(Note that this post will be updated regularly throughout 2012)

My Top 10 Albums of 2011

1. House of Balloons - The Weeknd
2. Thursday - The Weeknd
3. Nostalgia, Ultra - Frank Ocean
4. Glass Swords - Rustie
5. Electronic Dream - Araabmuzik
6. Oh Land - Oh Land
7. Vanbot - Vanbot
8. On A Mission - Katy B
9. 21 - Adele
10. SBTRKT - SBTRKT

(Note - SBTRKT was missing from previous end of year listing)

11 Musical Trends for 2012

• Some artists will move away entirely from Album releases; Rihanna is currently the most successful singles artist (47.5 million downloads since 2005), and I believe several artists will move to just releasing singles and then compilations of singles rather than proper albums
• YouTube will continue to grow in relevance as a music discovery resource - it is after all the new MTV
• Artists will embrace more technology in their music delivery - in a similar vein to Björk’s Biophilia - expect to see more interactive albums and artist / album apps
• 2012 sees a make or break renaissance for MySpace - but is it too late to take on YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify and Facebook - which have each taken over a part of MySpace’s key areas of expertise / influence?
• We will see more apps - in both internet and tablet-based form - to allow even easier music production / collaboration and remixing, along with simpler, fully-integrated music publishing and distribution platforms
• 2012 will also see more entrants into the group sharing / interaction category of music - along the same lines as Turntable.fm
• A leading electronic musician will employ Kinect-type technology into their core music-making and performance activities
• There will arise at least one new significant music-sharing platform, with a very innovative means of revenue generation / sharing which holds enormous appeal for both musicians and fans
• Spotify will strengthen its position as the leading music streaming platform - with yet further apps and integrations
• Music unit prices - i.e. median album and single prices will be streamlined further in 2012
• We will see even more free-to-download mix-tape type albums - DatPiff could become a household name!

11 New Artists for 2012

(Note that I consider Frank Ocean, Skrillex and The Weeknd to be significantly active in previous years and thus not properly eligible as ’New’ in 2012, the same could be said