3rd birthday of Aquarama (03/01/2008)

Today, Aquarama celebrates its third year online with a whole new design, which I hope you like as much as me. It's been two weeks of hard work to create a more modern and spectacular layout. You will also find some new features, special downloads and other little changes by navigating around. To let me know what you think about the new Aquarama, you can write me to [email protected]. Thanks!

Now it's time for looking back...

The First Aquarama

Aquarama opened the 3rd of January of 2005, but I had already run an earlier version of it during 1998 and 1999. It was my first website, and at that time I wasn't too good at designing them. This fact, mixed with some personal problems and the existence of much better sites about Aqua (it's a pity that none of them is active nowadays), lead me to close Aquarama for the time being, in late August 1999. There are still some traces of this version of the site, but most of it has been lost. It was too simple, anyway.

Why Aquarama?

Since I was a child, I liked the name of the aquatic section from the Barcelona Zoo: Aquarama. So, in 1997, when I started listening to Aqua's music, I thought that the word Aquarama sounded like a proper title for an Aqua album. That's why I chose it as the name of my 1998 site, and years later, I kept it for the new one.

Aquarama reloaded

In 2004, three years after Aqua's break-up, my collection of Aqua singles, albums and other items was growing really fast. Also, Søren had just released the Lazyboy album, so at least there were some Aqua-related news at that time.

By then, only Aqua 2001 and Aqua Express were still online. I thought that a website would be a nice way of sharing my collection, as well as listing all the official Aqua remixes that exist. These were my initial intentions. So I asked help from by boyfriend (Tidus), because he is much better at graphic design than me. We discussed about the look of Aquarama (I wanted from the very beginning to use again that name) and we spent some days creating it. I liked the result so much, that I kept it for three years, until today. It was time for a change!

To my own surprise, Aquarama became a success real soon. We have an average of 60 unique visitors per day, not bad for a site about an inactive music band. I am very grateful to the webmasters of Aqua 2001 (Louise & Maria) and Aqua Express (Greg) for helping me to promote the site. Months later, a cool new site appeared, My Aquarium, and its owner Dennis was a great help to, both to promote Aquarama, and to help me to gather news and information. Former webmasters like Steve and Pat have been very helpful too, as well as Bertrand and many other visitors of the site who provided all sort of contents and feedback. Without all them, it would have been impossible to build Aquarama as it is today.

During these three years online, Aquarama hasn't stopped growing. Currently, it includes the most complete and detailed Discography & Remixography of Aqua (and related acts) that you can find. Aquarama also offers up-to-date news on Aqua and its members as well as rare, exclusive Downloads, and wide archives of videos and lyrics. We premiered some obscure Aqua remixes, like Doctor Jones (E-Motion Lost Ark Mix) or Cartoon Heroes (Sleazy Dub). Despite all of this, there's still many things to enhance and complete!

Aquarama plans for this 4th year

In the first place, I will try to keep you updated about Aqua's comeback, which as you know will take place this summer. Besides that, I intend to complete the Videography section with all the remaining videos, and I would like to enhance this section, as well as the Remixography. I expect to keep updating the Discography by increasing my collection with many items that I still lack, paying special attention to vinyls. Also, I plan to upload sometime a spanish version of the site (but nothing definite yet).

Thanks

Before finishing, I must thank every Aquarama visitor for spending some of your time in this site. It's been three amazing years, and without your loyal support it wouldn't have had any sense. Thanks a lot, and I hope you keep visiting the site in the future.

03/01/2008. Lleonard Pler