Remember December: My Top 25 Posts of 2023

For a variety of reasons, this is just my 73rd post of the year—the smallest such number since 2019. Yet it’s been a banner year for The Old Grey Cat, which achieved its most views and visitors since its original incarnation (1997-2006), when the CSNY2K tour caused traffic to spike for the bulk of 2000. I am forever grateful to all who clicked through a Facebook post or a Google link, or opened the WordPress emails, to read my musings. I hope that my words spurred readers to give my recommended albums many spins.

Below, I share my overall Top 25 posts of the past year—they’re a mix of new (10) and old (15), with some of the old dating back to last decade. On Thursday, I’ll share my favorite posts of the year and then end the Remember December navel-gazing over the weekend with my resolutions for 2024.

One highlight: In March, my hastily written review (on four hours sleep, no less!) of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s Greensboro, NC, concert accrued almost 4000 hits on its first day, 6000 hits in two days, and a thousand more in the months since. Perhaps because of its viral nature, it also received a slew of vitriolic comments from fans who either stopped reading after the first paragraph or failed reading comprehension in school. (I ended up deleting all but one of those comments.) 

Another highlight: My “First Impressions” of the John Prine-Kelsey Waldon cover of Nanci Griffith’s “Love at the Five & Dime.” It was less a review and more a preview of the More Than a Whisper tribute set, granted, but it wove together many different strands, including the warm memories Nanci’s music always sparks in me.

  1. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band in Greensboro, NC (3/25/23) – A Review (3/26/23)
  2. First Impressions: “Love at the Five & Dime” by John Prine and Kelsey Waldon (7/16/23)
  3. The Fogelberg Files: Nether Lands (6/19/21)
  4. First Impressions: Live at Berkeley 1971 by Stephen Stills (4/30/23)
  5. Today’s Top 5: Linda Ronstadt – Duets (3/12/2017)
  6. First Impressions: Citizen Kane Jr. Blues by Neil Young (5/7/22)
  7. First Impressions: All Roads Lead Home by Molina, Talbot, Lofgren & Young (4/1/23)
  8. The Fogelberg Files: The Innocent Age (8/8/21)
  9. First Impressions: In the Canyon Haze by Brandi Carlile (10/2/22)
  10. The Essentials: Wind on the Water by Crosby & Nash (1/21/23)
  11. First Impressions: More Than a Whisper: Celebrating the Music of Nanci Griffith – Various Artists (9/24/23)
  12. First Impressions: Linger Awhile by Samara Joy (9/18/22)
  13. The Essentials: Crosby, Stills & Nash’s Daylight Again (1/12/20)
  14. First Impressions: Keep Your Courage by Natalie Merchant (4/22/23)
  15. Neil Young With Booker T & the MGs, 7/11/1993 – A “Timeline Concert” Review (1/8/22)
  16. First Impressions: Last Rays of a Dying Sun by Rain Parade (8/6/23)
  17. The Essentials: Tap Root Manuscript by Neil Diamond (5/14/22)
  18. Today’s Top 5: March 21, 1966 (via Newsweek) (12/17/16)
  19. Of Concerts Past: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band in Philadelphia, 9/24/1999 (7/6/19)
  20. First Impressions: Aquarius Andromeda by the Three O’Clock (3/11/23)
  21. The Dream Syndicate: How Did We Find Ourselves Here? – A Review (6/17/23)
  22. Neil Young With Crazy Horse, 9/16/1996 – A “Timeline Concert” Review (12/30/22)
  23. The Fogelberg Files: High Country Snows (10/10/21)
  24. The Essentials: Hank Williams Jr.’s Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound (5/20/18)
  25. First Impressions: I Kept These Old Blues by Muireann Bradley (12/17/23)

Leave a comment