a couple months ago, just after the recording academy announced their 54th annual grammy nominees, i blogged my predictions. those are set to air tonight and i thought just prior to the ceremony, i’d repost this to serve as a guide of just how wrong i’ll likely be.

here’s what i predicted in december.

yesterday, barack obama’s campaign released a 27-song spotify playlist that serves as the “official” playlist of the president’s bid for re-election. you can see the track list here or you can actually access it via spotify by clicking here.

2011 was a good year for music. not necessarily a great year, but certainly a good year for music. it featured quite a few surprises and new discoveries and also had its fair share of albums that were highly anticipated. personally, i haven’t anticipated albums as much as i did elbow’s build a rocket boys and kanye/jay-z’s watch the throne (among others) in quite some time.

much the same as last year, there’s a handful of albums that i expect to be great albums. and while it’s always dangerous to inflate expectations to non-attainable levels, i’ve narrowed down a list of nearly 50 albums to 12 that i am eagerly anticipating this year.

i’ve broken down the list into 2 categories: confirmed (or as close to confirmed as possible) and i’m-not-holding-my-breath-but-this-rumor-is-worth-believing. first, the confirmed albums:

on february 12, 2012, the recording academy will convene to hand out their annual awards for the best music of the year. between now and that night, we’ll have plenty of time to make predictions, talk about snubs and anticipate the biggest night in music all year.

undoubtedly, the grammys receive plenty of well-deserved criticism. years in which albums by herbie hancock and taylor swift won album of the year were signs that the academy were becoming more and more irrelevant to discerning music fans.

i think i first heard about occupy wall street, like others, on the news. my reaction was equal parts interest and dismissiveness. on one hand, the very brief reporting offered some of the reasons for the protests and they were things that mildly resonated with me. on the other hand, though, i assumed, like other protests, that this one would fizzle out after about 24 hours at best. these hippies surely couldn’t turn this protest into a movement.

but…

at this point, it certainly isn’t breaking news that steve jobs passed away a couple days ago. the news came in torrents, particularly via social media. for a solid 24 hours, little else was talked about. even at the time of this writing, 2 of the top 10 trending topics on twitter are steve jobs-related.

the most interesting aspect of the deluge of tweets was how sincere the response was. there was a genuine expression of sadness and loss (myself included). when celebrities die, there is plenty of emotional response—particularly from musicians—because their art becomes woven into the very essence of our lives.

but steve jobs was a retired ceo.

of a tech company.

so why do people really care? undoubtedly, in 2011, at least a handful of CEOs of large, successful companies have passed away. but can we name them? no. and there’s been a handful of recognizable celebrities die in 2011 but they haven’t clogged social media streams like this. so why do we (particularly 20- and 30-somethings) care about steve jobs?

i think it’s time for a good apple post. it’s been awhile. how ‘bout it?

a couple months ago, the true fanboys rushed over to youtube to watch what was almost surreal in some kind of tech world/hollywood celeb meets real life mashup: steve jobs presenting to the cupertino city council. at said city council meeting, jobs presented apple’s plans to build what has been dubbed—very appropriately—the mothership. apple’s new campus will be a round glass, 2.8 million square feet building that will house thousands of employees. this will truly be the big apple. (see what i did there?) inside that 2.8 million square feet will be a 25,000 square foot fitness center, a 36,000 square foot dining area and a 100,000 square foot auditorium (presumable for future keynotes?).

at the presentation, jobs showed some pictures and people were able to get a quick look at the building. but now, the city of cupertino has made all the plans public (including a plan overview, landscaping diagrams and floor plans). most notably, apple included quite a few renderings that look, well, amazing.