In 2012, attempts to stay ahead of readers' innate desires resulted in a collective throwing up of hands. Think pieces and reviews still existed, but they were accompanied by other attempts to lure readers: Trifles like album titles and track listings treated as news items worthy of their own "stories" (to maximize the possibility of people tripping over their fingers and into a unique view); artists out of the public spotlight for more than six months unearthed as if they were creatures from another dimension; Tweets and other public statements by artists taken out of context and drained of their tone so as to stoke "WTF" headlines; superlative-laden lists not even aimed at expressing an opinion in count-downable form; posts with factual errors seen as hits to institutional credibility and opportunities to wring double the traffic out of one story.

Where will you be? I'd not mind being here. "I want this to end when I'm on top, so I'm planning my final show on December 21, 2012. It's when the Mayan calendar ends. It's the day when solids become liquids and liquids become plasmas." "I want it to be a stage production, but one where the lines become blurry between reality and complete stage me...I want it to be miserable and equally fantastic. I want the best of both worlds."