Ooh, I've been anticipating this for awhile. So last year was my first one and I didn't organize things very well, just throwing whatever I felt like, so this year while it'll still be very varied, the order things go on will make a lot more sense. I'm anticipating that this'll be fun, that I'll have fun looking at others' lists, and that I'll have fun reading any of your comments about my list. Thanks!
Schedule:
Week 1:
Music Stuff, Part One [December 6-12]
12/6: Worst Songs & Disappointing Albums
12/7: Most Overrated Song of Each Month & Year’s Most Pleasantly Surprising Hits
12/8: Song by Song Review of the only good album of 2008
12/9: Top 100 Britney Spears, updated to include songs from Circus, compilations, and EP’s
12/10: Analysis of top 100 Britney songs, including each album from best to less-best, the configuration of an ideal album, and a calculation to figure out my favorite to least-favorite album
12/11: Singles Machines: All of the albums since ever that have had at least 3 great singles but aren’t overall good enough for me to give an 80%
12/12: Albums Anticipated Next Year
Week 2:
Book Stuff [December 13-19]
12/13: Guides to Fear Street miniseries & Goosebumps. I read a majority of the Fear Street miniseries this year and also this year got into the Blogger Beware blog which recaps Goosebumps.
12/14: A guide to Sweet Valley, since I love the blog The Dairi Burger and the LJ comm. 1bruce1 for their awesome recaps of the series I loved when I was younger. I discovered both this year, I believe.
12/15: The Hot 23: Those which I would give at least a B+; I read over a hundred books this year so I don’t just hand out high grades.
12/16: The Top 10: The rest of the list
12/17: A guide to Christopher Pike, since I read all of his teen/adult horror books this year. There were a lot.
12/18: Guides to Dan Brown & Sophie Kinsella. My favorite “man fiction” and “chick lit” authors; I read multiple books from each of them this year.
12/19: Next year’s awaited releases
Week 3:
Other Stuff [December 20-24]
12/20: The Year in Sports
12/21: Gossip Girl
12/22: Guides to Xena and SVU, which this year I watched all the episodes of, and also to Passions, which ended this year
12/23: Guides to animated shows I rewatched this year: Digimon season 1, Cardcaptors, and Sailor Moon R
12/24: The Year in Film & News
I’ll take a break for Christmas & such. And it won't be until the year is actually over that I'll show what my favorite songs of the year were, since music is this forum's main focus.
Week 4:
Big Stuff [December 31-January 5]
12/31: Top 10 Overall this Year
1/1-1/4: Top Songs of the Year
1/5: Top 10 Overall Anticipated for Next Year
For fun, last year in review:
23 Hottest Singles
01. Sober/Kelly Clarkson
02. Never Again/Kelly Clarkson
03. Because of You/Kelly Clarkson feat. Reba McEntire
04. Piece of Me/Britney Spears
05. Happy Ending/Mika
06. Umbrella/Rihanna
07. Hey There Delilah/Plain White T's
08. Gimme More/Britney Spears
09. Big Girls Don't Cry/Fergie
10. Teardrops on My Guitar/Taylor Swift
11. Glamorous, Fergie
12. Like a Boy, Ciara
13. D.A.N.C.E., Justice
14. Find a New Way, Young Love
15. Girlfriend, Avril Lavigne
16. Potential Breakup Song, Aly & AJ
17. Change, Kimberly Locke
18. Our Song, Taylor Swift
19. Get Me Bodied, Beyonce
20. Beautiful Flower, India.Arie
21. Easy, Paula Deanda
22. Paralyzer, Finger Eleven
23. Teenagers, My Chemical Romance
[Multiple charters: Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears, Fergie, Taylor Swift. Expect one or more repeats of that.]
Things I anticipated for this year: Love the One You're With - was boring. Mamma Mia - did not watch because the songs kinda suck. Make Me a Supermodel - did not watch as it seemed boring. Angel: After the Fall - still read, but it's meh. High School Musical 3 - did not watch except for scenes of the dancing, but they sucked too, as do the songs; The Solomon Key - not out yet; Buffy Season 8 - it's okay but not great; Sex and the City - sucked; Gossip Girl – AWESOME; Dollhouse – hasn’t started yet. Huh.
Fefe Dobson, Bowling For Soup, Aqua, Nicole Scherzinger, and Fergie didn’t end up releasing albums this year. Madonna, Ashlee, Mariah, and Beyonce all had lead singles that made me go “well, it’s okay, I guess, but surely there are better singles to lead the album off?” The answer was no. And again, HSM3 sucked.