Six years old and, if the statistics are anything to go by, better than ever. That’s the Crotchety Man blog. We broke the 100 followers barrier this year and both the visitor and view counts were well up on the last 12 months.

… now I am six,
I’m as clever as clever,
So I think I’ll be six now for ever and ever.

A. A. Milne

Of course, the Corona virus might have had something to do with it. There must have been many more people at home with time on their hands searching online for something to brighten up their lives. If the music in these pages has brought a little comfort and joy into their lockdown days I have achieved this blog’s primary objective and I am quite content with that.

Looking back over the blogging year, then, I see that less well-known artists have taken the lion’s share of the page space. I had already said what I wanted to say about the bands at the very top of the Crotchety rankings and was throwing the aural fishing net across the Internet as far as my electronic assistant could reach. At times I felt that the quality of the music had suffered – too many bland sprats among the tasty cod and tuna – but playing the blog post playlist soon dispelled that notion, I’m happy to say.

The Corona effect has also changed the shape of these pages. There were fewer track-of-the-week posts and more playlists, which adds up to more listening time for my readers. The annual summary tables are here.

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Now, all that remains is for me to wish you all a healthy and happier new year.

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May your vinyl, CD and digital music collections grow fat, may your hi-fi systems continue to faithfully reproduce those recorded sounds and may your ears be sharp, free of wax and undamaged by live bands who turn the volume knobs way too high.

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