McNutt Against the Music

About a week and a half ago – July 14 to be exact – McNutt Against the Music marked its one-year anniversary on the Internet. Unfortunately, I was busy with my White Stripes coverage at the time, and only now have the chance to sit down and ponder what this “momentous” occasion represents. So like a good friend who forgets and is forgiven, we’ll just ignore the calendar discrepancy and celebrate anyways.

I launched McNutt Against the Music at its original Blogger location last summer with a smug and self-deprecating introduction. I wrote that the blog was created under one of two pretenses: 1. That my life is semi- to moderately-interesting and that a running commentary on it would be worthwhile reading, or 2. That my life is so uninteresting that to blog about it might actually be ironically amusing. Neither of these turned out to be true in the slightest. As the blog grew and took shape, I found myself writing less and less about my mundane personal life, to the point that it seems entirely out of place when it occasionally sneaks in.

The title of the blog, originally chosen as an ironic take-off on a Britney Spears lyric, has proven somewhat prophetic: McNutt Against the Music has not become a blog about its namesake (me), but about the music, the drone, the noise that we invite into our daily lives. Any attempt on my part to focus the blog or narrow its content has been pushed aside as our twenty-first century media torrent becomes more and more diverse and complex. Just as it is completely natural for each of us to quickly flip between various media formats and content streams – from music to movies to politics to technology – so it is for me to write that way too. So one year and 286 posts later, McNutt Against the Music continues to reflect that mantra.

All of this begs the question: “why”? After all, while this blog has had over 20,000 views since last November (when I moved to WordPress and began tracking blog stats), my regular readership is still constrained to middling double digits. Any great interest due to a certain post goes away as soon as I return to regular content. And I’ve only been able to cultivate a small – but dedicated – crew of regular commentators. So why blog?

I guess it comes down to something I was talking about with the girlfriend a while back, that with anything in human society (art, politics or otherwise) there are two different types of engaged citizenry: those who participate and those who observe and criticize. And that for all the tension between them, they each play a vital role in public discourse. Actors and participants need critics, not only to keep them honest, but because they’re often too busy doing stuff to analyze the consequences of their actions, to place their work within a broader, critical context.

The last year or so, I’ve come to realize that I’m rarely cut out to be a participant. Besides the fact that I’m not particularly talented at most things, I find myself incessantly analyzing any group or organization I find myself in, refusing to let myself get too biased or emotionally attached. For some reason – maybe it’s just the way my brain is wired – I’m condemned to be a critic. Might as well embrace it.

But enough small talk. In honour of McNutt Against the Music’s one-year anniversary, I’ve put together a whole set of facts, figures and favourites to look back on, a review of a year’s worth of content for the devoted reader or newcomer alike (party games continue after the fold).

Total posts: 286

Posts per week (avg): 5.29

Total comments: 322 (including trackbacks)

Comments per post (avg): 1.12 (including trackbacks)

Spam comments caught by my spam protector (since Nov. 06): 3,402

Total views (since Nov. 06): 21,657 (and no, this doesn’t include my own visits to the blog)

Views per day (avg) (since Nov. 06): 81.1

Best Day Ever: 717 views (July 16, 2007)

Most Popular Post: …in which McNutt reviews the White Stripes’ tenth anniversary concert in Glace Bay

Nothing else even comes close – since going online almost two weeks ago, my review of the Glace Bay Stripes concert has been viewed 1,056 times (that accounts for almost 5 per cent of my entire blog traffic since November). The review, setlist and photos were posted on July 15 – the next day, Google searches and message board hits led to the biggest day in McNutt Against the Music history. Coincidence? I think not.

Other posts that led to huge spikes in readership include: my Halifax White Stripes review, my explanation of the 1-18-08 J.J. Abrams mystery trailer in front of Transformers, my farewell ode to Gilmore Girls, and Arcade Fire’s appearance on Saturday Night Live (with YouTube clips that sadly don’t work anymore).

Longest Essay Post: …in which McNutt reviews Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I’ve been lucky enough to be able to get away with some monstrous posts here at McNutt Against the Music, great for those times where typical Internet-length just won’t cut it. Technically, the two longest posts on McNutt Against the Music are my Oscar and Emmy analyses written with Myles from Cultural Learnings, but they’re basically just cut-and-pasted MSN conversations and hardly representative of my normal content. Turns out that the most massive of my oversized write-ups is a rather recent one: Monday’s review of the final Harry Potter chapter checks in at an academic-length 2,698 words. I blame J. K. Rowling for writing such a wordcount-inspiring book.

Other gargantuan behemoths include: my review of the Rolling Stones concert on the Halifax Commons (2674), my preview of the 2006 American elections (2629), my detailed recap of Gwynne Dyer’s talk on global heating (2449), and my recollection of eight years as a Matthew Good fan (2461).

Other Favourites

Predictably (if you know me), I’ve written about music more than anything else – 100 posts according to my category count – but only two bands have been covered enough to warrant their own category tags. The first is the brilliant Arcade Fire, whose uncompromising Neon Bible (screw the backlash) inspired me to write an epic review analyzing its dark, apocalyptic themes and visions. The second is the White Stripes, who announced one of the most epic Canadian tours in history and proceeded to rock this country from bowling alley to fishing boat. I hyped the band’s two Nova Scotia shows with an entire week of Stripes-related content.

I still take great pride in being one of the few who can claim to have seen the Nintendo Wii’s runaway success coming. My three-part essay pondering the Nintendo Wii (parts one, two and three) was one of the first times that I really tried to bring my public relations background to the blog, analyzing Nintendo’s “blue ocean strategy” and PR-focused marketing that built a groundwork for what is currently the best selling console system in North America. While I’m leery about posting too much narrowly-focused videogame content, I’d be very surprised if the Wii didn’t make more appearances on the blog in the next 365 days.

I’ve written about new and emerging media several times, but my favourite is a recent essay where I entered into the realm of futurist conjecture to discuss Second Life, virtual worlds and the future of the Internet. I challenged those – such as Canadian Internet marketing expert Mitch Joel – who suggest that realistic, interactive virtual worlds like Second Life are going to be the future of web surfing, and I did so by bringing (of all things) a semi-obscure robotics theory into the mix. I’m not sure how right I actually am about all this stuff, but it’s a fascinating conversation to take part in.

Joel responded to my post in the comments, and he’s not the only subject of one of my posts to respond here at the blog. My review of CBC’s Next Great Prime Minister competition earned a response from the winner himself, Joseph Lavoie, who filled me in on the extensive parts of the show that were cut for broadcast. And then there’s Steve Hyden of the Onion’s AV Club, who responded to my post critiquing his “winners history of rock and roll” concept from my ex-historian’s perspective. It’s contributions like these which give the annoying-but-somewhat-truthful phrase “the blogosphere” its meaning.

I’ve incessantly tracked the Halifax megaconcert gossip as it shifted from Elton John to Justin Timberlake and the Who to shit all, which is where it stands right now. I’ve held onto faint hope that someone in the mayor’s office and/or Events Halifax is scouring through my post listing all sorts of potential megaconcert acts, but sadly it seems that time has run out and the Commons will be concert-less this autumn. Heads up, decision-makers: odds are that U2, Bruce Springsteen, Radiohead, Coldplay and more world-famous bands will likely be touring next year. Get to work!

In lieu of any megaconcerts, I’ve been working on my own contribution to Halifax’s music scene as one half of the defending iPod Battle champion duo “The Spin Doctors.” McNutt Against the Music has been your one-stop-shop for highlights of the team’s ascent to Halifamous levels, first recapping our upstart success and near-victory in Halifax’s second iPod Battle and then providing the detailed play-by-play for our championship triumph in the third competition. The future of the Doctors remains uncertain, and there’s a good chance the team might choose to go out on top. Should they return, though, you’ll know where to hear about it.

Finally, I’ve spent a considerable amount of my time on this blog writing about a single television show. I got started writing recaps of the Amazing Race for its tenth season when I learned that contestant Kimberly worked in public relations; I thought it would be a good angle through which to analyze the show. It quickly became a monster, though, and I’m still not quite sure why I decided to recap the All-Star Edition too, but I did. In total, posts about the Amazing Race take up almost 10 per cent of space here at McNutt Against the Music, and as nice as it was to have dependable (and easy) weekly content, I’m content to let the Race recaps rest in remembered peace.

Reviews Count: 14 movie reviews, 13 album reviews, 5 concert reviews, 1 book review and 1 theatre review.

Most commented posts: …in which McNutt reviews the White Stripes’ tenth anniversary concert in Glace Bay (12 comments, two of which are mine), …in which McNutt wonders what the hell Elizabeth May is doing (9 comments, three of which are mine and one is a trackback), …in which McNutt reviews Spider-Man 3 (8 comments, 1 of which is mine and one is a trackback).

And finally…

Five favourite blog Photoshop creations

“Will Relate to Publics for Food”

“Trunk Safety Warning”

“A Comma Mistake”

“Election 2006″

“Another Castle”