Scott's Thoughts #9: A Year of Bloggin'!
Wow, the blog has been up for a full year now! I originally started it with the idea of just having a place to archive all of the reviews and articles I had been posting to Facebook going back to the beginning of the “Prog Magazine Top 100 Prog Album Challenge” I began posting in September of 2023. Once that was finished, I began the “Song by Song” and “Spotlight Series” shortly afterward in September of 2024.
After a few months of wondering whether anyone was really reading them (I actually got some prog-fans complaining that my 5-minute read time articles were too long–let that sink in), some things began to happen. First some of the artists I featured began to respond to the posts in positive ways. Then, much to my surprise, this guy named Andy Toomey, who I had never heard of before, asked me to review his new EP, recorded with the legendary Stick Men, and that he would send it to me to do so. Before long, others started doing the same. Then after I posted a Spotlight on Magic Pie in March of 2025, not only did band members respond, but their PR agent, Anne Claire Rallo of Bad Dog Promotions (and a fine prog musician in her own right with Nine Skies and Frant1c), reached out to me to see if I was willing to review my pick of albums she sent to me; well of course! It was beginning to become apparent that people were indeed interested in what I had to say, and it became more and more difficult to find links back to the Reviews and Spotlights I had done.
I decided last May (2025) that I had to do something before I started losing all of my work. I compiled all of them here and still, initially I would post them on Facebook in full along with putting them on the blog. However, when I was bold enough to reach out to Ryo Okumoto about getting and advance copy of Spock’s Beard’s comeback album after several years on hiatus, “The Archaeoptimist”, he was good enough to put me in contact with the record label rep, and I got it WAY early. I was able to have the first, and for a long time, only review of the album on the internet. So, it was the first time that I only posted a link to the article on the blog as opposed to posting the full text of the article on Facebook, along with a link. It still stands as the most popular post on the blog (see below). I am also so proud of the fact that a quote from my review is included on the Spock’s Beard Webpage; how cool is that!?! Another highlight last summer was interviewing Lucas Planque of PrYzme for a YouTube video. Another major release (in prog terms, anyway), was getting the Big Big Train album, “Woodcut” a few days early, though not nearly as early as I wanted.
But really, the coolest thing I’ve gotten to do so far is interviewing Alan Morse of Spock’s Beard recently. I had already reviewed “So Many Words” and loved it, but interview dates that we tried to arrange in January/February never quite worked out. Finally, I was able to contact his collaborator Markus Riegler, and it finally happened in late April, of 2026, and we had a great conversation. I have put the complete interview out on both YouTube and Facebook and am now editing it into short clips for release, two of which are already out there on both platforms.
Another honor that came as a result of my writing is that after my article on Änglagård appeared in January of this year, I was invited to contribute to the prestigious prog website DPRP.net. Since then, I have had 6 Spotlights (or “In Focus” features as they call it) on the site, plus a review of Magenta’s new album “Tarot”, and two more reviews for them set to be published soon with more to come.
So, I say all of that to say this:
Thank you to everyone who reads my articles and reviews and has supported my efforts. The blog is growing, as shown by the stats below. However, there are only 30 subscribers. If you are reading this and have not subscribed, I ask you to please do so. I will never share anyone’s information with marketers, etc. I only send emails when I have posted something new, and unless there are unusual circumstances, I will notify subscribers before I post it on Facebook.
Now some Stats for the curious:
As of the time of this writing the blog has nearly 28,000 total views (27,898 to be exact).
Here are the top 20 posts in terms of views at the time of writing:
So, maybe I’m not burning up the world with these numbers, but it pleases me that so many people are interested in what I have to say!
I hope that everyone who reads this will also check out the related YouTube page and subscribe, comment and share my videos + Click the notification bell: https://youtube.com/@scottrich5379?si=I0gfdCDQLbDUiCb0
Please SHARE my content to spread the word. I want this to be a place that people come to find out about new bands or just see what I’ve written lately. Again, if you haven’t already, please subscribe! I promise I won’t bother you too much!
Thanks for reading!
Prog On!
Scott
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