Why hello there, 2011

Well, 2010 is at last behind us. Lot's of stuff happened. But now we can all move on. At least, that's the popular idea. But really, the only difference is the date. Anyone could choose anytime at all to change the way they do things. We just all decided at some point that the new year is the best time to do it, which makes some sense, I suppose. A silly tradition, but we all do it. So we'll embrace the silliness.

If any of you watched any of the New Year's coverage on TV last night (or even if you didn't; this is a fairly general point), I'd like to draw your attention to the artists that performed. Backstreet Boys, New Kids on the Block, Green Day, Plain White Tees. All of them were big during my middle school years or earlier (in the case of the first two, SIGNIFICANTLY earlier). Why are we having them perform at a New Year's Eve celebration? Aren't we supposed to be celebrating last year's accomplishments and looking forward at those that we plan on accomplishing next year? Perhaps we should play groups and artists that were big this year. Perhaps, say, Mumford and Sons, Florence and the Machine, the new album from The New Pornographers, the Black Keys, etc. Hell, even Ke$ha would have been a better choice, even though I'm not a big fan of her music. She's at least from this decade. To be fair, some of those groups I suggested actually released their albums during 2009. But the key is, they became big in 2010. Better than playing a song that we all heard overplayed on the radio 6 years ago. That's a big problem.

What'd be even better is if they played some new artists that might become big in the next year (using Florence again, she would have been a great choice for one of last year's performers). That'd be awesome. I would actually be mildly interested in the music being played. Not that most of the artists they have perform actually play the kind of music that I listen to the majority of the time, it would be cool to do a large scale talent profile of up and coming artists on national TV that ISNT American Idol or some similar reality TV show. It'd give artists the opportunity to gain exposure on a huge scale instead of just doing a radio playlist from 2005. It could be a huge marketing thing. See, money! You like money, don't you? Get some new artists for New Year's celebrations. Or just in general. That would be awesome.

Ending my rant on popular music selection, I'd like to take a moment to point out that I graduate this year. Yeah. It blew my mind too.

Happy New Year, reader.