Two Thousand and Eleven.

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This year will be your best one yet.

Hangovers have crawled back into their shells, party poppers have been swept up and everything feels distinctly similiar to last year. The new year is ten days old tomorrow and my 2011 post count is unsurprisingly at a whole round zero. I'm almost shocked.

Still, it's a new year and there's loads of things to look forward to even in the these dark pit months of January and February. Here's a little rundown of what falls into that category for me, from the top of my head, at 18:31 on this overcast Sunday.

If you do go to see Janelle Monae, make an effort and dress well forchristsake.

Amazing shows -Janelle Monae and Aziz Ansari both head to these recessed shores next month for the first time. Expect to dance until you're breathless at the former and laugh until you're in tears at the latter. Whatever you do, make sure you got to at least one of the aforementioned. They will be yardsticks you'll use to measure everything else you see during the rest of the year. Drake is also here in London, Manchester and Birmingham over the coming week. If you haven't got tickets to those dates yet then fully expect to be logging on to eBay and remortgaging your house in the near future.

Do you think Mila Kunis makes Culkin do the home alone face when they sleep together? The freak.

Amazing films - January is oscar month and 2011 sees two massive hotly anticipated releases. Darren Aranofsky is back with 'Black Swan' with Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman and the amazing Vincent Cassel. Christian Bale has (as always, the only variance is whether he's big or small) gone through an incredible body transformation to drop a third of his body weight for his role in 'The Fighter'. If you don't like films about ballet, you'll probably like films about boxing, right? This month, at the cinema, everyone is a winner. 'Black Swan' is released on January 21st, 'The Fighter' hits (geddit?) cinemas 4th February.

Pharoahe Monch bucks Hip-Hop stereotypes by posing for a photoshoot with a revolver.

Amazing records - The early part of the year sees new releases from The Decemberists, Iron & Wine, Pharoahe Monch, James Blake, Drive By Truckers, Wire, Talib Kweli and some sort of Glee release that they recommend you use for a coaster/frisbee to through at wild animals that trespass in your garden. The rest of the year could bring something from Radiohead, Gaga's 'Born This Way', Dre's 'Detox' (yeah, right), Jeezy's TM103 and the return of the best band on the planet, Okkervil River.

So yeah, plenty of things to make you hang around for a bit longer before you choose to hop off your mortal coil. Happy new year all of you mad men and women.

Listasaurus: The Top 20 Songs of 2010: 11 - 09

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Computer has contracted a virus to end all viruses which has greatly impacted my ability to post on this blog and observe hardcore pornography. Yet, we journey on, in spite of all, we journey on.

11. Lady Gaga Ft. Beyonce - 'Telephone'

"Sometimes I feel like I live in Grand Central Station..."

Lady Gaga really understands the concept of the music single. She understands that singles were once real events. Memorable events that you could map your years and decades by. From a rough count I just conducted in my head I reckon she's head seven in this country now. Seven singles and each one stands as tall as the one that precedes it. It's quite a run and when 'Telephone' was released earlier in the year it was a run that you couldn't really ever see coming to an end.

From a song that starts so sweetly 'Telephone' has a hook so massive and so dirty it sounds like it turned your stereo up on its own. This hook is one of many aspects of this song that play exactly to Gaga's strengths and for me her main virtue is her voice. It's powerful and it works for these massively commercial singles that sell millions yet it still retains a lot of character. Give the tune a listen, she even eats Beyonce off the track and by and large, that isn't too easy to do.

Not a bad video either. 34,668,998 views* can't be wrong.

*and counting. Safely say I'm responsible for the 98.

10. Big Boi Ft. Gucci Mane - 'Shine Blockas'

"All the ladies say 'Hooooeeeee'..."

The second entry on my list that owes a lot to a great, great sample/beat. Here it's a sample of Howard Melvin's 'I Miss You'* that sets 'Shine Blockas' up to be a summer staple for years to come.

It's not a great leap to be reminded of 'International Players Anthem' when listening to this slab of southern magic because all the hallmarks that made that song so colossal are here too. This is a slick tune that just rolls and rolls and get this - even Gucci Mane can't ruin things. I think I've been pretty vocal with my opinions on Gucci but in case you missed them, I'll repeat briefly here. Yeah, I find him really boring. Still, on 'Shine Blockas' he really fits and I can't actually think of another rapper who could take his role here and do something better. For that, I say hats off Gucci Mane, hats off.

*Yes, I had to google it, hater.

And we move into single figures. The excitement is barely containable! This is as exciting as HTML code gets you worms. Show some love.

9. Big K.R.I.T - 'Hometown Hero'

"Not a day off but I'm still Ferris Bueller..."

Big K.R.I.T is the artist that got me more excited than any other this year. He sums up all I love about discovering new music and in this case, what I really dig about the internet too. I'd never heard of BK three months ago. I mean that too, never heard his name or anything about him. Then I started hearing things here and there online. The usual suspects saying that this guy was something special and the fact that Sha Money XL made him a top priority when he took up his Def Jam seat started to pique my interest. I downloaded the cleverly titled 'K.R.I.T Wuz Ere' and was astounded. The mixtape and debut album is as tight as anything I've heard this year in rap aside from Kanye's record and genuinely stands up with any debut I've heard in at least the past five years.

'Hometown Hero' samples Adele's 'Hometown' to great effect. That is, there's touches of it here and there. It's used when it needs to be used in a way that only adds to the song. It really is an ingenious piece of sample selection that does seem to come from way out in left field whilst B.K's vocal sounds like UGK at their most mournful and reflective.

The K.R.I.T stands for King Revealed In Time by the way. On the strength of his debut record and songs like this one, that title might turn out to be a pretty good prophecy come a few years down the line. King revealed.