PRESENTS

"SOME FACTS AND FIGURES"

Many of you will be aware that since the inception of the museum nearly a year ago ( time flies when your having fun! ) that we have had the visitor profile page where Hawkfans can fill out a quick form on-line that lets us know not only what you think of the site, but also what your likes and dislikes are regarding all things hawkwind. There's always been a steady stream of these dropping in my in-box and they are always pleasant to receive as they are proof that people really are looking at the site and they obviously think enough of it to take the time to fill one out. This is all well and good but what do I do with the information other than keep it in a file on my PC. This problem was solved recently when I decided to teach myself a bit ( a very small bit if the truth beknown! ) about spreadsheets and from this I've worked out how to produce graphs and charts. So what better way to use this fledgling knowledge but to insert the data that you people have so kindly sent in.

Things were going along swimmingly and I was at a point the other night when I thought to myself "another hour or so of this and I'll have it nailed!", I was pleased with the results and although it had been hard work I thought the results would be worth it. Then disaster struck my PC had a complete crash and I was left with no option but to turn it off manually and re-start it and guess what?, I hadn't saved any of the work, net result - I lost the bl**dy lot!

To say I was gutted would be an understatement so after a quick swear and a curse I thought of how it would be possible to salvage the situation. This came in the form of a post to both the BOC-L and Yahoo lists  to ask folks if they hadn't done so already to fill out a visitor profile as I thought this would give me more data to work with. Let me say here and now that the response was superb and people have been getting in touch in their droves and to each and every one of you my sincerest thanks, it really makes you think that you are doing something worthwhile!

The thing to remember with this survey is at the end of the day it's just a bit of fun and I'm sure along the way I've made a few errors, wrong data in the wrong box, that sort of thing but I've done my best and for the most part I feel it's a far reflection. If you could be bothered ( which I doubt) you'll notice that the figures between the various charts will not tie up, the reason for this is that some people did not answer all the questions or the answers that they did give could not be collated into the charts.

So for out first  graph we'll look at how hawkwind have fared over the years as far as sales and hence chart positions are concerned. The chart below shows the highest known chart position of the albums listed . You hopefully should be able to work out which releases I am referring to but if you are unsure then please refer to the
Legend
If you can supply any further information for this section then please feel free to
e-mail here
However for now we will concentrate on the info we have in front of us (which was in fact acquired from THIS PAGE on Steve starfarer's site). So, at a glance we can see that without a doubt the bands most successful spell was between 1970 and 1975, this was followed by a distinct downturn in fortunes in what would be classed as the "Charisma Years", before another "return to form" at the start of the 80's with the bands 2nd highest ever chart placing of #15 for Live 79 in 1980. The next couple of years continued to be relatively fruitful for the band before things started to   "go off the boil" as far as record sales goes, only Electric Tepee reaching #53 in 1992 could be considered anywhere near a success. One interesting thing that comes out of this is that for the 2 distinct "popular patches" also coincide at least in part with when the band was signed to major record companies ( UA and RCA respectively ) and I guess goes someway to prove that for all their faults (and lets be honest they have plenty!) they do have the clout to promote records and get them in the charts. Mind you I will also concede that the early 80's also heralded the boom that was the "New Wave Of British Heavy Metal" and as such anybody with guitars and long hair got lumped in with that tag  and in turn probably got a few more sales than they would have normally expected.

One of the biggest surprises for me in this category was just how badly Alien4 performed as I know that it was considered by many Hawkfans as a return to form, but then again obviously not by enough of you! 

I must just add a quick thank you here to steve Starfarer for re-jigging the chart position graph so that it now makes sense!
cheers mate

Okay, next up we have 2 graphs for you to compare, these concern the first album that you purchased and then I guess "the big one" - your favourite

The first thing to realise before you begin to decipher these 2 is that although the same albums are listed in both cases the scaling on the left hand axis is different due to the votes cast. For any clarification, always refer to the
Legend

What then, if anything do the results tell us, well for starters you will be able to see that whilst you came to Hawkwind from a wide variety of sources with studio, live and compilation albums all being well represented, however when it came to you "nailing your allegiance to the flagpole" your choices were far less broad. In both poles the clear winner is Space Ritual which I guess will come as no great surprise as it's also the bands most successful as far as chart positions go (#9 in 1973). I also feel that one of the most telling factors is that the albums released between 1970 and 77 accounted for around 2/3 rd's of the votes cast and so what can we glean from that, simple really - that they are still the ones that the fans like best. I think few would argue that the bulk of the bands strongest material came from this period.

If we move on the the 80's then you'll see that with the exception of Church Of Hawkwind, which let's be fair is really a Dave Brock solo effort and both Live 79 and Levitation none of the others manage to register a single vote between them, so although certainly the early part of this decade was a renaissance for the band as far as sales went, none of the subsequent releases had the lasting appeal that their relations from the 70's had

Moving on the the 90's and up to the present day I guess it is good to see that some of the later efforts have been well received and Alien4, although faring very badly as far as sales goes still comes in as your favourite album from the later years!

Just a couple of other things to note, whilst it's no great secret that the first self titled album is also Dave Brock's favourite that sentiment cannot be said for the fans at large. Although 10 of you who took part in the survey were originally "turned on" to Hawkwind with this record, not one of you made it your overall numero uno. from a personal point of view I have to say I was somewhat surprised with how poorly DoReMi performed managing a mere 6 votes in the "Favourite Hawkwind Album" category, to me this was the album that really set their stall out and is an ideal way to introduce someone who has no concept as to what "Space Rock" is, but as I cannot stress enough this is YOUR views and no-one else's!

Okay time for another set of data and this time it's when you first got into Hawkwind!

It's clear to see here that the key year is 1972, and as any self respecting hawkfan will know that saw the release of Silver Machine and it's subsequent massive chart success. The other boom year appears to be 1981 which again I guess you would put down to the fact that the previous year the band had released both Live 79 and Levitation, two of their more successful albums and so hence their profile would have been pretty high. I feel that it is also worth noting that in a straight 21 year period from their very inception in 1969 through to 1990 the band were steadily gaining new fans, a downside to this is that since then "new converts" seem a bit thin on the ground and even more depressing nobody in this survey is new to the band in this millennium!

Right we're getting near the end of the survey (hopefully you're still with us!), and felt that the only way to end it was with the category of -

I think it's fair to say that this is the category with the most resounding result of the whole project and it certainly comes as no great surprise to me that the winner is that old chestnut "Bring Me the Head Of Yuri Gagarin". Now I know it's pretty clear from certain parts of the museum that I'm not a fan of this type of release (I'll try and stay reasoned!) but this is a case of the people speaking as one. Sure there is a good proportion of the "Official" albums represented here but they rank purely as 2 or 3 storey blocks of flats compared with the skyscraper that is Yuri. I think what I find most alarming about this though is that for people to nominate this album ones to assume that many of them own or have owned a copy at some time. Now if you consider that the 25 votes it polled here is a not dissimilar number to that cast by folks for Space Ritual in the "Favourite" section and that appears from what we have learnt to not only be your fave but also the bands most successful album, it makes you wonder how many copies of this frankly awful album have been sold, I'd guess a fair few over the years, which in turn has made "somebody" a nice sum of money . However as a slight counter-balance to this I should add that many of you who completed the form choose not to answer this section or put something along the lines of "haven't got one" or "love 'em all!" and who knows all of you who took this option may have a copy of said album that you are perfectly happy with, mind you the fact that this was the only category that it achieved any votes at all in, I think says it all!

Well, there you go, I hope you have found this little survey both useful and enjoyable, if for no other reason than it's taken a bl**dy long time to put together so for that alone I hope folks find it worthwhile. Rather than do this yearly or at regular intervals, it's my intention to add data to the graphs as and when more visitor profiles are received, so if you've enjoyed this and have yet to fill one out then please
CLICK HERE
And make your voice heard!

FOOTNOTE

I've said it before and I'll say it again, thanks to each of you who took the time to fill out a visitor profile, however it seems that some of you are taking this more seriously than others and although it's not my normal practice to actually reproduce such a profile in it's entirety I feel I must make an exception on this occasion (plus I've also gained permission), so without naming names, please feast your eyes on this -

FIRST GOT INTO HAWKWIND?: never

HOW? (BRIEFLY): coz *** listens to them all the time and they are pish

FIRST ALBUM PURCHASED?: u must be joking

"FAVE: none

LEAST FAVE HAWKWIND ALBUM?: all

FIRST SAW HAWKWIND?: are you for real

LAST SAW HAWKWIND?: **** still trying to persuade me

TOTAL NO OF TIMES SEEN?: ooooooooooooo

COMMENTS: who's bright idea was it to have a hawkwind museum coz its bad enuf listening to them everyday without having to look at them as well.
they are on my f**kin desk top as well as the hifi.
thank god he's lost the videos and thankfully I have a sense of humour!!!!!

Actually it doesn't take a brain surgeon to work out that this was in fact submitted by a genuine Hawkfan's better half, it did however get me thinking that if anybody else's other half fancies doing something similar then please feel free to go ahead, I'm sure there's plenty of you out there who would like to give an "alternate view!"

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