Top 20 Most-Read Posts (all-time)

Ron Pinkney, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

This is a list of the Top 20 altrockchick reviews of all time (2011-2025), based on reader visits, updated on September 25, 2025.

The list does not include my most-read posts. That honor belongs to my four-episode erotic biography. Each episode earned more than double the hits of the top-read review. I had to take it down because some people interpreted the series as an advertisement for illegal services and I found my inbox filled with sleazy propositions.

It’s important to remember that the list is based entirely on reader interest, and is not a compilation of what I consider my best work.

I’ve also included the ten least-read posts down at the bottom (of course).

The Top 20

  1. Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Rust Never Sleeps
  2. The Kinks: Preservation Acts 1 and 2
  3. Song Series: “The Rodeo Song” – Garry Lee and the Showdown/Gaye Delorme
  4. Radiohead: In Rainbows
  5. Jethro Tull: A Passion Play
  6. The Grateful Dead: Europe 72
  7. Yes: Close to the Edge
  8. Jethro Tull: Songs from the Wood
  9. The J. Geils Band: “Live” Full House
  10. King Crimson: In the Court of the Crimson King
  11. Sade: Love Deluxe
  12. The Doors: Strange Days
  13. Frank Sinatra: In the Wee Small Hours
  14. The Pretty Things: Parachute
  15. Sinéad O’Connor: I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got
  16. The Kinks: The Great Lost Kinks Album
  17. The Bill Evans Trio: Portrait in Jazz
  18. Jethro Tull: The Broadsword and the Beast
  19. Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols
  20. P.J. Harvey: Is This Desire?

Commentary

My review of Rust Never Sleeps shot to the top of the all-time list one week after publication, breaking the record for most hits in a single day four days in a row. Thank you, Neil Young fans!

The two entries I find most surprising—and delightfully so—are Sinatra and Bill Evans. I published the review of In the Wee Small Hours on the 4th of July when I thought no one would show up. I tend to publish reviews of albums that are interesting to me but unlikely to be of much interest to my audience on American holidays. I’d always thought that people weren’t interested in jazz reviews, but I based that belief on the immediate response. As it turns out, my jazz reviews have legs!

In the end, the stats do not influence what I choose to write about. If I find music that is interesting to me, I’ll write about it sooner or later, statistics and trends be damned.

The Bottom 10

Starting with the least-read review:

  1. The Undertones (album)
  2. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles: The Definitive Collection
  3. June Tabor: Against the Streams
  4. Patsy Cline: The Definitive Collection
  5. Cheap Trick: Heaven Tonight
  6. Bobby Sherman: Christmas Album
  7. Mott the Hoople: All the Young Dudes
  8. Dave Van Ronk: Folksinger
  9. Denim: Back in Denim
  10. James Brown and The Famous Flames: Live at the Apollo