Where does the time go, 2011? One moment, it is February and you are recapping episodes of Pretty Little Liars and then, what do you know, it is December and you maybe did not blog that much because you started a soul-crushing fulltime job under the impression that this would motivate you to get a better job when in reality it has left you a tired shell of a man. That is just an example year and not a year that happened to anyone here.
But we are not here to talk about jobs; we are here to talk about music!
2011 had lots of great free music. Maybe I just dove deeper into mixtapes this year or maybe I was confused about what was really free, but there were so many great mixtapes and free albums. Clams Casino, Terius “The-Dream” Nash, A$AP Rocky, and Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire released killer mixtapes, just to name a few. To make a wild, unsubstantiated claim, maybe this is a reflection of political ideologies in America and abroad. The political unrest of the Arab Spring and the economic motivations of the Occupy movement could have quickly spread to popular music and compelled artists to make these releases.
Admittedly, that is naive and far too clean. I mean, A$AP Rocky does have a million dollar deal. Christopher Nolan is channeling economic unrest into fight scenes for Warner Bros. movie. Popular culture is never as pure as we want it to be, but through the lens of year-end lists, we can shape how a year looks.
Anyway! to the music!
Sentimental Movie Marathon 