The 11 Most Anticipated Summer Albums of 2012

As we move into a new year, one of the strangest pieces of news has been revealed.  Album sales in 2011 actually went up for the first time in almost a decade.  Granted it was mostly due to Adele's incredibly popular album...that still proves that the album as a musical format is still very viable.  And while all the news articles still like to pronounce the death of rock and how pop has taken over...there were still more rock albums in the Billboard 200 than any other genre.  This year, there were 47 rock albums on the list.  Second place went to country with 39 albums.  Pop comes up third with 35 albums.  (I still think Bruno Mars is really rock...but I put him in pop).  Hip-hop/rap is fourth with 26.  What's also interesting to note...rock music is comprised of a lot of different bands while the pop albums were all made by the same handful of artists (Bieber, Swift, Adele, Gaga, Kesha, Selena Gomez).  Good for those artists but you take them out of the equation...and pop doesn't have much going on.

Let's see what 2012 brings....

Here are the 11 most anticipate albums of summer 2012:

1.  Soundgarden - TBA (Sept)
2.  MGMT - MGMT (Sept.)
3.  Animal Collective - TBA (Sept)
4.  Grizzly Bear - TBA (August)
5.  Mumford and Sons - TBA (August)
6.  How To Destroy Angels - TBA (July)
7.  Sigur Ros - TBA (July)
8.  The Offspring - Apocalyptic Guides and Inferno Themes about Nothing (July)
9.  Public Enemy - Most of My Heros Don't Appear on Stamps/Evil Empire of Everything (August)
10.  Regina Spektor - What We Saw From the Cheap Seats (July)
11.  Skrillex - Voltage (July)

The 11 Best Public Enemy Songs

The first time I heard Public Enemy I was in a friend's car. We were driving to pick up his older brother who had a fake ID and was going to buy us beer. The song was "911 Is A Joke." And all I could think, being 16 and all, that this guy was fucking insane. I couldn't help cracking up. But I wanted more. Then came "Welcome To The Terrordome." Listening to Chuck D must have been like listening to Malcom X in the 60s. How in the world did the government not come after this guy and arrest him? He was talking revolution like I never heard. And I loved every bit of it. Of course being a white kid in a small hick town...listening to rap music was a bit of a taboo. So we created pockets of rap music fans. Listening in the back bedrooms of our friends, playing it just loud enough to rock out but not too loud that our mothers heard it and worried even more about our constant deterioration.

Chuck D is the man. Maybe the best MC of all time? It time for these guys to make a come back. Get Kanye...Pharrell...do an album right and bring the music back to the people.

Until then, check out their new B-side album...

So here are the 11 Best Public Enemy songs:

1. By The Time I Get To Arizona (Apocalypse 91)
2. Welcome To The Terrordome (Fear of A Black Planet)
3. Fight The Power (Fear of A Black Planet)
4. Louder Than A Bomb (It Takes A Nation of Millions...)
5. He Got Game (He Got Game)
6. Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos (It Takes A Nation of Millions...)
7. Burn Hollywood Burn (Fear of A Black Planet)
8. Give It Up (Muse Sick-N-Hour Mess Age)
9. Rebel Without A Pause (It Takes A Nation of Millions...)
10. 911 Is A Joke (Fear of A Black Planet)
11. Shake Your Booty (He Got Game)

No MP3 today...just deal...