The Primer – surveying two decades of rock
The Best of 2003-2023: The Reviewer Choices
Get Ready to ROCK! soft launched in October 2002. From October 2022 we will be celebrating our 20th anniversary which will continue until December 2023.
Here Managing Editor David Randall looks back, an extract from his essay “Still Rocking…” chronicling two decades of rock… (You can read the full version here).
Get Ready to ROCK! came on the scene in late 2002 and quietly started to build an exclusively online audience. By 2012 we were established as one of the premier destinations for quality and authoritative reviews and with a fairly eclectic brief. And from this time our end-of-year review has become a definitive guide to the top albums , live and breakthrough acts for any given year.
In a sometimes ephemeral virtual world, since earliest times we have retained a core team of regular reviewers who are great writers and passionate about their subject.
Since early Lockdown in 2020 Get Ready to ROCK! has been revisiting its archives in a series called “2020 Vision” which has been very successful. In March 2022 a similar approach celebrated the melodic rock band Magnum (and their 50th anniversary) whose more recent renaissance parallels our own development.
In late-2022 we will add to our retrospectives but also recognise selected artists and bands in a promotion called “The GRTR! Grotto of Greatness”, our answer to the “Hall of Fame” concept. We’ll be featuring a band/artist each month from January – December 2023.
At Get Ready to ROCK! in early 2021 we launched a weekly Top 10 album chart compiled by News and Reviews Editor Jason Ritchie. This chart simply mirrors activity the preceding week at the website, via social media and radio airplay. The chart is run in conjunction with out radio station.
Get Ready to ROCK! Radio was launched in September 2008, an aural complement to the review website. The playlist reflects the reviews and supplemented by interviews and special features. The radio player on the website links directly to an album review where possible giving the listener a complete experience and allowing further investigation.
We’ve been great supporters of independent/new music and have dedicated sequences including a weekly showcase “New to GRTR”. In conjunction with the reviews, we’ve supported artists like Sari Schorr, Chantel McGregor, Cats In Space and Brave Rival amongst many others.
The station is essentially continuous music but with regular presented and live shows including contributions from blues rock impresario Pete Feenstra. Since 2016 Pete has received several awards for his shows.
Since 3 July there is an internet-wide issue with embedded Twitter timelines. Hopefully our Tweets will show up again soon.
