Welp.

Here’re goes.

On this very date ten years ago, December 18,  2007, I created The Delete Bin. Happy ten-year anniversary, DB!

You can even read my first post here, written during an era when I wasn’t sure what kind of blog this would even be

However, this is a bittersweet occasion, Good People.

Because today, on this very same date ten years later, this is the last Delete Bin post ever.

Let me explain.

I’ve taken so much reward by authoring this blog which has been my own music magazine, effectively; a dream come true and a privilege.

It has been an amazing vehicle for me to talk about the music that I love and that I feel is worth talking about.

It’s allowed me to talk about the human condition; about how popular music helps us to better understand it and by virtue of that, to better understand ourselves.

In the end, it’s that better understanding of the human condition –  so full of fear, joy, doubt, triumph, mystery, revelation, and any number of other conflicting and overwhelming forces in our lives –  that counts the most. If there is a purpose to life at all, then surely this is it, along with using any knowledge we pick up to be better humans, and to do our small parts to making a better world.

The Delete Bin has been my means to do all of that, or at least to start thinking about ways to do it better.

Overall, I have been, and am, very grateful for the chance to externalize my journey as a music fan, and as a finite human person in time and space.

I value each person who has read, liked, subscribed to, and shared the ‘Bin over the years. I owe you a debt. Your attention and input has made me a better writer, and a better thinker, too. So, thank you.

But, I don’t want to keep this going until it sucks, y’know?

I want to leave on a high.

So, it’s time to bring it on home.

Here’s what that will look like.

The Delete Bin site will still exist as long as I can manage it.

I will even update individual posts when necessary to include new links and new information. I may even respond to comments.

There won’t be any new posts, though.

The reasons for this are not dramatic.

Here’s the most mundane reason first.

My readership has been in steady decline for many years now. Despite what I feel is pretty good stuff in the output department, I don’t feel like I’m connecting anymore.

This is possibly due to the decline of the individually authored blog as a key source of information that once thrived in the world that was in 2007-08 when I first started this. I like to think that’s a reason, anyway!

These days, I find myself in an increasingly “pay to play” world that is the modern internet. The noise in this new world is a hundredfold to what it was. Only a steady and significant spend on the part of large companies or celebrity brands who can churn out content cheaply with the requisite social capital to promote it can cut an easy path through that noise for readers. The Facebook gods must be paid.

Here’s some perspective on the all of that.

Also, a lot of web users don’t like a lot of text, it seems. Bad news for me.

This trend has been going on for years. You can read one perspective on this trend right here.

I’m not bitter about any of this, necessarily.

Times change. World’s end. New worlds emerge, good or bad.

Anyway.

Here’s another reason I’m retiring the good ship Delete Bin.

I want to try some new stuff.

At the time of this writing, this includes my work with The Deeper Cuts Podcast. If you haven’t listened to the show, I recommend it!

I’ll still be active on Twitter and talking about songs and albums there. You can even follow me.

New projects and efforts could include fiction, too. I’ve written a few things already. I wouldn’t mind exploring this side of my writer’s life even further, although I don’t know what that looks like yet. Maybe I’ll take up one of my unfinished novels again. Yes, one of.

I also may start a whole new music blog, focusing strictly on new music and emerging artists.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time with The Delete Bin, it’s that there’s a lot of great music being made out there, a lot of which casual music fans aren’t hearing. I could do worse than pursuing a new mission to help those artists be heard more widely even in my own small way, an effort in which I sort of dabbled here. I may discover even less readership this way, I know. But that idea is still in the running.

Finally, I may take some of the materials here on The Delete Bin and turn it into a book.

It’s an idea that’s in its primordial stages. But I may develop that more in the New Year. Watch this space, as they say.

Of all of the above, I’ll keep everyone in the loop on this as I’m able. I’ll put some links right on this site.

In any case, this is the end of this particular chapter, Good People.

Ten years to the day is a good run, and carries with it a certain poetry, if you’ll allow that.

Thank you so, so much for following along, to those of you who have. If this last post is your first encounter with The Delete Bin, thank you, too!

Finally then, I leave you with this for now.

There is so much music out there to discover. And so much to come.

There’s so much to learn about what’s common between us through that music to carry with us on our journeys.

So wherever you are, and whatever your soundtrack is for your personal journey both now and in the future,

Enjoy!