It’s a little over a year since Vinyl Connection started adding alphabet clumps to the swirling word-clouds of the blogsphere. Fifty-three weekly posts of 1,000 words (give or take), roughly the same again of Cover Art specimens, plus a few odds and sods along the way.
In these past twelve months, VC has attracted ten dozen followers of whom around ten comment regularly (give or take); this loyal cohort and their 800-odd responses keep me tapping away at the late night keyboard and dipping into the murky waters of my uncertain past for stories.
Affiliation via Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter swells the Follower count by a factor of two, though who knows what it really means?
Page views are pushing towards 12,000 and that certainly means bugger all. Just as I search ‘vinyl’ and get plastic animals or bondage clothing, so some seekers for those items will stumble across me. Or maybe Vinyl Connection simply sounds like a chat room for the PVC-trousered.
Folk (or robots) from a staggering 83 countries have drifted over, into or across Vinyl Connection. I have to say that column of little flags on the summary page is quite thrilling even though 32 of those countries have accrued six or less page views. (Come on, Guatemala. Get with the program, Lesotho!)
Tied in the number 1 spot for page views are the USA and the home of Vinyl Connection, Australia. Makes sense. It’s a huge gap back to 3rd, where the UK sits. Thank heavens for Wales, is all I can say. Rounding out the Top 5 are the slightly unlikely double-album combo of Brazil and Canada.
But what of the posts themselves? What would a Vinyl Connection Greatest Hits package comprise? Here are the 5 most viewed articles.
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A memoir piece about an early romantic entanglement with Krautrock, including an album review of the brilliant Faust IV album.
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Also a memoir piece, about discovering rock music via a neighbour. The Blind Faith album features, being one of several appearances by both Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood.
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“Sing a Song in a Shakey Voice”
Another memoir piece that reveals uncomfortable truths about Vinyl Connection’s music sharing software and extols the virtues of Neil Young’s tortured but sublime Time Fades Away.
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Surprising to see this so visited. It talks about album cover art but does reference music of course. Artists name-checked included Jackson Browne (Late For The Sky), Paul Horn (Inside The Great Pyramid) and Grateful Dead (Blues For Allah)
There was a Pink Floyd reference so maybe that’s what dragged readers in.
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Very much a memoir piece. This was also one of the very few critical album assessments and something of a risk. Dissing a sacred cow such as Pink Floyd’s The Wall can be bad for your health. But we survived, thus demonstrating the quality readership at Vinyl Connection.
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Other well-read posts featured Yes, Wooden Shjips and the travails of Record Storage (or perhaps it was the Graham Nash album review!)
Five articles hover in the 90s, needing from 10 down to 1 view to hit the magic three figure mark.
“True Colours – No loose Enz” (About Split Enz True Colours. No, really!)
“Vinyl Hunter Gatherers” (Yep, it’s about record collecting)
“Vinyl hunter gatherer goes forth” (see above)
“All hopped up and ready to go” (Ramones Rocket to Russia)
“How do you think it feels?” (A personal response to the death of Lou Reed)
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Of course I do not delude myself that all the posts are of equal quality nor of equal appeal. As other bloggers have observed, when you’re the boss of the cubby you can write what you damn well please. That said, and to round out this report, here are a few posts that I’d hoped might have proven a little more popular than they have. So far. (Obviously the older posts have had more time to seep into damp mouldy mass of web-based music writing).
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Connecting The Grateful Dead with a 12th Century Persian poet/philosopher via a dusty book from my youth was not the barn-stormer I’d imagined.
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“Went to see a standing stone”
A memoir piece that revelled (perhaps excessively) in my love for a small but magic stone circle in Oxfordshire, UK. The Traffic album Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory featured.
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Perhaps this recent post will be a slow burner. I hope so as I thought it was one of the better memoir pieces. And The Temptations song is a stone classic.
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Thanks to all, both long-haul and recent comrades, for visiting and reading at Vinyl Connection.
I’ll leave you with my favourite ‘CoverArt Pair’ (so far).
vinylconnection.com.au 
What a great report! We must have started blogging at almost the same time. Looks like I missed a couple of these somehow. Must have been during my heavily distracted, almost quitting periods. lol. A fine job over the past year, my esteemed cyber colleague. Carry on. And live long and prosper. And may the force be with you. And…I’ll shut up now. Congrats to you!
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Thanks Marie. I have very much enjoyed sharing this parallel blogging journey with you at My Wild Surmise.
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An excellent first year. Congratulations on sticking to it. There must be millions of blogs that haven’t lasted even half as long …
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Well there were more than a few wobbles along the way. But that’s the way with new projects, isn’t it? Thanks for visiting and good wishes for your big new project too! Will get back to you for interior designs for the music room…
https://www.facebook.com/nobleinteriors
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A great summing up of the data.
It makes me think that Statistica would have contributed much more to my life if it had come with some decent album cover art.
NB Statistica is a data analysis package
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Ah, so that’s why students hate statistics. Bad cover designs. Who’d a thought?
Thanks for your entertaining contributions to the V C dialogue, David.
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Perhaps an article on bands that wear PVC trousers is in order to placate those that stumble upon Vinyl Connection by accident.
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What an excellent idea. Was it The Romantics who wore red vinyl trousers? Any other contenders? New York Dolls perhaps?
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Just needed to give this a big LOL. Imaging a group walking on stage in shiny squeaky pants now. Devo, maybe? lol, lol,etc.!
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Yes indeed. Devo would be strong contenders. Probably some 80s hair bands too!
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Congratulations Bruce! Smells like success to me, but what do I know I’m just a lone pervert hanging around trying to find fellow PVC Y-front enthusiasts; I recommend talcum powder to avoid excessive chafing by the way. Don’t judge me it’s just how we Welsh guys rock.
Personally I enjoyed your post about finding that obscure prog LP in Bangor best. Keep it up, fella!
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Thanks Joe. And thanks for your endorsement of the Dave Greenslade piece. That was the other post with a negative album assessment! No blame is attached to Bangor of course.
PS. Cheers for the talcum powder tip.
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You know I pretty much liked all of them, now if you could only include a little more banjo and steel guitar music in your posts 🙂
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LOL. Bullseye, Mr 45spin!
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Congrats and keep tapping away at the late night keyboard! Faust has made it into the steady rotation because of your post. Thank you a lifetime over for that!
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That’s terrific PG. Glad to be of service!
In the three months since this post, the #1 ‘most viewed post’ spot has been well and truly claimed by an outfit rather better known than Faust. The potted history of the mighty Led Zeppelin has rocketed into the lead and shows few signs of ever being caught. Not that surprising, really!
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You are a braver man than me, VC. As I think you know, I avoid active attention to performance, believing that — for me — it can only result in disappointment. Speaking only for myself and my own neuroses, it would feel too much like putting up pictures of the kids and asking for yes/no votes.
P.S. I enthusiastically vote “YES” on all your kids (posts)!
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Thanks Vic. You’ll note that there has been a falling off of the ‘end-of-year’ post shenanigans. Probably just as well. Although I’d like to say that my ego state is now stable and quite inoculated against the corruption of popularism, it would be a bare-faced lie, so I won’t. (Sigh). Not quite time to chuck in the therapy, then.
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