In 2010, I'd Like To See...

Category :

...the Kings of Leon return to their roots.

With Only By The Night, the Nashville quartet hurled themselves into the realm of mega-stardom: a Saturday Night Live appearance, a Rolling Stone cover, and sold out arenas in New York, Los Angeles, and everywhere in between. And while the band became one of the top selling artists of 2009 on the strength of their two singles, "Sex on Fire" and "Use Somebody," they had lost many of the elements that made me love them in the first place.

There was no more thumping bass, no more twangy guitar lines, and a lot less of Caleb's voice grabbing and tugging at your eardrums. All the typical elements attached to a Kings of Leon record were replaced with studio effects, primarily the nauseating amount of reverb that drowned the sound of the instruments.

With the Kings' next album tentatively due next fall, I would love to see them realize their strengths and get back to the southernness, rootsyness, and even Strokesiness of their first few records. A lot of bands could write the radio-ready tunes of Only By The Night. But take a listen to their old track, "Red Morning Light" and you'll, like me, long to hear that screeching voice emerge once again.


...U2 go away for a long while.
I've never been a fan, and their last album was a complete bore. 'Nuff said.


...an absolutely sick Bonnaroo lineup.

Coachella 2010 is shaping up to be a fantastic festival with the likes of Phoenix, LCD Soundsystem, Jay-Z, MGMT, and my personal favorite, Muse (also known as "the best live band you will ever see in your entire life"). After drooling over my keyboard at the orgasmic three day lineup, all I could think about was how it would compare to Bonnaroo's lineup.

See, this is the year my friend and I plan to do what any good rock n' roll fan should do at least once in a lifetime. If all goes as planned, we'll be driving about 600 miles just so we can live in tents for four days in the middle of nowhere.

You can say this is the year I become a man; it's the year of my musical Bar Mitzvah. So God, I pray that you bless the people of Manchester, Tennessee with a heavenly lineup anywhere comparable to that of Coachella's. Amen.


I'd also like to see:

-Great new records from Arcade Fire, The Black Keys, My Chemical Romance and The Strokes, among many others.
-Rolling Stone either actually cover music or stop referring to itself as a music magazine.
-An extensive tour from recently reunited Soundgarden (which would almost forgive Chris Cornell for his shenanigans with Timbaland).
-People reinvigorated into buying CDs and vinyls. I might be one of the few left who still regularly purchase music in tangible form, but I'm not going to stop without a fight!
-The survival of the American newspaper. This might have nothing to do with music, but it doesn't change the fact that I'd like to have a job after getting out of college.

Cheers.