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)