A Pop Life: one year old; the best and most read stories!

Introduction

One year ago jaar, on July 1st, 2016, I started my blog A Pop Life: My life with music (the English version went live on October 1st, 2016). Since then I regularly placed stories, articles and reviews and spread those using various social media channels.

See also the other article, that’s released today: Best albums, 1966 – 2017: A Pop Life, 1 year anniversary.

The beginning

A Pop Life 1 jaar (apoplife.nl)

A Pop Life 1 year

It all started when I turned 50 years old. Because of that I published my top 50 favorite albums of all time, followed by my top 50 concerts and a look-back and justification. On April 21st, 2016, Prince died. I wrote 6 articles (less were planned). I liked writing and (even more fun) the reactions were very nice. I decided to do things a bit different from then on. My main communication channel was Facebook, resulting in non/Facebook users being unable to read the content and limited a layout possibilities.

Mid-May 2016 I decided on starting a blog. Because development/programming has been my profession for quite a long time, I started adding all kinds of features, until the blog looked and felt the way I wanted it to. All that was left to do, was copy the content and start…

But how to start? I wanted something special. My son Timur, 7 years old at the time, had an idea: ‘What if I wrote an article?’. Well, yes please! And so the very first official story became:

Mijn favoriete muziek (door gastauteur Timur)
(since I don’t know how to translate this article correctly, it’s only available in Dutch)

A beautiful story about Timur’s preferences and the first concert he went to (Dutch band Doe Maar).

Next

And then it was for real. In the beginning I had to settle on a schedule that worked for me. But soon the stories came faster and easier. However, the amount of time I spent on my blog, grew with it. That was to become less in the new year (2017)…

Not, in 2016 a new story/article was posted every 6.1 days on average, which increased (!) to 1 every 4.7 days. So much for taking it slow. The amount of time spent on my stories increased as well… Undoubtedly, it will become less at some point. I don’t know when..

The number of readers, Facebook-, Google+– and Twitter-followers are on the rise. Replies are sadly becoming less and less frequent.

My favorites

In general I am reasonalby satisfied about my articles that make the blog. Not all of it is equally good, though. However, there ares some pieces I am more happy with or prouf of than others. My personal favorites are:

Popular

But what do you, my readers, think? Below all the pieces/articles that are released on my blog. Some of them were writen before the officla start of the blog (among which the articles that were initially published on Facebook). The articles are sorted on the total number of showings. This is a combination of numbers from the Dutch and English sites. The link to the Dutch articles are conatined in the numbers that are placed in the NL column.

It is funny to notice that on the English site the Prince articles are the most popular, by far.

Walk through the list, maybe you’ll come across one or two articles you have missed ;-).

  Show number
Story NL EN Total
Prince is victorious (once again) with Sign O’ The Times 694 12660 13354
Jill Jones, one of the best Prince satellite acts 364 6777 7141
30 years ago, the best show I ever witnessed 940 3929 4869
Prince – Deliverance 499 2601 3100
Prince & The Revolution – Purple Rain Deluxe Expanded 382 2196 2578
One Nite Alone… Solo piano and voice by Prince 353 1619 1972
Prince, top 50, numbers 10 to 1 318 1578 1896
Prince 1958-2016 308 1436 1744
Prince – One year later… 457 1117 1574
Prince, top 50, numbers 25 to 11 192 1110 1302
The best albums made by women 630 342 972
The best ABBA singles 350 574 924
Simon And Garfunkel – The Concert In Central Park 309 571 880
Queen: my very first music love 304 524 828
George Michael – Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1 128 690 818
David Bowie 1947-2016 & Low and “Heroes” 40 years old 323 482 805
Madhouse: Prince and jazz 200 601 801
The ugliest albumcovers 599 198 797
Joe Jackson – Night And Day 229 509 738
King Crimson 1981 – 1984 176 536 712
The best Australian songs 429 259 688
Grinderman 167 500 667
Discharge – Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing 161 505 666
Prince – The Rainbow Children 95 547 642
The greatest albumcovers 566 74 640
Killing Joke – Revelations 170 468 638
U2: From Pinkpop through the desert to the supermarket 281 356 637
Chuck Brown & the history of go-go 154 463 617
Bob Marley & The Wailers – Exodus 288 309 597
AC/DC – Let There Be Rock 347 228 575
The best debut albums 292 279 571
Prince – 4Ever 122 444 566
Birthday 1977 & Fleetwood Mac’s Go Your Own Way 343 220 563
Dead Kennedys 213 348 561
Frank Zappa’s Joe’s Garage still up to date 341 219 560
Prince satellites, top 10 75 469 544
S.Res.444 – A resolution honoring the life and achievements of Prince 4 537 541
School-journey, plaster and Fats Domino 302 214 516
Album top 50, numbers 10 to 1 320 188 508
Prince – Motherless Child 351 145 496
Prince Day – State of Minnesota Proclamation 35 454 489
Prince, top 50, numbers 50 to 26 92 392 484
The best 12-inches 402 80 482
Prince – Emancipation 128 338 466
Closing of 2016 235 229 464
Album top 50, numbers 50 to 26 343 121 464
The Cure: 35 years of Faith 197 263 460
Prince, the closing 47 412 459
Lone Justice, an introduction to Maria McKee 224 217 441
Divine – My First Album 167 241 408
Top 50, epilogue 225 131 356
The Congos – Heart Of the Congos 122 229 351
Pavement – Brighten The Corners 153 193 346
The evening of Sinterklaas Day 1976 & ABBA’s Dancing Queen 154 176 330
Guilty pleasures 230 78 308
Underworld, the best singles 154 151 305
Daft Punk – Homework 98 195 293
Danko Jones – Born A Lion 135 158 293
Advertising 1967, 1987 & 2017: The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 160 132 292
Soulwax – From Deewee 165 126 291
Album top 50, numbers 25 to 11 152 128 280
Japan – Tin Drum 127 147 274
Sun, top funk & soul from Ohio 104 166 270
Thundercat – Drunk 116 128 244
Public Enemy – Apocalypse 91…The Enemy Strikes Black 98 128 226
Joan As Police Woman & Benjamin Lazar Davis – Let It Be You 81 130 211
Sezen Aksu – Söylüyor 127 82 209
D’Angelo – Black Messiah 81 121 202
Strongest & best-known band & artist logos 76 115 191
Concerts, top 50 158 25 183
A Christmas Gift For You 92 80 172
Prince & The New Power Generation – Diamonds And Pearls 75 81 156
Prince concert index 35 120 155
Spoon – Hot Thoughts 62 88 150
Amy Winehouse – Back To Black 108 39 147
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree 126 12 138
Dedicated To Mama 100 27 127
Prince – Sign O The Times – single – 30 years old 78 42 120
The Family Stand – Moon In Scorpio 49 16 65
Leonard Cohen – Greatest Hits 45 10 55
Emancipation? No, thank u! 6 26 32
Prince Day – City Of St. Paul Proclamation 19 11 30
David Bowie Is exhibit 15 12 27
Prince Tribute Day – State of Minnesota Proclamation 12 15 27
Statement by the President on the Passing of Prince – The White House 5 13 18
A Resolution Honoring Prince Rogers Nelson – City Of Minneapolis 2 15 17
Paisley Park Museum – City Of Chanhassen 3 13 16
Prince Day – City Of Minneapolis Proclamation 4 0 4
Paisley Park Day – City Of Chanhassen Proclamation 0 1 1

In closing

I would like to take this opportunity to state to all readers, repliers, newsletter-members, Facebook followers, Google+ followers and Twitter followers: thank you all. I really do appreciate it immensely!

Compliments/remarks? Yes, please!