Enduring Miles

I have to confess that I have gotten hooked on the ability to track Google Analytics data on my Examiner.com articles.  I am not sure this will change either what I write or how I write it, but it has led to some interesting observations.  For example I was not surprised to see a significant bump up in page views after my account of Rufus Wainwright’s appearance with the San Francisco Symphony got posted.  I pretty much took it for granted that there were far more Google Alerts out their for Wainwright than there were for the Symphony;  and I had no problem with benefitting from his popularity, even if my view of his performance was a pretty dim one.  More surprising, however, was that my review of the early music group Voices of Music was almost as popular as the Wainwright piece.  Then I found out that Voices of Music has a “Facebook presence;”  and their Facebook site included a link to my piece.  This was probably the first time I could say something positive about the “Facebook effect!”

The biggest surprise, however, came from all those Miles Davis fans out there.  At the end of October, SFJAZZ presented a concert called Bitches Brew Revisited;  and the music historian in me did not want to pass up that opportunity.  Given that the original Bitches Brew double album was a product of studio technology through and through, I was really blown away with what this live performance did with the source material.  We are now past the middle of November, and my report on that performance is still getting page views.  Now I find myself curious as to whether or not, over a longer statistical interval, Miles will always surpass Rufus.  I sure hope so!