A little late... but... the 2016 recap!!

Oops...


20. Safemode - Hold On
19. Metric - The Shade
18. House of Heroes - In The End
17. Trivium - Until The World Goes Cold
16. van Canto - Time And Time Again
15. Brian Fallon - A Wonderful Life
14. Chvrches - Leave A Trace
13. Mad Anthony - Sad Songs (ft Steve Wethington)
12. 3 Doors Down - The Broken
11. Circle of Dust - Contagion
10. Miike Snow - Genghis Khan
9. Bleached - Wednesday Night Melody
8. Jess Lamb and the Factory - End of the Line
7. Justin Timberlake - Can't Stop The Feeling!
6. Tyler Bryant & The Shakedown - Loaded Dice and Buried Money
5. blink-182 - Built This Pool
4. Graceful Closure - Choices
3. POP ETC - What Am I Becoming?
2. Broods - Free
1. DMA's - Lay Down

 2016 became a year of unprecedented exposure for the Countdown, by the way of Twitter. #13 brought in 185 views on Twitter and another 129 on the blog, while #11 got retweeted by the band and several of their fans, eventually reaching a somewhat ridiculous view total of 3085 with 35 unique engagements, just on Twitter. The first two years of the countdown featured simple paragraphs about each song, and even in 2010 I featured 5 songs per week, rather than giving each track it's proper due. I want to say that it wasn't until 2012 that I really started digging into writing about the songs featured.

Sadly, all of that stuff is lost in the Xangawaves. I had saved the old files on my old hard drive, but it has gone the way of most old hard drives. The last few years have been featured here on Blogger, and I don't really think I'm missing much from those old days. I mean, I remember everything that I need to know about those songs in my own noggin.

2016 though... what a year. House of Heroes and Graceful Closure from Columbus, Mad Anthony and Jess Lamb from Cincinnati.  The return of 3 Doors Down and blink-182. van Canto finally making the cut, and Circle of Dust literally rising like a phoenix from the ashes. The year began with POP ETC taking a commanding lead, while Broods and DMA's were head-to-head in one of the closest battles in the history of the countdown. This year passed on the trend of multiple songs from bands, with the closest being from blink-182. However, Built This Pool (which also sets the standard for shortest song, ringing in at a minuscule 16 seconds) was too much of a force to be placed among any of the other solid songs from the California album.

It was a quirky year, with Spotify turning into the main vessel for me to listen to my music with. Windows Media Player and the many Rockman's were discarded in favor of a more accessible option, with built-in new music. 2017 might be equally strange, as I've spent less time really digging into releases and just letting them come to me from the streaming apps.

This year I've been working in the local scene, and I can promise you that there will be multiple Columbus artists featured in the 2017 piece. I'll start compiling the data soon, and hopefully we'll have another fun filled trip down nostalgia lane for you soon!

The Rise

I live!

So here's the 411. My friend Rick has been writing in the Columbus media scene for several years. He's been on 97.1 and Fox Sports Ohio, but he found that the outlet for sports media has been over-saturated to the point where it was almost impossible to make a big presence. 

However, he found that the Columbus music scene was full of untapped potential with not a lot of outlets to cover them. Late last year he began to brainstorm an idea - Music in Motion Columbus. He contacted another friend of mine and we got to talking about building a brand around the awesomeness that is our city and music.

There are a lot of bands who have blown up lately coming out of Columbus. Most notably, twenty one pilots have captivated the entire nation, earning a Grammy and a #1 album. Beartooth has been making waves in the hard music community along with other Ohio groups such as Red Sun Rising and Starset. The CCM scene has blown up as of late with groups like Graceful Closure, the Orphan the Poet, and of course the old guard of House of Heroes and Relient K. Not to mention people like The Black Keys, The National, and Walk The Moon blowing up the alternative side. 

Needless to say, there are a lot of big things happening musically in Ohio. A lot of it comes through Ohio, and we want to be there to cover it. Our mission statement is pretty straight forward: 
 
"We are striving to become Columbus’ voice on local music; bands and artists from around Ohio playing in Columbus, and national touring acts that visit our city. Our goal is to showcase the amazing amount of music coming from within the hidden gem that is Columbus, OH."

Right? It's good stuff. And just 5 months in, we've gotten phenomenal feedback from the community. We love what we're doing, but we feel like we can do more! I personally have been working 2 jobs alongside writing for MiM, but in the past two months I've challenged myself to reach out so my old contacts from the Jester Promotions days and I've excitedly been lining up weekly interviews to get the word out. 

It's been a lot of fun so far. And Jester One Music has not suffered at all, despite the absence of content here. 2017 has been an outstanding year for new music, and I'm excited to press forward with the yearly countdown, which is now in it's 9th year! Never did I think I'd have the personal dedication to keep it going quite like that, but I'm excited to continue to put it all together.

I'll have some content coming from this site in the next few months. MiM is currently working to grow in Columbus, but I have other groups that I want to get on board with outside of the capital city so that when we do decide to expand, we'll be right and ready to rock!

Anyways, check out the site. Rick has worked hard to get everything rolling and it'd mean a lot to me to get more support going for the project. 

Thanks everyone! Can't wait to get more content going here as well!

(J1)

AFK

Apologies to all. I've been working on a new music endeavor the past few months and haven't had a ton of time to update the usual J1M page. Last year I cut down my segments to a monthly "Stuck In My Head" feature, but right now I have something much bigger coming. Stay tuned - I'll have more details in the coming month or two.

Thanks!
-j1