Is Audio Overflow Back?

The numbers seem to point that way. Back in June of last year, our numbers (# of visitors, visits, new visitors) peaked, leading to a slow decline month after month…until this whole “29 in 2009” reared its head.

Despite the lack of daily updates and weekly reviews on all the big releases, 2009 is shaping up to be the most-trafficked month in the blog’s 3-year history. March 2009 has already dwarfed June 2009 in numbers, and this past week (ending March 28) is the most popular week on Audio Overflow ever! You’d have to go back to August 2007 (the week of 3 big reviews: MIA’s Kala, The New Pornographers’ Challengers, and Rilo Kiley’s Under the Blacklight) to find anything close to the traffic we pulled in this week. Apparently, people are taking notice of The Decemberists. A good thing…

Does any of this mean anything to you, the reader? Probably not. But sometimes a guy just needs to toot his own horn a little bit to justify the work that he’s doing. Speaking of that work, expect the next update to the 29 in 2009 series to come sometime in the next few days. Until then, take care and thank you for your continued – though questionable – support of Audio Overflow.

Weathering the Storm.

As many of the regular readers of Audio Overflow are aware, I’m based out of the Houston, TX area.  Any other time of the year, that’s not so bad, but when a hurricane sweeps through and knocks out the majority of your infrastructure, things can get pretty rough.  But this is life in a post-Ike world and thankfully, things are not as bad as they could have been.  The majority of the 5 million people in the Houston area have been without power since late Friday night, myself included, but a cool front has moved in, keeping it in the low 80s during the day.  I’ve been able to sleep in air conditioning for the last two nights thanks to a generator that we have running here, but there are many others who have been less fortunate.

But not having much to do in the way of work, play, or leisure has had quite the effect on my music-listening habits.  I’ve been doing a lot of it.  For the most part, that means I’ve been listening to Of Montreal’s upcoming Skeletal Lamping on repeat for a month (I absolutely adore it), but I’ve had the opportunity to check out other things that have been sent my way.

The first thing I’d like to mention is an album by Bella Koshka, called Slow Dancing on the Ocean Floor.  This is a very stylish group from the Minneapolis area, and this album was sent to me way back in July.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get to it before I shut down day to day operations of Audio Overflow.  I’ve been listening to it off an on for about a month, and it’s just not doing it for me.  The music is very slow and meandering, sometimes dreamy, but mostly unmoving.  There are moments of greatness occasionally, but they’re all but squandered by the mediocre vocals.  But it’s not all bad, of course, and if you have some spare time you might as well go by their Myspace page and check things out.

I got sent another album about a month ago from some really cool guys from Austin.  They go by the name of Black Bone Child.  Their debut album is a unique mix of blues, rock, and modern rock.  It’s not bad by any means, though lyrics can tend to be a bit off at times.  It’s got a very classic feel to it for most of the album, though some songs venture into modern rock territory – which isn’t my favorite genre at all.  Still, if you’re into the greats like ZZ Top or Stevie Ray Vaughn, I highly recommend that you check them out.  They’re nowhere near the caliber of those great artists, but for a modern twist on a timeless sound, you could definitely do worse.

That’s all I’ve got to report on for now.  I’m working on something special for Skeletal Lamping‘s release on October 7th, and you can definitely expect a review of that album in the next few weeks.  I’m also working on getting some advance copies of The Dears’ and The Streets’ new albums.  I can’t wait for those.

To my readers in the Houston and Galveston area, hang in there.  Things are looking up…

For Audio Overflow, This is Cale. Signing Off.

Bloggers are a strange, egocentric bunch. We write with a spirit of self-importance, with the belief that what we pen is somehow important or meaningful. We often forget that we are one of millions doing the exact same thing, rarely contributing unique ideas or perspectives, usually not writing anything of note. But it is this egocentricity that keeps us going; because even as we know deep down that our musings are generally of no concern to the general public, we persevere in the hopes that it may affect someone, somewhere. It is this hope that sits you down in front of a computer screen every day, that forces you to write, even when you don’t want to, when no discernible reward can be derived from your actions, your writing. At best, you can hope for a couple Diggs or an increased number of Google searches. But for the most part, the life of a blogger is one of little to no importance.

As the founder and main contributor to Audio Overflow for the past 2 1/2 years, I’ve learned this lesson well. Though the monthly site visits have increased steadily over the last year and a half (as long as I’ve been tracking them), the majority of these visitors are first-timers who stumble upon Audio Overflow via a random search query, read for a minute and never return. A few stick around, but most don’t. Just a regular guy with no experience in running a website, I never knew why this was, and still don’t. I certainly never advertised the blog on other sites, because I’m poor and unwilling to take that risk, but I would’ve thought that somewhere along the line the site would start to gain a significant amount of readers. It never did.

This post will in no way be the final post on Audio Overflow, though it is the beginning of the end, more or less. As most of you know, I have a few loose ends to tie up, though the schedule on which I will do this is completely up in the air at this point. I have given much thought about the future of Audio Overflow over the last few weeks, and several ideas have come into my head. In the end though, I’m more content to just let it die peacefully than milk it for all it’s worth. As stated a few weeks back, I would like to do my yearly Top 31 countdown, but that has always been a draining process for me. I am not sure I will have the energy or desire to do that in December. I am almost sure that I will post the occasional review, and I plan on keeping at least a few contacts open to allow me to do this.

Essentially what I’m saying is that today is the last day of Audio Overflow. Anything that happens past this date is an extended death rattle. I would hope that those of you who have read the blog regularly would check back periodically for the occasional update, but I won’t blame you if you don’t. Should you feel the need to contact me, you can leave a comment (all comments are forwarded to my inbox) or simply shoot me an e-mail at audiooverflow@gmail.com.

Thank you very much for your support over the years.

–Cale

Have you ever purchased an album based solely on an Audio Overflow review?

This week’s poll has closed. Let’s view the results, shall we?

Yes! Yes! Yes! (50%)
No! No! No! (50%)

As things start to wrap up here at Audio Overflow, I’ve become increasingly curious as to how helpful I’ve been as a writer. My Amazon.com ratings put me at about a 71% helpful rating, which I can live with. But this blog gets way less hits per day (a few hundred, generally), and most of those are from non-regulars. According to the weekly polls, my regulars are only about 10-15 people. Ouch. Anyhow, I’m interested to know how you regulars voted. Do you remember a specific album that I reviewed that led you to purchase it? Did the inclusion of the word “solely” in the poll question affect your voting? Let me know for old times’ sake.

Due to – umm – circumstances, there won’t be another poll this week or, you know, ever probably. Things will conclude tomorrow with a few last-minute posts.

Until then…

What is Muse’s Best Album?

Well, another week has passed and with it another poll. Here’s what became of last week’s poll question:

Showbiz (0%)
The Origin of Symmetry (11%)
Hullabaloo Soundtrack (0%)
Absolution (22%)
Black Holes and Revelations (66%)

I must say, I’m a bit surprised by the results to this week’s poll. I’m one of the few people who voted for Absolution, as I think it is a more technically impressive, well-rounded, and thematically coherent record. The critical consensus has always been in favor of Black Holes and Revelations, but it had too many ups and downs for me to enjoy completely. “Assassin” and “Invincible” are the height of anthem cheese, “Soldier’s Poem” is pretty, though a bit silly lyrically, and “Starlight” is Coldplay-lite. As an album, it was all over the place and Absolution felt like a more solidly constructed piece of art.

I’m interested to hear why you voted the way you did. Let me know in the comment section, below.

There’s a new poll up right now! Please answer honestly. Also, Skeletal Lamping has leaked…you may want to check that out.

The Future of Audio Overflow

Audio Overflow will cease day-to-day operations on September 1, 2008.

Ahh, that felt good to say. What that means is that the daily posts you’ve come to -well – read on your way to other, better sites will no longer be coming on a daily basis. To artists and our partners, it means that we will no longer be accepting music for review, myspace music mondays, etc. It means that reaching me by e-mail is going to start being a bit more difficult than it has been in the past. Essentially, this means that Audio Overflow will no longer exist as it now stands.
The reasons for this move is simple, though I’ll try to keep things as vague as possible for my own sake. I have been given the opportunity to pursue other things, and I am taking it. These “other things” that I speak of are not music-related, or even internet related, but they will severely hinder my ability to run this blog as I do currently. To date, Audio Overflow has made a total profit of $0.00. Simply put, this blog was never about making money, though I have given it ways to do so. It was always, and still is, simply a way for me to express my thoughts on the music that I enjoy and to share my favorite music with other people. Never would I have thought that in the 2 1/2 years that this blog has been up that it would become as popular as it has. I am extremely grateful to those of you who have visited regularly since this blog’s inception, and for the artists, labels, and partners who have supported Audio Overflow over the past year.

Sadly, as I leave this blog behind, I am also leaving behind several goals that I had when I started taking it seriously in late 2006. I really do think that, given a few more years, Audio Overflow would have become more than just a regular ol’ music blog with a meager, but respectable readership. I was always up for trying new things, and even brought in a few new writers to help spice things up. I have been anticipating the closure of Audio Overflow for months and thought about adding more writers to continue the site after I left, but without any respectable prospects and no pay to provide, such a task was daunting to say the least.

So the plan as of right now is to cease day-to-day operations on Monday, September 1st. I will continue writing in my spare time, but this blog will no longer be a priority in my life. I will post the occasional review and top 5 list, but things will be getting very quiet ’round these parts. The good news is that I fully intend on posting my Top 31 of 2008 and the 5th Annual Cale Awards (how could I resist) by year’s end. Of course, the Cale Awards will probably not be reader-decided as it has been the last two years simply because I doubt there will be many readers left by that point. Should the readership remain at a respectable level, I may reconsider this.

So that is the plan. Thanks for reading Audio Overflow.

–Cale

Rihanna?

Here are the results of this week’s poll:

Awesome. One of my favorite artists. (7%)

A guilty pleasure. Fun to dance to. (21%)

Fun to look at, but I try not to listen. (28%)

Who? (42%)

So as was the case last week, I’m not too terribly surprised by these results. I asked the question because the media is leading me to believe that she’s this giant megastar that everyon adores. While that may be true for the general non-thinking crowd, I wanted to know if my readers were into that shite as well. As it turns out, most of you either don’t know who she is or wished that you didn’t. Again, no real surprises, but I needed to be sure that this blog’s audience was exactly what I thought it was.

Discuss the poll results below. How did you vote?

A new poll is up right now!

How Often Do You Illegally Download Music?

Here are the results to last week’s poll, “How Often Do You Illegally Download Music?”

“Every time I want to hear new music.” (30%)
“Just when I want to preview something at my leisure before I buy it.” (38%)
“Occasionally, for hard to find or out-of-print albums.” (15%)
“Never. Piracy is wrong!” (15%)

I’m not really surprised by these results, and as I stated in my rant a few weeks back, piracy is a problem but it’s currently one of the only viable options for people who want to experience and discover music for free. As it turns out, most of you tend to feel the same way.

Feel free to discuss these results in the comments section, below.

There’s a new poll question up right now.

Introducing: The Poll of the Week

Things have been getting pretty interesting over in the comments section of last week’s rant about piracy.  It’s good to see people responding to articles and discussing some of the topics that are written about here at Audio Overflow.  So in order to get a better idea of who is reading this blog, I’ve decided to add a “Poll of the Week” feature that will run (duh) every week.  Each week, I’ll place a new topic in the sidebar to the right of this post for you to weigh in on.

Naturally, this week’s topic stems from that discussion that’s going on right now in the piracy article.  Sound off, people.  Let me know what you think!

Poll closes at 11:59p on Saturday.  If you have any ideas for polls, send them along.

Out On Vacation…

This is an automated post that I wrote some time Wednesday.  I am leaving town for the weekend and I’m not sure if there will be Wi-Fi when I get to my destination.  If there is, then this message will have never been posted and you won’t be reading it.  If you ARE reading it, that means that will be no posts on Audio Overflow until next Monday.  I’m sorry for your loss…

–Cale