Friday 31 December 2010

2010 - A Year In Review

Now that 2010 has passed, in the tradition of year-ends and new year starts, it's time to look back at the past twelve months and make a few observations. So welcome to my stupid review of 2010. I've decided to follow a similar format as last year, but with a bit more analysis thrown in. Well, what can I say? I've been off work for a couple of weeks and need to get back into the swing of pissing about with Excel...

To start things off, here's the summary of what I added to my collection this year, by month and format:

Strictly speaking, the monthly analysis is slightly off, since the numbers are from blog posts. And most of the time I have been behind with the blog. So this is more of an analysis of what I blogged about rather than strictly what I acquired in each month.

Here's the same information presented graphically:

As you can see, the total number of records acquired each month follows a relatively static pattern. Most months I acquired somewhere round 17-20 records, although the monthly average was 23 overall due to a couple of months which were way higher. There were four months that vary significantly from the trend:

1. March - only 11 records acquired. I have no idea why March was so sparse to be honest. I can't really explain this.

2. April - the huge spike is driven by one package of 16 LPs I bought from someone. Without that it wouldn't have been such an irregularity.

3. August - this was a month when I moved into my new apartment and after spending a lot of money on useless junk like legal fees and stamp duty I decided that I wanted to buy some records to make me feel better.

4. December - due to me having more money because it's a short month, I bought a few more records than I otherwise would have. Plus a couple of big orders placed ages ago (like my React! order) finally turned up. Oh, and I made a bit of an effort to catch up my blog backlog.

I also threw the format breakdown into a nice pie chart:

Once again (as last year), I ended up acquiring more 7"s than LPs. I find this slightly odd because I have always preferred LPs to 7"s. But I guess it's because 7"s are cheaper and generally more 'collectible' (i.e. there are usually more variations made of 7"s than LPs). And somehow I ended up adding 5 10"s to my collection, even though I HATE 10"s. But three of the five were Integrity records, so at least it's explainable.

Now, speaking of comparisons with last year, I have also shown the number of records acquired by month against the same information from last year. The results are quite interesting:

What this shows is that the two lines roughly follow the same gradient. They are ALMOST two parallel lines. The big anomaly is April last year, which was a day that I went to someone's house to buy a large chunk of their collection, acquiring nearly 90 records in one day. Without that, the two lines would run almost side by side.

The monthly analysis is also interesting. The patterns of both years are the same from July to December. I don't think there's an explanation for this. I think it's just coincidence. But interesting to see.


Anyway, enough analysis. The nerd-o-meter is going off the scale. Now on to the lists of my favourite things from 2010...

(Please note that each of the items in the list is linked to the posts I made. Click the record name to read the post about it. I also added links to all the record label sites in case you want to go buy them yourself)


My Top 5 7"s of 2010

1. Pale Creation 7" (A389 Records). Trust me, this 7" crushes everything else you have ever heard.

2. Times Together 7" (Just Another Day Records). A great record in the style of Uniform Choice by a current UK band. Great stuff!

3. Integrity 'We Are The End' 7" (Magic Bullet Records). The best Integrity jam for a long, long time. And a great looking record to boot!

4. Frontier(s) 7" (No Sleep Records). A late entry, but this band is great if (like me) you loved Falling Forward and the first Elliott 7". Can't wait to see them play in a month's time.

5. Mindset 'Time & Pressure' 7" (React! Records). A great straight edge 7". They don't make them like this anymore (very often).


My Top 5 LPs of 2010

1. Ceremony 'Rohnert Park' LP (Bridge Nine Records). I can't convey how good this LP is in words. Very surprising to say the least. I never rated Ceremony before this record but this record is truly fantastic.

2. Get The Most 'Together' LP (React! Records). I wasn't overly impressed with the 7"s, but like a lot of bands, GTM really came into their own with their debut LP. It still gets better every time I play it.

3. Integrity 'The Blackest Curse' LP (Deathwish Inc). A great album, and one that was the soundtrack for my early morning bike rides to work in Summer.

4. Nails 'Unsilent Death' LP (Six Feet Under Records). I don't even know how to describe this band's sound. Death metal grind? Who cares though. This LP rages from start to finish.

5. Pelican 'What We All Come To Need' 2xLP (Southern Lord). This was the other soundtrack for my summer bike rides to and from work. A great opening and a really strange yet beautiful ending too.


My Top 5 Scores of 2010

(i.e. good stuff I got in 2010 that came out before 2010)

1. Reason To Believe 7" on Green - I traded this one with Tru Pray. I can't describe how much I love this record, and to score a copy numbered out of 50 was like a nerd's dream come true.

2. Uniform Choice 'Screaming For Change' LP on colour vinyl x 2 I bought these with money from a big sale. This had been on my wants list since at least 1996.

3. Coalesce lot - I bought a couple of Coalesce records on eBay and then the seller offered me three more, all at a very reasonable price. Plus Sean Ingram from Coalesce commented. Cool.

4. Isis LP Trade - I traded a couple of Isis LPs from a member of the band. We exchanged a few emails and it was overall a cool and memorable experience.

5. Bane Give Blood LP Test - I bought this on eBay and spent a tonne of cash on it. More money than I have ever spent before. Worth it though. Outside of the band, I don't know anyone else who has one. Not even Tre.


Closing Comments
Overall, 2010 was an interesting year. However, in putting together this review I have realised that I bought pitifully few new releases this year. I don't think I could have even stretched myself to a top 10 if I had wanted to. So my resolution is to buy more new stuff. I don't want to be old and totally out of touch. I mean, I can't help the old bit, but the out of touch bit I can certainly work on. So come on, 2011... let's see what you've got!

4 comments:

Darke said...

More blogging like this in Hardcore.

Great post.

Head2Wall said...

So happy see Pale Creation on your list. Band is so fucking good. I listen to that record at least once a day since I got it.

Jazz said...

great site man, keep it up for 2011 and I am glad that you make my record buying seem normal.

mindset said...

hi marcus i have the insert of the unity on whishinwell i propose 1 deal with you i photocopy this 1 and you photocopy for me the insert of the brotherhood no tolerance for ignorance if you re allright this is my e.mail adress partuccimichel@yahoo.fr thanks