Remember December: The Old Grey Cat’s Overall Top 25 Posts of 2021 (aka Navel-Gazing, Part II)

This is the 687th post I’ve shared since moving this blog to WordPress in July 2014, though that number includes the 25 essays I brought with me from the Hatboro-Horsham Patch, where I first began blogging in February 2012, plus two Facebook notes. So, really, it’s my 650th. One thing I’ve learned along the way: Not every post will accrue clicks right off the bat. In fact, most won’t; they’ll be read and enjoyed by a small cadre of like-minded souls. Others, usually ones shared to specific Facebook groups, often set off the WordPress alerts. When the stars align, however, some of the “failed” posts actually do better over the longterm than the immediate hits. A case in point: My August 2020 review of Roberta Flack’s First Take: The 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition didn’t place in my 2020 roll calls of top new and overall posts, but has racked up a ton of visits in 2021. It now stands as my second most-viewed post of 2021.

Crazy, huh?

The same’s true for my spin on Imagination, the classic 1973 album by Gladys Knight & the Pips, which ranked 20th in my 2020 list of popular new posts and not at all in my overall list. Yet, this year, it places fourth. And my celebration of the Nine Tonight 1981 live set from Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band accrued a mere 17 views in its first few days, but popped this very month. (My theory: Someone shared it in a Facebook group.)

I could go on with the “inside baseball” stuff, as it fascinates me, but enough’s enough. Without further adieu, here are The Old Grey Cat’s Overall Top 25 Posts of 2021 (along with the dates they were published)…

1. Neil Young: The Best of the Unofficial Canon (9/27/15)
2. Roberta Flack’s First Take: The 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (8/8/20)
3. The Essentials: Sleeps With Angels by Neil Young & Crazy Horse (7/11/21)
4. The Essentials: Imagination by Gladys Knight & the Pips (6/6/20)
5. The Fogelberg Files: Home Free (1/10/21)
6. First Impressions: Way Down in the Rust Bucket (2/28/21)
7. Today’s Top 5: Linda Ronstadt – Duets (2/12/17)
8. First Impressions: Bruce Springsteen – The Live Series: Stripped Down (7/25/20)
9. The Fogelberg Files: An Introduction (1/9/21)
10. About (7/12/14)
11. The Essentials: Deja Vu by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (6/5/21)
12. The Essentials: Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band’s Nine Tonight (2/8/20)
13. Today’s Top 5: Linda Ronstadt’s Rare TV Appearances (1/21/19)
14. The Essentials: Juliana Hatfield – God’s Foot demos (7/26/20)
15. The Fogelberg Files: The Innocent Age (8/8/21)
16. Of Concerts Past: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band in Philadelphia, 9/24/1999 (7/6/19)
17. First Impressions: The Servant by Shelby Lynne (9/19/21)
18. The Essentials: Jackson Browne’s Late for the Sky (2/16/20)
19. The Essentials: Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night (8/25/19)
20. First Impressions: A Beautiful World by Calista Garcia (10/23/21)
21. Today’s Top 5: Linda Ronstadt Live (11/15/20)
22. The Essentials: Talk Show by the Go-Go’s (1/18/20)
23. The Essentials: Crosby, Stills & Nash’s Daylight Again (1/12/20)
24. The Essentials: Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Broken Arrow (12/22/17)
25. First Impressions: Young Shakespeare by Neil Young (3/27/21)

One note: The actual No. 1 overall entry, as it is every year, is a catchall: “Home Page/Archives,” which is due to the quirks of how search engines index the site and, too, how I categorize and tag stuff, which isn’t always consistent. As a result, searches may return a “category” view similar to the shortcuts I have at the top of this page (The Essentials, First Impressions, etc.). I’ve excluded it from the results.

A second note: As I mentioned in yesterday’s Top New Posts of 2021 missive, next Saturday I’ll share my favorite 10 posts of the year. (Yes, the navel-gazing continues!)