Entry 183-- "Don't Stop Believin'" and 2000 Hits Retrospective

Song: "Don't Stop Believin'"
Artist: Journey

http://youtu.be/2NQIPVqLMUg (Live in Japan, 1981)
http://youtu.be/rfUYuIVbFg0 (Album Version, Lyric Video)
Comments: First and foremost, the music, because that's what this blog is about. I chose this song for today because it seems so appropriate to celebrate the 2000th hit on Stuck In My Skull! Journey is, well, Journey. Classic, easy-on-the-ears rock that's truly timeless. I feel the need to say, (putting on my hipster shades,) that I liked this song before it was featured on "Glee."

So, having reached a major milestone, the authors of Stuck In My Skull look back.


Amanda: It's hard to believe we've already hit 2000! We certainly couldn't have done it without out our awesome followers. The past several months I've worked here on the blog have been great. Music is such a passion of mine and I'm extremely grateful to Chris for giving me the opportunity to turn my obsession into something fun and productive. It's been really cool to get share my love of all music with others and hopefully turn people on to new stuff or reintroduce them to old favorites. Thanks for your continued support. I look forward to sending more songs your way in the future!

Miriah: Hey everyone it’s Miriah.  I’m super excited to see so many people keeping up on the music!  I have only been writing for the blog a short while now, but I love getting to pick a song every week, even if that means battling amongst some favorites for the spot.  Hopefully you all have enjoyed some of the country music and I am going to make more of an attempt to put out some more songs with foreign languages.  These have been lacking and I would like to see them more often and if possible there will be both the original lyrics and the translation provided both can be found.  I enjoyed reading this blog before I had the opportunity to write for it and it has been great getting to see the progress that it has made.  After sufficient time has passed, my hopes are that I can blog a bit more often.  Thank you all for all the support you’ve provided for the blog and enjoy the future songs to come!

Chris: Two thousand hits. Wow. I cannot believe that this blog has come so far. It started as nothing, just a little project to talk about music and break the boredom of a dull break from the rest of life. I thought it would die in its infancy, like the previous two blogs I've had. This blog started on 7/16/11, and in less than a year, it's gotten 2000 hits. That's incredible. Some rough numbers-- roughly nine months, is 222 hits per month. Assume something silly like four weeks to the month, and that's 55 hits per week. When you think about that being split over five days, it sounds like 11 hits per day. That doesn't sound like much, but it is. Eleven people in the whole wide world is an infintesimally small number, but to my mind, that's 11 more than I ever expected to reach daily. And sure, 11 people don't show up daily, like clockwork. Some entries have zero views. The first entry has 22, at time of writing. Entry 113 has 38. That's cool, but it's completely beyond the point. What matters is this blog is stable. I never expected to have anyone, and to have eleven people regularly read what we write is ridiculously amazing to me. I never expected to get anywhere, and so I'm blown away by how successful this has been. 2000 hits in 9 months. And this blog, this little corner of the internet, is growing. I'm staring at all sorts of numbers and graphs, and the thing that stands out to me is that the line is rising. We're not only stable, we're growing. To me, that's really something.
We're growing. And now that I don't have to panic and worry about whether or not my blog is even going to make it, I can look ahead, and look back. Somewhere along the way, I picked up two more writers, something I never expected to do. Now there are three heads contributing to this blog, and three sources of ideas. Three perspectives, three sets of favourite songs, three people with one shared love-- music. At some point, there will probably be three columns, three series of posts, three different flavors of music all under the SIMS name. Who knows, maybe there will be more. Looking forwards, I see all sorts of craziness coming. I'm toying with the idea of keeping an 'Upcoming Releases' board somewhere, with release dates of the most interesting-looking music. At some point, if the blog gets big enough for people to take it seriously, I'd like to do interviews with artists. Maybe we'll get a community going. So many possibilites lie ahead, all of them fresh and wonderful and inviting. I don't like stale content, and it pleases me greatly to say that ahead of us lies just the right mix of old and new, repeat and fresh.
Looking back... Wow. The first few entries I wrote, I had all sorts of tags that I've never touched since. I had genre tags, that I completely forgot about! Or entry 11... What the heck was I talking about with a 'Revisit?' I don't know why some posts have so many hits... Why does Amaranth (Entry 113) have so many hits, and what's up with Heart Week, Part 1 (Entry 107) having as many hits as the rest of Heart Week combined? I just don't know. Stuff like this, you all should talk to me about. Email me, comment, like us on Facebook and drop a message, however you want to do it, but I would love to hear from anyone who saw those posts what made them so popular.
Which brings me around to you. You, reader, are what makes this blog happen. Thank you. Thank you for reading, and I sincerely hope you enjoy what you see and hear. If you do, tell us, and we'll do more of that! If it sucks, tell us! This blog exists because of you. Yes, you. Talk to us, and we'll listen. Send me a song, and I'll feature it. musictourettes@gmail.com. Every now and then, I use a song that was given to me by someone else, and I always thank them for it in the post. I give credit where credit is due.
Anyway. I'm sitting here, listening to the song for tomorrow's entry, wondering what Amanda and Miriah wrote for today. I'm contemplating what I'm going to write for the song of today. And most of all, I'm realizing that I'm more long winded than is really good for me. I'll wrap this up. Thank you, reader. Thank you.