At the end of the year, it’s not only important to reflect on the music that 2016 has brought us but also on how Noise Vortex has been doing for this past year and what’s to come in 2017.
I had no exact idea about what I was doing or where I wanted this project to go when I started it in 2014. My goal was to simply start this blog and see where it goes. The only real intention behind Noise Vortex was to improve my skills as a writer and, looking back, I think I can say that I’ve come a long way. However, looking at some of my fellow bloggers, reviewers, music journalists or whatever you want to call them, I also still have a long way to go.
The most significant change and improvement for Noise Vortex in this year was definitely the move to my own webspace. What started as a blog more than two years ago, has recently become a full-fledged website. Writing this also makes me realize for how long I’ve been doing this already. I had no idea that I’d still be holding on to this two years down the line, when I started Noise Vortex, but I’m glad that I did. Seeing this website, as well as myself, grow and develop has been an important part of my life in these past two years.
I also want to use this chance to give a big thank you to a good friend of mine, who created and continues to take care of Noise Vortex on the technical side of things and develops and implements all the great features that the site has received in this year. As an ongoing process, there will also be much more to come.
I wrote a similar section for my Top 15 of 2015 last year and my big goal for 2016 was to simply write more reviews, a goal that I was definitely able to accomplish despite there being some long periods of silence on Noise Vortex throughout the year, most of which were caused by more important real life matters that demanded energy and attention for an extended period of time.
In 2016, I ended up releasing 26 reviews, twice as many as I wrote in 2015, which means that a new review was released every second week. Considering my schedule and the availability of albums that I wanted to review, I tried to focus on weekly releases in the last few months of this year and, barring some exceptions, I mostly managed to keep up the weekly schedule.
My goal of releasing content at a more stable and frequent rate still persists and with the latest update Noise Vortex now has the functionalities to allow me to write features and articles such as this one, which will help me to create more diversified content than just reviews, something that will certainly bring me closer to my goal. Features are also something I’d really like to do. I love sharing and discovering new music and it’s part of why I’m doing this in the first place, so writing feautres for bands and artists that I enjoy and want you guys to know about is something that is quite high on my priority list. Something that is at least indirectly related to that are the social media channels for Noise Vortex, which I feel I didn’t utilize enough. Another thing I aim to improve in 2017. I’m optimistic about the future of Noise Vortex and my goal is to continue improving this project as much as I can.
To bring this recap to a close, I’d like to thank you, the readers, and all the bands and people that contacted me about my reviews, be it to thank me or correct mistakes or misunderstandings. Though it wasn’t the original intent behind this project, reaching more people and making a name for myself in the metal community by running a more professional website slowly became a part of why I do this and without the support of my readers, this wouldn’t be possible. So, thank you! I’m currently working on my Top 10 albums of 2016 list and it will be out soon to wrap up this series of end of the year posts. After that I will take some time off and start with new reviews and, if possible, some new segments in January. Feel free to use the contact form, the comment section or my social media channels to submit feedback, comments or requests and thank you for reading.