with Keavin Wiggins

It�s a quarter to six a.m. on New Year�s Eve and I�ve been thinking about the year gone by. It�s had its highs and its lows but we�ve had a lot of fun here at antiMUSIC giving you our take on things and enjoying yours.  

Instead of the regular look back at the music of 2003, I wanted to take a look back at the year in antiMUSIC and some of the highlights for the network and my personal favorite articles. Yes, it�s a bit self-indulgent but what the hell; it�s New Year�s Eve!  (The regular antiTorial will return next month). 

We started out 2003 with our first artist of the month, Nonpoint and an interview with frontman Elias Soriano.  The Artists of the Month for the rest of the year were a pretty eclectic mix including Ra, A.F.I., The Blood Brothers, The Supersuckers, Depswa, Fountains of Wayne, Endo, The AKA�s, Holden Caulfield, Dishwalla and Devildriver.

In January, we also kicked off our new 5 Star series with the debut 5 star review of Ra�s �From One�. Some of the other 5 Star ratings that followed included The White Stripes, Radiohead, Anthrax, The Darkness, and Blue October. 

News:

On January 3rd we posted the first two news articles of year �Radiohead Complete Work on New CD, Plan Spring Release� and "Gwar Blasts Slipknot Frontman Over �Self-Indulgent Hissy-Fit��" 

Speaking of news, the top 20 most read news article of the year were: 
(month and how many times it was read while it was headlining)

1) 96 Killed At Great White Concert, Guitarist Still Missing. (Feb 147K)
2) Slipknot Songs Lead To Murder? (July � 111K)
3) Philip Anselmo Vs. Lars Ulrich in Battle of Words (July 106 K)
4) Lightning Strikes Actor Playing Jesus (Oct � 103K)
5) Linkin Park Singer Whines About Lack of Grammy Noms (Dec � 97.8 K )
6) Rap-Metal R.I.P.??? (Jan � 97.1K)
7) Pepsi Caves In To Ludacris Demands (Feb 96.9K)
8) KaZaA Sues Back (Jan � 96.8K)
9) Linkin Park Singer Hospitalized (June � 93K)
10) Phish Bassist Beat By Hells Angels Over 9-Year-Old Girl Incident.   (Aug 91 K)
11) Former Metallica Bassist Considers Band A Sellout (Feb 90.6K)
12) Blues Legend Says Rap Won't Last (March 90.5K)
13) Axl Hopeful For Album Release Soon � Attends antiMUSIC Led Zep Release Party (June 88K)
14) Johnny Rotten Blasts Avril and Kelly �tub o' lard� Osbourne (Aug 85 K)
15) Gene Simmons Speaks Out on Iraq, Liberals, Protesters, UN and American Media (April 84.7K )
16) System of a Down Take Anti-War Views and Video To The Airwaves (March 82K)
17) Metallica and Linkin Park Block Legal MP3's (July 79K )
18) Child Star Jonathan Brandis Death Ruled A Suicide (Nov 77.1K)
19) U2�s Bono Target Of Death Threats (June 77K )
20) Congressman Wants To Jail Student Music Downloaders (March 76.8K)

In other news, we launched the Day In Rock report on July 18th and it�s proven one of our most popular features. antiTainment returned in October and it�s been fun reporting on non music entertainment stories.

Views

In my opinion what makes antiMUSIC is our regular readers and their interaction with our writers and each other. Most of our regular writers were regular readers who stood out and we asked to contribute to the sites. This year we brought on some new writers and it�s been a lot of fun. 

DeadSun premiered his mock TV show �The Not Quite So DeadShow� in October and took on Hillary and Snoop Dogg in parody interviews. 

Dan Grote has been on our review staff for some time but he debuted his very first editorial in Jan when he took over for aG for the RANTitorial series and penned his look at year gone by with �2002 OVEREXPOSUREFESTARAMA�.  

This month we welcomed Tim Byrnes to the anti fold and he not only turned out a record number of CD reviews in a single week (not all have posted yet) but he also brought some of his writing from his site Punk Rock Blues in his new anti rant series �3 Chord Monte�. 

But the most outspoken and controversial writer in anti history, a guy that gave Scott Slapp a run for his money in the amount of hate mail generated was our very own Hobo! He kicked off his rants last January with �Commercial Radio to Destroy Society� written under his original pen name SouthOfHeaven. Since then he has sparked more than a few heated debates and is always ready to spew forth his venom against �tards�. 

Our wittiest writer Greenmuse had many mulleted adventures this year but one of my personal favorite columns from him came in February when he broke out his green crystal ball and predicted what would transpire over the next year. Was he on the mark? Go back and read his predictions to find out! 

Our longest running ranter, Dr. Fever continued to give his gonzo take on the world in general in 2003. Perhaps his best exploration was into the dumbing down of the masses with his November rant ~@~!ItZ KewwL 2 bEe Dumm.@~#. 

Last March aG penned what would end up his last rant (he should be back sometime in 04). In �Tuning Out: Why Radio Sucks!� he took on the heavy topic of the problems of commercial radio in a two part series (the second part is still locked somewhere in his brain). aG also checked in with his silly Top 5 lists. One of the funniest moments came when he suggested that George Michaels and Elton John�s duet of �Don�t Let the Sun Go Down On Me� should have been �Please, Let Your Son Go Down On Me.� 

We even had a couple of parody series in 2003.  Dirk Spencer checked in and told us how he attempted to help Limp Bizkit find �the illist guitar player known to man�.  The O�Reilly Factor got turned on its head with the antiFACTOR. And we had our first dose of Unreel news in November. 

I penned my favorite editorial of the year in August with �We Are All In This Together�. 

Reviews:

There were far too many reviews posted this year to cover all of them here but I want to mention a couple of our writers that haven�t been mentioned yet. Linda Spielman turned in a lot of great features this year. She even flew all the way from Pittsburg to Los Angeles for her November Artist of the Month feature on Dishwalla. She was rewarded with an unforgettable anniversary show from the band, which played their longest set in history. This past year she has covered everyone from Bret Michaels to Fuel to Tonic and Three Days Grace.  

Our UK correspondent Rachael Reardon kept us ahead of the curb in many ways. Before anyone here had heard of Electric Six she managed to sneak in an interview with the band. That featured ended up one of our most read feature articles of 2003. She was all over The Darkness before the album even reached US shores but I think her best work of the year was her journal like account of the Leeds festival.  

As you may have noticed most of our reviews are featured in different series. Here is a list of the Top 10 most popular reviews of 2003:

1) The Mars Volta by Dan Grote
2) Sum 41 - Does This Look Infected by Scott Slapp
3) Evanescence - Fallen by Dan Grote
4) Limp Bizkit � Results May Vary by antiGUY
5) A Perfect Circle by Dan Grote
6) Linkin Park � Meteora by antiGUY
7) Avenged Sevenfold by Hobo
8) Music From The Underground: Electric Six by Rachael Reardon
9) 5 Star: Ra 
10) Legends: Ronnie James Dio

One of the most controversial reviews of the year came from Hobo and his take on the new one from Mushroomhead. 

Most played out cliché joke of the year?  Lars and Pot and Pans. Sorry but I couldn�t help myself, it�s such an easy target. One of our readers, Jeremy Knedler (frontman of Real Mother), thought so too and created this funny picture. 

2003 was an interesting year for us here at antiMUSIC. I want to extend a huge thanks to our writers, each and everyone one of them have helped put anti on the map and have helped give the site a unique personality. We do have quite a diverse cast of characters here and they always go way beyond the call of duty to bring you their take on things. If I could give them a standing ovation I would. They are the best. 

I thank you for indulging me in this look back at 2003 but I also want to thank you for helping make this another successful year for antiMUSIC. In April we head into our 7th year and from day one it has been the readers that helped make the sites what they are. I�ve had a lot of fun interacting with many of you, whether in email or through Fan Speak. And it�s great to get to know a little bit about people from all over the world. Our regular readers do represent a global audience from India to San Diego to West Virginia to Canada and the UK and Down Under. There are millions of websites out there, thousands with music news and reviews but what has made antiMUSIC stand out is the unique personalities of our regular readers and writers. So thank you for 2003 and hope you stick around for 2004! 

Have an anti New Year!

Keavin 
7:14 A.M. 12/31/03
 
 
 

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