Digging into the analytics, this is the end-of-year review that really tickles the pickles of the number crunchers.
After noting how many reads our 2019 and 2020 'facts, figures and conjecture' posts received, we've returned for 2021 with another end of year data dump about what the last (nearly) twelve months have looked like at Drift. Although it goes without saying, we'll say it anyway; Thank you for the amazing support, this year has been our biggest by a Devon country mile. We love listening to new music and we love telling you about it, having you all complete the loop by buying so many physical things is pretty amazing stuff.
This is what the year looked like...
The 2021 'Albums of the Year' edition of Deluxe was presented as 'a meander through the months that formed 2021'. For your consideration, twelve months of new music (well, mostly so) that gave us the chills or made us feel equally moved. Although we love dozens of albums a month, these were our chosen big hitters...
January - Goat Girl - On All Fours* You can read our 2021 edition of Deluxe online here.
February - Black Country, New Road - For The First Time
March - Jane Weaver - Flock
April - Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
May - Squid - Bright Green Field
June - White Flowers - Day By Day
July - Stephen Fretwell - Busy Guy
August - Chubby and the Gang - The Mutt's Nuts
September - Low - HEY WHAT
October - BADBADNOTGOOD - Talk Memory
November - Damon Albarn - The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows
December - Geese - Projector
* Stream the ROTY playlist here.
* Review the months; Jan / Feb / March / April / May / June / July / Aug / Sep / Oct / Nov / Dec
Although we don't always talk about the specifics of what is selling (it can be quite misleading) at any given moment, it is really interesting looking back to see which albums have resonated most through the tills. With a few days and hours left in the year, some of this year's top-twenty biggest sellers could end up moving around, it's a pretty close-run race. Lots of Dinked Editions in the mix, some amazing new artists and some iconic reissues...
1. Metronomy - The English Riviera [10th Anniversary]
2. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
3. black midi - Cavalcade
4. Gruff Rhys - Seeking New Gods
5. BADBADNOTGOOD - Talk Memory
6. The Coral - Coral Island
7. Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane - Lost In The Cedar Wood
8. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The LSO - Promises
9. Radiohead - KID A MNESIA
10. W. H. Lung - Vanities
11. Villagers - Fever Dreams
12. Black Country, New Road - For The First Time
13. Squid - Bright Green Field
14. Iceage - Seek Shelter
15. Snail Mail - Valentine
16. Field Music - Flat White Moon
17. Low - HEY WHAT
18. my bloody valentine - loveless
19. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d's Pee at State's End!
20. Damon Albarn - The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows
Although we play all formats (and let's all acknowledge that 2022 is going to see dozens of articles about a 'big CD resurgence') we do stream music in the shop quite a lot. A lot, a lot actually. We have streamed 126,064 minutes and counting this year, thats pushing six hours a day, every day. This isn't the time or place for a discussion about Spotify, but just imagine if that system had a fair royalty structure? It would revolutionise the commercial aspect of art. That aside (for now), Spotify Wrapped tells us that we're in the top 1% of MF DOOM listeners, and the rest of this year's top ten looked like this...
1. MF DOOM
2. Madlib
3. Stereolab
4. BADBADNOTGOOD
5. Flying Lotus
6. Sven Wunder
7. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The LSO
8. White Flowers
9. Madvillain
10. Stephen Fretwell
2022
I mean, how do we even go about making projections these days, eh?
We're excited to announce some dozen Dinked Editions in January, that feels pretty exciting to us. The January release schedule is looking pretty solid too, so at least the year is going to sound great from the get-go, even if we might all be based at home office kitchen tables again. Looking ahead to May, we're delighted to have Sea Change back in Totnes. Expect some artistic announcements in January too and so you know; we feel confident about it running the way we want it to happen.
We bid you farewell, thanks for all contributing to the numbers.
Drift