year in review | Alan Haber's Pure Pop Radio

What a difference a year and a couple of days makes.

We didn’t know what to expect when we kicked off this website on December 29, 2013. Every new website is a shot in the dark, and nothing is guaranteed. We wondered how we would be received. We patiently waited to see what would happen.

We posted our first proper missive on December 31, 2013, looking to the future by taking a look back at the final Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, in which the adventurous pair set off on an untouched, snowy canvas for new adventures. We felt an affinity with the boy and his imaginary pal. And with that, we dove in, getting our feet wet with station news and updates, album reviews, articles, and a whole lot more.

When the book closed on the year 2014 and the dust finally settled, we were happy to see that our adventures were worth the effort. We logged nearly 23,000 views of 194 posts in 2014 from 114 countries. Our most popular post was our review of Jeff Lynne’s ELO live concert in London’s Hyde Park (attracting more than 1,000 pairs of eyeballs). Our first annual Favorite Records of the Year feature (read it here) was and continues to be very popular (with nearly 800 views since November 18), and so was one of our first posts highlighting recent adds to our playlist (from January 28). We drew quite a positive reaction to our look at the marathon performance on the David Letterman Show of Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park,” which made us feel like a million dollars, since it’s one of our favorite records from the 1960s.

And here, on January 5, 2015, we’re still doing our thing, and doing it with gusto. We’ve got lots of reviews and articles lined up for the coming months. We will steadily add to our playlist, now more than 5,600 songs strong. Already, we’ve got a ton of great new music that we’ll be spinning on our air, all of which will debut soon. We will continue to broadcast Ken Michaels’ Beatles show, Every Little Thing. And we hope to get back in the swing of interview things by bringing back Pure Pop Radio: In Conversation and our breakout hit show, Two Music Geeks, starring Alan Haber and KBEK’s Scott McKinney. More news on such things soon.

Thank you very much, every one of you, for making the Pure Pop Radio website a regular stop on your Internet travels. We appreciate it greatly. And we also appreciate you listening to our station, now two years and three months young. All told, we’ve been in the melodic pop music broadcasting game for 20 years. We’re still excited to be bringing you the greatest music in the universe, and we’re just as excited to write about it.