The Final Wrapup

YOURZ

It's the Final Wrapup... (to the tune of Final Countdown by Europe)

First of all, apologies for putting that dreadful song in your head but I really couldn't help it...

So, we made it.  All the way to the end.  Three hundred and sixty five days of music reviews.  Sure, there were a few moments when we thought we might not get here but thankfully, we stuck to our guns and kept on truckin'.  And I'm glad we did.  The feeling of achievement is undeniable.  In fact, aside from a couple of reviews being a little late on the day, we've not missed one single deadline.  For a world champion procrastinator like me, this is huge.

There have been some absolutely wonderful albums we've reviewed over the year, so much so, it's hard for me to pick a favourite.  The variety has been quite astounding.  I'm also pleased to say I think there was a great balance between new and old music.  Some of the ones that come to mind include The Dead Weather, The Beatles, Paul Kelly, The Clash, Gorillaz, Sleepy Jackson, QOTSA, Florence & The Machine, Washington and Them Crooked Vultures, to name a very few.  Somewhat surprisingly, instead of reducing our collection to a more manageable number as we thought this might do, our collection has actually grown.  And we couldn't be happier.

One of the best things about starting this is meeting some great, like-minded people from around the world.  It is a constant source of delight to me to get a comment from someone living on the other side of the planet who, through no particular fault of their own, shares similar views.  That sense of being part of a community is wonderful.

With this in mind, our final give-away will be going to the one of the people who have offered us great advice, comments and friendship over the year.  This is not to say you all don't deserve something, because you do.  But we're not Oprah (thankfully), so we've had to make a hard decision about who its going to be.  Our friend Martin, at Music Obsessive, has provided some great comments, food for thought and support over the  year and we are very grateful for it.  There is a special padded bag of goodness on its way to him, along with our heartfelt thanks.

A big thanks to Mine; my lovely wife, best friend and the smartest, prettiest sparring partner I could have ever hoped for - thanks for putting up with my raving, ranting and general palaver.  You continue to rock my world!

So, where to now.  One thing we know is we'll be taking a bit of a break for the first couple of weeks of the year to collect ourselves and get some idea of what we'll be doing.  Rest assured, we'll be back, but just not every day.  And we've already decided to expand our reviews to include all the different interests we have, both together and separately.  And we look forward to sharing these with you.  Thanks for sticking with us so far.

Happy New Year!


MINE


Let him get in the first word and he never shuts up... that's something I've come to love about YourZ.  Of course, I have a tendency to babble too, so often the volume of stream-of-consciousness at or house reaches death metal levels.

I'll admit that when we were coming up the final days, all I wanted to do was stop.  It's been a bit of a stretch for me, just because writing is what I do for a living and this has on occasion felt like a second, part-time job.  Some days it's hard to get enthusiastic about a review when I've had eight hours of intensive reading, writing and editing under my belt already.  But that's not to say that I haven't also managed to write a lot of this in my downtime from said day job.

I guess it's the enthusiasm that YourZ has managed to hold for this project through thick and thin that's kept me tagging along; sometimes willingly, sometimes with that sulky teenage whine and sometimes kicking my heels in an all-out childish tantrum.  So I guess I have to thank him, too for getting us through it.  And for enthusing me enough to consider keeping this going next year.  Expanding our horizons with more things to review.  But always with our two points of view.

We've made some great friends along the way, and I hope you'll hang in there while we take a breath and regroup.  New horizons in the New Year.  Hope you all have a fabulous time.  As a good friend of mine said to me in high school - "Have fun, rave lots, don't O.D."  Wise words that I've managed to stick by for some thirty-odd years.