A Look Back, And a Look Forward

This is my final blog entry for 2013 and also the 50th post I've made on this blog. This seems like a good place to look back over my previous entries and talk a little about what I hope to post here in the future (admittedly, my inability to pick a more specific topic to write about is another reason for doing this now). I've done reviews of favorite albums by the Beatles (Revolver and Abbey Road), Queen (A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races), Randy Newman (Sail Away), Genesis (Genesis and Selling England by the Pound), the Police (Synchronicity), Sting (Ten Summoner's Tales), the Super Furry Animals (Rings Around the World) and Radiohead (The Bends). I've written career retrospectives on each of the Beatles (Paul, John, George, and Ringo), the members of Queen (Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon, and Roger Taylor), the members of Genesis (Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, and even Anthony Phillips), Randy Newman, Sting, Jimi Hendrix, and Lou Reed, plus a listing of my favorite Rolling Stones songs. I've posted several of my previously published articles on Taiwanese popular music, or links to articles online elsewhere. I've posted several of my imaginary post-breakup Beatles albums, and my compilations of 50s rock and roll and late 60s-early 70s classics of the psychedelic era. While some of these articles could use some revising and updating, I think for the most part I'm satisfied with them.

In the next year, I plan to continue to write articles similar to those I've already posted, particularly more album reviews, though as before I'll write whatever I'm inspired to write without following any particular plan. However, I'll probably be posting at most at a pace similar to that I've maintained for most of this year (about three articles every two months), or even less often than that. The main reason for this slower pace is I hope to be working intensely on my book on Taiwanese aboriginal music, and possibly also on my other book project, a general history of Taiwanese popular music. I also plan to post some of the reviews and articles I've written over the past year for the online music service KKBox, since for most of them the period for which I gave KKBox exclusive use has long expired. In some cases I may revise or elaborate on them, though probably I'll just post most of them in the form they were originally written. If I'm particularly busy on other projects, these articles may end up constituting the majority of my posts for the upcoming year. Fortunately I wrote a dozen reviews and articles for them this year, so even if I don't have time to write anything new at all, I should be able to post at least once a month in the upcoming year.