So that wasn’t the best year, was it?
Fortunately I won’t need to think about it again much until 2027.
The coronavirus has been bad news everywhere – on a personal level it has meant that I am now unemployed (CoS doesn’t really count as a job right now) – so before I get into the year a quick request that anyone reading this consider becoming a patron, buying me a coffee, sharing the site with a friend, or (best of all) introducing me to a radio station or other media/internet organisation who might be willing to pay me to do this.
Anyway, that out of the way, it has been a pretty good year for the site – there have been nice articles in The Financial Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker and The Cambridge Independent – and the show has been at times in the top 5 music podcasts in the UK and Ireland, the top 10 in the USA and number 1 in Singapore – I took a screenshot of this as it may not happen again, please indulge me for a moment.
In 2020 I’ve put up mixes for the years 1922 to 1931 and 2018 and radio shows on the years 1910 to 1922, with a variety of guest hosts. I’ve also started putting out “radio podcasts” and have released three themed compilation CDs.
Stats! (please skip if this is dull) The website had 12,727 visitors (up from 9,988 last year) and 29,797 page views (down from 30,456 last year.) The most popular download was the 1930 mix with 2,576(!) downloads but the most viewed page was the 1927 mix with 1,596 views (and 1927 has been streamed 609 times compared to just 161 for 1930 so not sure what’s going on there). The most viewed non-mix page on the site was this two-year-old blog post on The Monkey’s Paw by W.W. Jacobs (again, no idea why this should be so.) I have gone from having 17 patrons at the start of 2020 to 46 as of today, so once again huge thanks to all of you for making that happen.
It’s not the usual way of things around here to look to the future, but in 2021 I will release mixes for 2019 (next week!) and 1932 to 1941. There will be radio shows on the years 1923 (out the day after tomorrow!) to 1935, and I hope to put out a good few compilations too (I am already planning the next Christmas one.)
One last thing, I am following in the steps of basically everyone else and doing a one-off Q&A podcast – that is, if I get enough questions. You can add yours here – https://www.patreon.com/posts/45335298
That’s all for now, and for 2020 in fact, until I get around to reviewing it in 2027 or so. Happy New Year and let’s all do what we can into will it to being a better one.