2025: The Diversity of Classic Rock: A Year in Review

angiemoonthemod

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Dec 31

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10–15 minutes

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Last year I was so depressed that I didn’t write a year in review like I’ve done in previous years: [2023], [2022], [2021], [2020], [2019], and [2018]. This year, I feel like I’m just about in a good enough place to write and reflect on the past couple of years.

Why was I quiet in 2024?

And the crazy thing is that in 2024, a big dream of mine came true. I got to go to Japan, the country I most wanted to visit, ever since I was a 6 year old girl obsessed with Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z. I had an amazing time seeing the shrines, temples, shopping till I dropped, riding the shinkansen, I got to see Molchat Doma live. I got to see King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard too.

My book Crime of the Century came out and some people had nice things to say about it, yet for some reason I wanted to quit. Reflecting on my last book review for Dust: More Lives of the Poets (With Guitars), I felt a lot like Nick Drake or Chris Bell. What’s the point of writing another book if no one cares about my writing “outside of a small circle of friends“? If my writing is “so good” why is it going absolutely nowhere? For a long time I couldn’t write. For months I didn’t really write anything of substance, and I started to feel like that again this year for reasons I’ll go into later.

“If you love true crime or rock n’ roll, (or both!) I highly recommend reading Crime of the Century. As someone who grew up enjoying vintage music and listening to true crime documentaries, I’m amazed at how linked these two interests of mine can be! Angie Moon perfectly details the connections between the most famous musicians and infamous criminals: from rock star’s encountering serial killers, to musicians becoming killers themselves. Despite my knowledge on these subjects, I found myself learning so much thanks to reading this book. I’m glad I found a read so unique and entertaining, that I find myself turning the pages when I should be getting a good night’s sleep! It’s definitely worth it!”

“A nice compendium of some of the darker side stories in rock and roll history. The book offers a fascintating insight into the lesser known moments of artists that everyone knows. Moon’s conversational tone makes the book a breezy and enjoyable read. A solid book all around.”

“A fascinating compendium of the darker sides of rock n roll and how that lead many to intermingle with some of the worst of the worst. A good mix of iconic bands and individuals and certainly a must read for fans of anything 60s/70s/80s rock. The true crime is handled very tastefully as well, ensuring the facts are given without glorifying or romanticising the perpetrators or diminishing the victims. Overall this is well researched and thoroughly interesting! Also a very easily digestible and understandable book – helpful for those of us new to the subject matter. Now I need to go and lend it to about seven different relatives who’ve asked for it!!”

“Angie digs into all kinds of stories that music fans both have heard before, and those even the most ardent music fans may have not known previously. There are few people more passionate about music history than Angie, and if you like crime and music, this is a book for you.”

“SUPPORT SMALL AUTHORS and get yourself this book! I love rock and roll history and this book is FULL of new stories for me! I’m so happy Angie made it 🙂 she’s such a talented author and I hope she makes another book!”

“Absolutely love this book!! Wonderful storytelling with engaging tales of how much overlap there is between some of our favourite bands and crime lore. As an almost lifelong classic rock fan, even I learned new events that happened. Whether you’re a true crime explorer, classic rock fan, or especially both, you will love this book too!”

“I love classic rock. I find the true crime genre fascinating. For me, this book is the best of both worlds. Angie Moon poured her heart and soul into this book. Her passion shines through on every page. I was familiar with a few of the cases and connections but Angie’s work blew my mind and introduced so many connections that I had no idea about. Highly recommended.”

“If you love classic rock or just rock in general and true crime stories then this book is for you. What I really love about this book is that 1.) it doesn’t just focus on one period of classic rock as it covers the 1950s/1960s till the early 1980s and 2.) Angie covers a lot of bases that I didn’t expect her too. The one example I have of this is with the first story. It’ll always stick with me due to how in depth she goes into the JFK assassination. It was something wasn’t expecting and appreciate that. I promise that you will not be disappointed by this.”

These incredible things happened for the blog in 2024:

I interviewed Ian Wright and Peter Maxted of The Jack Rubies, who opened for They Might Be Giants and Modern English. Not gonna lie, that name caught my eye as a true crime fan!

I interviewed Don Dannemann of 1960s band The Cyrkle, who toured with The Beatles and had hits with “Red Rubber Ball” and “Turn Down Day”, the latter of which features the sitar.

In interviewed the incredible artist Ioannis (RIP), who designed album covers for Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, The Allman Brothers Band, Quiet Riot, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Styx, Blue Öyster Cult, Yngwie Malmsteen, Jean-Luc Ponty, George Thorogood, and King Crimson

I made a great impression on people at a library talk (you can watch the video on the linked blog post).

I wrote reviews of books about a wide variety of musicians like Judas Priest, Rush, Iron Maiden, Prince, Van Halen, Bruce Springsteen, and The Beatles.

I collaborated with Mike Ladano, Fisher Protocol, Vintage Annals Archive, and Rock Daydream Nation to promote my work. This no doubt has led to more collaborations that happened this year.

I wrote a couple of blog posts I really was proud of like Why The Supremes are the female Beatles (I don’t care if you think I’m crazy for that!), 25 Goth before goth moments in classic rock, a list of classic rock lookalikes, the diversity of folk music, and a vintage style guide for women with hourglass figures.

Overall it was a really good year for The Diversity of Classic Rock. So what if I got fewer views that year than 2023, some good things happened and I published a book, which is a major step. Depression isn’t logical and even if everything is going well and good things happen, you still feel like crap and you don’t deserve good things. Still, I’m glad I didn’t quit because a lot of great things happened in 2025, despite me having to balance a really toxic, dysfunctional job for a good half of the year (I’ll tell stories about this another day).

Why 2025 was actually a good year for The Diversity of Classic Rock

In my personal life, 2025 was kinda crap and I think the best way to sum up how I felt was the brilliant Morrissey lyric: “I was looking for a job and then I found a job, and heaven knows I’m miserable now.”. I was listening to that song every day on the bus and listening to The Smiths and Kino to drown out the soullessness of a workplace owned by members of an evangelical Christian cult. I have no idea how I was hired by that place considering I’ve been an atheist since the age of 10, I’m a socialist, and I’ve been openly bisexual since the age of 14. I had panic attacks and a mental breakdown at the end of my tenure at that job and I knew I had to escape. When I told my boss about it, he told me to get over my panic attacks in the name of “professionalism” and didn’t show any concern or care at all. He also made some ableist and xenophobic comments right in front of me, such as complaining about “people who don’t pay into the healthcare system”, blaming them for long wait times for healthcare. He got a pretty bad injury while playing cricket (that will likely lead to him never playing the sport again). He had a lot of bad things happen in his personal life while I was working there and he’d find ways to take things out on me (is that professional?). Let’s just say I was thinking his misfortune was karma, that’s what you get for treating me like rubbish. Let’s just say I felt like 50 Cent smiling when talking about Diddy’s misfortune when I heard about my boss going through difficult times.

2025 In Numbers:

52 blog posts (not including this one)
Over 118,000 words written (that’s more than my blog Crime of the Century!
A new record has been set for most views in a month, at over 115,000 views in December 2025! I remember being so happy to get that in one year!
Over 202,000 unique visitors this year!
Over 416,000 views this year!
Visitors came from 197 different countries!

Top 10 Countries with most visitors:

China
United States
United Kingdom
Canada
Australia
Germany
Brazil
Netherlands
France
Mexico

10 most viewed blog posts in 2025:

Lots of oldies but goodies, but if you’re wondering what new blog posts have been the most popular, here’s the top 10:

Honourable mention, I’m incredibly proud of my interview with the Strawberry Alarm Clock. Easily one of my highlights of the year. At the age of 14, hearing “Incense and Peppermints” in the Austin Powers soundtrack is what got me into the 60s. My life was never the same again!

I also got to do a lot of collaborations this year including co-hosting The Warehaus Acid Test on Grant’s Rock Warehaus sharing great music from the 60s – each episode dedicated to a different 60s band, being featured on With It Girl, being interviewed by Staci Layne Wilson (daughter of Don Wilson of The Ventures) of Rock n Roll Nightmares, and appearing on my friend Emily’s podcast The Lipstick Pickup.

New Look For 2026

If you haven’t been on my blog in a while, you might have noticed there’s a new look. My old theme on WordPress has long since been discontinued and I felt like it didn’t fit the aesthetic I’ve been going for with my books and my dress sense. I wanted to have more of a dark academic art nouveau sort of look, with a little 60s twist like Granny Takes a Trip (the book about it was easily my favourite book I’ve read this year)! When I saw there was an Alphonse Mucha inspired theme, I decided to take the plunge. Purple is my favourite colour so I’ve made the background purple and I decided to make the homepage a static page with a streamlined navigation bar, the latest posts at the top, the most popular posts, a little bio of myself (check out that picture from a photoshoot I did this past autumn!), and a synopsis of my book. I also included some quotes that inspire me from Ray Davies and Nick Drake.

Working on another book?

When I’m not working on side quests like blog posts, I’m working on my next book, which is about the history of celebrity trials. It’s a challenging task, but a lot of fun since it combines my interests of celebrity culture and true crime. I’ve been into true crime for over 20 years. Starting when I was around 8 or 9 years old, my dad and I would watch true crime documentaries every weekend. While I’m fascinated with true crime in general, I’m particularly interested in true crime involving celebrities. That star power aspect captivates me, which is why I had a fascination with the Manson Family and the OJ Simpson trial. Growing up I remember the coverage of the trials of Phil Spector, Martha Stewart, R. Kelly, and Michael Jackson.

What I especially love about this project is the variety of stories. I love taking on new challenges and broadening my horizons and increasing my pop culture knowledge by getting out of my comfort zone. So far I’ve written over 35,000 words and I’m nowhere near finished!

Anyway, that’s been my year! How was 2025 for you?

Liked this blog post and want to support independent classic rock journalism? Donate to The Diversity of Classic Rock on Patreon or Paypal or follow me on Facebook, Bluesky, or Instagram, buy my book Crime of the Century, click the follow button on my website, leave a nice comment, send your music or classic rock related books for review, or donate your art and writing talents to the blog.

If you donate any amount to my Patreon or PayPal, you’ll get a Crime of the Century ebook, so it’s pay what you can! The best deal you’ll get on the book and you won’t find this deal anywhere else! I just want to give back to my readers and say thank you for your support.