- From Faith Current: “The Sacred Ordinary: St. Peter’s Church Hall” - May 1, 2023
- A brief (?) hiatus - April 22, 2023
- Something Happened - March 6, 2023
The Fabs look very strange on this, right? George looks like Brian Jones
As everybody is still busily digesting their Beatle-related gifts (how many of you got “1+”? Anything else to review?), I will confine myself to a quick check-in/roundup.
I’m happy to report that 2015 was a banner year for Hey Dullblog. Traffic was up over 43% from 2014. We are reaching more Beatle people than ever before, and will nestle to a stop just under 150,000 pageviews. I am sure that much of that reader interest was due to our playful, informed, incisive-yet-respectful comments, so thank you, thank you, thank you. You guys are what make Hey Dullblog (as far as I can tell) the most popular (and in my humble opinion) best Beatles fan site on the internet.
By the way, last month I upgraded our servers so if the site’s running quicker, that’s why. If Dullblog’s ever down, or acting weird, drop me a line and I’ll fix it. I am investigating a new WordPress theme, primarily to increase readability in the comments section. So watch this space. And if there are features that you see other places that you want here, holler.
With all this new traffic, it’s perhaps no coincidence that more and more of the posts on Dullblog are being written by people other than myself. Special thanks go out to all the ex-lurkers who made the leap this year — both those who wrote posts, and others who sent me comments or suggestions that turned into posts. 2015 was very busy for me, and 2016 is looking to be even busier, so if Hey Dullblog’s going to continue to improve, it will come from you guys. Please post more, and suggest more.
Dullblog’s Top Posts of 2015
Dullblog now boasts 611 posts, 91 of which were new to 2015. This great wodge of text and images is really incomparable, an ongoing discussion that encompasses all angles of the Beatles and their times, which is what I’d hoped Hey Dullblog would become back in 2008 when Devin and Ed and I decided to break ground.
No matter how frequently you check us, it’s practically guaranteed that you’ll miss a few. In case you missed any, here are our twenty highest-traffic posts of the year:
Deconstructing The Beatles: The End (4,636 views in 2015)
Were John and Paul Lovers? (3,679)
Let It Be: A Missed Opportunity (2,750)
“There’d be no Stones without The Beatles” (2,397)
Fab Foto Fakes: Photoshopping Beatles History (2,139)
Apple Jam: Off the Beatle Track (2,073)
The Black Album: Solo Beatles According to Ethan Hawke (1,688)
“Paperback” Trail; or, The Hunt for Mark Shipper (1,547)
Psychedelia in the UK: “A Technicolor Dream” (1,489)
Just how blind was John Lennon without his glasses? (1,357)
My Yoko Problem… and yours? (1,341)
John and Paul, Friends and Rivals (1,130)
John Lennon and Attachment Disorder (1,129)
Time-Lapse Photography (1,048)
What if Brian Epstein Lived? (992)
When I’m Seventy-Three: What John Lennon would look like today (966)
Cynthia Lennon: 1939-2015 (919)
Smile vs. Sgt. Pepper (858)
Paul Better Than John? Hell Has Frozen Over! (819)
John Lennon, Where Are You? (764)
Happy New Year, everybody. Thanks for reading.
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Cilla Black, 1943-2015
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“Revolution No. 9” as one of the top 5 Beatles songs? Get real.
Great increase in traffic Michael! The blog works because you and Nancy, et., al., set the tone. 🙂
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If you found a new theme that had a better font (or one that enabled you to customize the font) for posts, and also allowed spaces between paragraphs in the comments section, that would be awesome.
Thanks @karen! I find 99% of the web an enervating cesspool of I’ll-conceived notions and unprocessed trauma, so it’s important that Dullblog be different. An oasis. Even when we’re discussing Yoko. (Especially then!)
What the rising traffic says to me is that Beatle fandom is changing–showing the same increase in mentally active fan engagement that we have seen in other fields of pop culture, like comic books and movies. Remixing, reimagining, taking old topics and making them new. So what Dullblog does — apply a sort of seminar mentality (I mean that in the best way) to the Beatles — is increasingly welcome and valued, and the old reaction of, “Why do you have to THINK all over everything all the time?” is much less common than it was when we started.
Michael, you deserve a pat on the back for all the reasons you just stated. The internet is indeed a cesspool and Beatles fandom has long, long been a giant eyeroll for people who are interested in discussing the Bealtes in a “mentally active” fashion (i.e. beyond the 17 y.o. girls posting cute pictures on tumblr) without all the tired, humorless dick-swinging of aging fanboys. Thankfully there’s now a place for critical thinking and thoughful discussion. Also, you’re a fantastic moderator!
The greatest photobomb ever?
https://twitter.com/History_Pics/status/661555468377186304
(The guy who stood and watched the Beatles cross the street for the Abbey Road cover.
Why is “Deconstructing: the End” the top post? Neither of the links work, and there are only 9 comments. What am I missing?
I’ll fix the links, @chelsea. I’ll also reinstall Broke-ass Link Checker.
It got snapped up by Stumble Upon. If any of you think any Dullblog posts are worthy of s larger audience, submit them to Stumble Upon, or thumbs up them if they’ve been submitted already. There are buttons on every post.