After years of missing coverage goals, Filmtracks has enjoyed an unexpected comeback in 2021, the site offering reviews at a pace not seen in almost a decade and traffic levels finally increasing again. While still behind on new coverage by several months, the publish schedule may allow the site to be completely current on new scores later this year.
The coverage goals for 2021 are 35 reviews of all-new scores and 30 revisions to existing reviews to account for new albums, the standard of recent years. In the first half of the year, 49 all-new reviews and 48 re-writes were completed, though not all of those reviews have debuted on the site. Several more have been finished in July.
Even without any additional writing in the second half of the year, the production through June alone would have made 2021 the most successful coverage year at Filmtracks since 2012. Every year since then has featured an extended period of at least two months without any new writing; with luck, 2021 will break that trend as I strive for more consistency.
The reason for this increase in coverage is simple: I switched my day job at the start of the year to a far superior position at the City of Seattle, moving from a salaried job requiring excessive hours to a union-protected hourly job capped at 40 hours per week. Add to this sudden free time gained a lack of three hours commuting each day due to continued remote work and the time to properly manage Filmtracks has reappeared.
Along with the increased quantity of reviews have come some solutions to long-known bugs at the site, too. It's my hope that other features at the site can enjoy incremental updates later in the year as well, including composer tributes and photos. Discretionary reviews of older scores are another overdue goal. As long as my job and health permit, 2021 figures to be a great 25th anniversary year for the site.
Christian