all of the albums they recorded before Terry Kath's unfortunate and accidental passing. Their debut album is now forty years old, and it's followup is not far behind, yet their music endures to this day. * * * * * Everyone Must Own * * * * Excellent * * * Good * * Fair * Poor * * * * * Chicago Transit Authority (1969) - Whether they were playing screaming psychedelic hard rock, jazz, blues, or love songs, everyone in the band proved they were worthy of the huge mass success that followed CTA 's release. The band's ability to play anything and play it well is the hallmark of their debut album. The stars are Robert Lamm, Terry Kath, and the horns, and even Peter Cetera demonstrates he can be a rock and roll animal when he wants to be. The standout tracks are Lamm's "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It...
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The Beatles - Christmas Messages (1963 - 1969)

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For seven straight years beginning in 1963 - even before they were famous in America - The Beatles recorded annual Christmas messages exclusively for their fan club members as a holiday thank you. They were issued on seven-inch, vinyl records that were very thin, very bendable, and easily damaged. These flexi-discs, as they were called, could not be stacked on record changers. Over the years the tracks have been bootlegged in countless ways, and until a few years ago the only legal release was sent to fan club members in 1970 on 33 RPM vinyl records after the boys from Liverpool went their separate ways. The LP cover shown here is from that album. Finally, in 2017, a limited edition box set  on colored vinyl was released and is now an expensive collector's item. Many Beatles fans managed to hear these records over the years, and with the Internet being what it is, there are several websites where anyone can easily listen to all of them.  Archive.org ...
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The Chieftains With Jackson Browne - The Rebel Jesus (1991)

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"The Rebel Jesus" is a Christmas song composed by Jackson Browne and performed with The Chieftains, the eclectic, veteran Irish folk band on  The Bells of Dublin,  their 1991 holiday album. Browne wrote the song specifically for his guest appearance on this record. The singer-songwriter, who is deservedly in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, can be a bit preachy when he wants to be, and he is again here, but no one can dispute what the man is saying.  The last two verses are the key to the song. Browne points out that people often feel more generous at Christmas so they'll give to those who were less fortunate than themselves during the holidays. But, if anyone tries to dig deeper and root out the poverty that envelops the downtrodden they are often scorned like Jesus was. This message is coming from a man who is admittedly a "heathen and a pagan," but on this occasion he is "on the side of the rebel Jesus." At the same time Browne doesn't want to sp...
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