Balarama Music

Carbon Leaf Countdown Introduction

{Jan 17}

DougSite News carbon leaf 1 Comment

Last year, we did our countdown of The Beatles’ 100 greatest songs of all time as voted on by more than 200 people. It was nice to get a non-commercialized look at arguably the best band of all time. You know, a list not made by one or two people who happen to just leave their names off the final list. It ended up being a daunting task because, I mean, it’s The Beatles. But in the end, it was nice & refreshing to get feedback from readers about how they discovered some songs they had never heard or some great tracks they’ve forgotten about for whatever reason. Well after that, it was a no-brainer to decide we would do another one.

But what band?

Carbon Leaf.

Carbon Leaf, without a doubt, is the finest band to come out of Virginia. I know that’s a bold statement to some, but honestly it’s just true. More

Few Updates

{Oct 25}

DougSite News No Comments

To all the readers of Balarama Music, I just wanted to give a quick update on the site’s supposed “updating.” If you look below, you can see that the last time I “posted” something here, it was on August 8th, followed by July, and then May. Not looking too good for us, huh? Maybe I should update more. Well, in reality, that is strongly erroneous! I have definitely been updating here at Balarama Music. While I have not added any blog posts like the ones below, there is a lot of content being added to the site such as reviews, interviews, and now columns. The reason you can’t see it is because currently, the news feed/RSS feed only shows up the actual blog posts of the site, instead of the other content/pages that are added or updated. So my real problem is getting that content to show up in the main feed as well as nesting in the appropriate categories/pages above for quick reference points. I am still currently working out the kinks, but I wanted to let you all know just what was going on. It might take a while, but I will get there!

So what does this mean until I do get it fixed? Well, keep your eyes fixated on the Recently Updated area to your right when you visit. I keep that updated very regularly so any new content will show up there until I get this fixed. Being a fan of our Facebook page (click here!) can also help you keep abreast of the newest additions here since it’s all posted there too. However, since it has been a while and you may not have noticed some changes/additions, let me run-down some new stuff here real quickly:

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Beatles Countdown Introduction

{Feb 24}

DougSite News 1 Comment

It’s finally over.

Since the beginning of the year, I have been busting my hump trying to put together a project where fans vote on the top Beatles songs of all time. But, like a lot of people have asked me, why do it at all? Well, for a number of reasons. It’s good content for an obvious reason, huh? Another would be it’s also always fun to get people involved interactively from all places of life about things they all love (in this case, The Beatles). A really good reason brought up by one of the voters is that it’s really nice to have a non-commercialized look at arguably the best band of all time. Sure, many publications have released their list of best songs by The Beatles, but who really votes on those things? The staff of Rolling Stone? The guys who get them coffee? I never understood why a major music publication wouldn’t do something like this solely on fan votes. I know it would be very time consuming & definitely a painstaking endeavor, but the pay-off would be so much better than thirty guys we will never know sitting in a room, making a list, & pissing off half of their audience. So that brings us to Balarama’s list.

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Them Changes

{Jan 31}

DougSite News Site News No Comments

Like the site news updates using song titles? Me too. If you don’t know this song, you need to get out of the closet and discover the great Buddy Miles. Click here to check it out.

Anyway, there are some changes and news to the site, but I want to keep them brief:

-The Top 25 Albums Of 2009 are done. Took me forever and I’m sure I missed a few albums here and there, but listening to 40 albums from one year is tiring especially when you don’t care for most of the bands. Smile Empty Soul, I’m looking at you. Anyway, you should check out the list by clicking here.

-The 2010 List will begin sometime tomorrow. I’m snowed in with lots of free time so Spoon, Vampire Weekend, OK Go, & The Bouncing Souls are on my docket. Let’s see how many I can get through!

-I’m still working with Iva on a new layout. We expect to have one by the second week in February.

-We are still collecting Beatles Top 25 Songs ballots and will roll out our top 100 when the new layout is here.

-Just in case you guys were wondering, Nickleback & Creed still suck.

Thanks guys. See you in a week or two for the new site!

What’s Going On?

{Jan 18}

DougSite News Site News No Comments

I figured I would give you guys an update as to what’s going on.

Well, right now, I’m working with the lovely webmaster Iva from invisible-movement.net on getting a new design to the website. We’re looking for something a bit fresher, way better organization, and a better system of letting you know there are updates! Check out her website to see some of her work – I’m very optimistic about this.

The new layout will debut with the roll-out of Balarama Music’s Best Beatle Songs list which is currently being worked on. The best thing about this list? It’s fan-made! Anyone can participate and everyone should! Right now, I’m taking ballots from anyone who is willing – all I need is your top 25 Beatles songs in order with #1 being your best/favorite Beatles song! When the new layout comes, we’ll commence with a legen-(wait for it)-dary countdown of the songs with some information on each song here!

In the meantime, you guys still can catch new things here as I am finishing up my Best Of 2009 list (got 5 more albums to listen to) and pretty soon I’ll start my Best Of 2010 list and maybe a review or two (Vampire Weekend? OK GO?).

Until then, thanks for your continued support and if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to e-mail me at dougnunnally@balaramamusic.com!