(Whenever we can’t find another picture that seems appropriate, we’re gonna post one of Linda Ronstadt.)

This blog began on July 11, 2004. That makes today its 13th anniversary. As is customary, here’s a list of some favorite posts since last July 11. (Find other anniversary greatest-hits posts here.)

—Every one of us, whether we work in radio or not, was once a starry-eyed beginner on our first day. Later, some of us become victims of job burnout. And some of us get fired. Those who are still working in radio need to to answer the following question: “What am I doing on the air every day that nobody else can do?” And every small-town radio station needs to ask itself, “Why are we doing the same stuff today we did in 1974?”

—A couple of posts about former Los Angeles radio jock Humble Harve Miller (here and here) continue to get lots of hits from people searching for information about the scandalous events that derailed his career and sent him to prison. A post about hosting an all-request radio show became the most commented-on post in months. Also popular amongst the readership were two posts answering radio questions (here and here). If you have a question, send it in.

—The summer of 2016 marked the 40th anniversary of Rock ‘n’ Roll Music, “a celebration of the Beatles before the drugs took hold.” Three years before the release of that album, the Beatles stormed the charts in their first official compilations. And six years before that, the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper, an album that required Top 40 stations to make some decisions, because it had no single.

—I reviewed a biography of Tiny Tim that tried too hard to turn its subject into someone more important than he was, and a Steely Dan reference book that tested the patience of a super-fan. Joel Selvin’s book about Altamont was a million times better than either one.

—Several posts ranked the tracks on certain famous albums, including Boston, Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells a Story, Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly, and Hotel California. A tweet of mine about whether anyone had ever made three albums in a row as good as Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street got a lot of response.

—This blog has a TV category, and we’re not afraid to use it. I wrote about the music of M*A*S*H and some impressions of the last half-dozen seasons of the show after watching them for the first time in many years. Other posts discussed Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, watching 38 K-Tel record album commercials in a row, and an obscure animated series of the 60s with some good music.

—A post about The Partridge Family that originally appeared at Popdose is one of my favorite posts I ever wrote for anybody.

—American Top 40 shows provide a lot of the ideas for this blog. I wrote about the show’s tradition of July 4 weekend specials, and the 1974 show that helped me put the “idiot” into “idiot savant.” Another show inspired a post about a family tableau that’s almost certainly a lie, and another discussed the single biggest whopper Casey Kasem ever told.

—The long-running feature One Day in Your Life became its own blog in January of this year. The last ODIYL post to appear here looked back to December 23, 1966. Also during the Christmas season, we paid tribute to one of “one of the most popular human beings of the 20th century.”

—So far in 2017, we have had to write fewer tribute posts than we did in 2016. Here’s one about Chuck Berry, one about the J. Geils Band, and one about Adam West.

—I wrote about rediscovering a compilation CD I made and then forgot about, about Watergate songs, and about the songs that woke up the astronauts. I imagined a 1972 kitchen-table scene in New Haven, Connecticut, and a Louisiana Sunday in December 1941. And I wondered how, or whether, the children of this era will listen to their music 40 or 50 years from now.

—If I had asked her the question I couldn’t bring myself to ask her, she would probably have said yes.

The future of this blog is that it will continue to hump onward pretty much like it does now. To each of you amongst the readership, my many thanks.