Not that huge of a change, but a pretty significant one nonetheless.
The short version: now I have a second blog. The long version goes as follows.
It all started with an e-mail I received about a month ago. Basically, the one who sent it felt that I should give up writing non-NWOBHM reviews altogether: in his opinion, the NWOBHM-related stuff is what makes this blog unique, and no one really cares about anything else I could write about, as such reviews are pretty easy to find all over the internet. I don't receive input from readers too often, you see, and this one really got me thinking. At first, my inclination was to dismiss it - you know, I'm the one who call the shots here, and it's not like people are paying me to do it or anything, so I'll do whatever the hell I want to do and that's it. But I kept thinking about it, and finally concluded that my good reader was essentially right: it was a kinda blunt way to put it perhaps, but NWOBHM-related content is indeed the most important thing around here, and posts regarding other genres and/or movements sure can distract people (and myself) from what matters the most. On the other hand, I don't feel like giving up on writing about other branches of music at all: I have been listening to non-NWOBHM bands and artists a hell of a lot these days, and will definitely need an outlet for such content whenever I feel like dropping a few lines about it.
That said, I'm here to announce two important developments:
- From now on, all content posted on Drequon's Playlist will be NWOBHM-related. Such definition includes 1) releases from NWOBHM bands (of course), either ancient or contemporary, regardless of how popular and/or well known the responsible acts may be; 2) individual releases from outfits that somehow got associated with the NWOBHM multiverse, even if the tag was misleading and/or the music itself is nothing of the sort; and 3) British Isles' local-band compilations from 1978 to the late 1980's, that may or may not include a contingent of NWOBHM acts in the proceedings. I won't delete any previous posts (as I don't want the related statistics to disappear), but I'm drawing a line here: from this post onwards, Drequon's Playlist is a NWOBHM blog, and that's what it will be to the very end;
- Today, I launch a new blog, DrequOn With the Action. This new space will present all non-NWOBHM reviews I ever feel like writing from now on, as well as all the similar reviews ever posted on Drequon's Playlist (included a number of reviews that were reverted to draft a long time ago and I never found the time to rewrite and/or repost here). If you good reader have any interest in such content, you are welcome to pay this new place a visit every now and then - and if you could not care less about anything but those esoteric, long-forgotten British bands from the early 1980s or thereabouts, all you have to do is to stay right here, where your NWOBHM thirst will hopefully be quenched.
I'm trying to keep a more steady pace when it comes to write reviews - not that I feel any obligation to do so (I really don't, by the way), but I miss it if I stay away from it too long, and there's a lot I want to say about many bands and/or artists, a number of these being of minimal (if any) interest for NWOBHM aficionados. Similarly, I want to finally implement some extra NWOBHM content around here - I'm working on it as we speak, and, though I cannot make any guarantees, I'm optimistic about bringing at least some of it to light in the near future. Hopefully, this new arrangement will keep things organized and fresh, allowing me to have fun writing about whatever suits my fancy without forcing anyone to deal with undesired and/or distracting content.
A final note, regarding the Index page. The same reader who asked me to stick to NWOBHM content added that he felt this blog's Index to be misleading, as many of the acts there mentioned not only are non-NWOBHM, but appear only on compilations rather than individual releases, this meaning that they don't have any individual entries to begin with. Well, I do understand that the criticism is meant to be constructive, and I can see from where it comes from, but I decided to keep things just as they are, and there will be no changes in the Index system whatsoever. The reason is simple: it's a list of bands, not of releases and/or biographies, and I feel that adding more variants to that page would be hopelessly confusing and of little benefit for the casual searcher. If someone is looking for, say, Oxym and wants to read everything I ever said about them, it would be frustrating (and perhaps infuriating) to click on the link and find only the review for "Passing Through Gateways" (coming soon, I promise), having to go through another list and/or mechanism just to find the text about the "New Electric Warriors" compilation. I feel it's way more rational and intuitive to just keep all things in one place, you know. And sorry about not being able to write exclusive, comprehensive entries for compilation-only acts such as Kookoo Bazooka or Dimitrios, as unfortunately I don't have nor the time or the resources to delve deep enough on such nonentities, no matter how much I would love to do so in some cases. Maybe I'll exclude non-NWOBHM bands from the Index in the future, in order to keep the list more focused and easier to navigate, but I didn't made any firm decision on the subject just yet, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see, really.
(oh yeah, some minor changes in layout were implemented as well, including a clickable access to my Blogger profile - not sure why I did it, but nevermind - and a few fundamental links added to the sidebar. nothing too intrusive, I hope, and it may be of use for some people on occasion, so there you have it.)
