We're taking a break...

It has been a busy year - 55 records, 65 if you include It Never Ends variations, and a handful of tasty unreleased songs. We're pooped. Wallaby Beat will be on a short hiatus to allow us to recharge our batteries and plan for year two. Check back on August 6. We have some treats lined up.

But we're not done with the stats just yet. Here are the results of a readers' poll of sorts - the top ten most viewed posts from our first year in business:

1. Rikk Krannium & The Smutorks! - King Of The Block 7"
2. V/A - A Terse Sample 7"
3. Plastic EP & The Records - At Home / Three Special Words 7"
4. Toxic Shock - Intoxicated 7"
5. Real Traitors 7" 
6. The Press - Fodder For The Critics LP
7. Supernaut - Unemployed 7"
8. Mighty Little - Burning Sands Of Bondi 7"
9. Branded - You Been Branded / Generation Breakout 7"
10. Toxic - First Time 7"

The top three spots were hotly contested, with the lead changing more times than a Satriani/Vai/Malmsteen shred-fest. "But wait!", we hear you say. "British Jets should have made the list, but it was only posted two weeks ago! No wonder it has fewer hits!". Right you are. To account for this, we undertook Cox regression to estimate hazard ratios for different genres, adjusted for the number of external links to each post, the subsequent fame of former band members, and band members' propensity to repeatedly hit "refresh" on their own entries. The results are a closely guarded corporate secret - after all, we have to maintain a competitive advantage over cheap imitations. But, we can tell you the obvious: y'all have an insatiable appetite for punk and DIY; grillfat, not so much; and powerpop? Fuhgedaboudit.

We feel strongly about most of the records on this blog, and while we fully expect to see recent entries like Black Chrome and Invader in next year's top ten, we're surprised that certain others haven't accrued more page views. Here are five earlier posts that we think can mix it with the top ten:

1. Plastic EP & the Records - So You Wanna Make A Record
2. Bad Habit - Stormchild LP
3. Beaut - Goodbye Judy / Paper Chains 7"
4. The Limp - Outer Space Moth / Animal Kingdom 7"
5. Upsets - Back To Afghanistan / Heartattack 7"

Sick of the blog layout? There are some cool, unadvertised, alternative ways to view blogspot blogs. Here are mosaic and flipcard for ours.

Finally for this year we want to give a sincere thanks to the people who leave comments. While it's always great to hear from the bands themselves, our favourite commenter is Steve who, right from his hilarious memoir on the Celibate Rifles, has always had something salient or enthusiastic to add - thanks mate. But (almost) everyone is appreciated. Anonymous can, of course, fuck off...