I have to laugh when I realize just how much I love having a blog for PiercingMetal.com and that is because when I first toyed with the medium it was hardly on my plate of interests and really something that was being scoffed at by the more “traditional” music journalists and the various publicity representatives that someone like me has to deal with on a day to day basis. I kid you not because there was a time when I distinctly remember hearing “this ISN’T a blog is it???” when I would reach out to some press people for products or show tickets to do reviews for the site. Nowadays there are blogs everywhere and not only do the record companies have them, but so do the bands, the publicity firms and of course the writers and photographers who are aiming at doing the best work possible for the various topics that they focus on. Oh yeah, and everyone else outside of those folks seem to have one too. These days the once maligned medium is not only accepted but practically expected of a creative resource and since I really love doing it, I say fantastic to that news. Anyway, so while I realize that I have some thoughts about blogging in my Editorial for 2011 over on the main site, I wanted to use this narrative on the Musings to look deeper into how we were using it in 2011 and what we hope to accomplish going forward in 2012. In that, I decided to point out a few of the most commonly used categories and discuss my overall thoughts about them and what I loved or didn’t about some of the categories this past year. Read on my friends.

The Concert Reviews: This is my most populated blog category of them all and that’s because we do tend to see a lot of concerts. Very early on in the blog’s beginnings the Concert Reviews were merely signposts that had a brief introductory sentence and a band logo. When the readers clicked the logo they were teleported over to the main PiercingMetal.com site where they could now enjoy the full on report and images from the show. That started to change slightly in 2009 and 2010 but really took on some life of its own in 2011. Periodically I would find myself taking photos of the fans that I meet on the front barricade or shots of the available merchandise. There were even times when we ran into other Metal personality at a show and snapped an image of them with the other talent. These kinds of images were worth sharing but did not truly fall into the context of the live concert galleries so I began to post them in these signposts. From time to time we have even posted videos that were captured at the shows in these blog posts and while they also “live” on our YouTube.com channel for the site, they are best enjoyed right here in the blog. I love sharing this kind of stuff with the readers because it brings everyone into an often unseen side of the bands adventures. I also enjoy hearing the fans thoughts about these same shows in the comments section and here is the only place that PiercingMetal.com can have comments. Our existing design does not allow us to have them on individual review articles. Fans should watch for a lot more in this area in 2012.
Continue reading PiercingMetal Musings: 2011 – The Year In Blogging →