Twenty Ten… Let’s hit it:

Best New Rap- Drop The World (Feat. Eminem)- Lil’ Wayne

The one bright spot on the mostly terrible Rebirth (although I do kinda dig “Prom Queen”) is the vaguely rap-rock “Drop The World”.  While this track doesn’t come close to the greatness of some of Wayne’s other singles, “Drop The World” is helped greatly by a pretty fantastic verse from Em.

Best New Not Rap- Swim- Surfer Blood

To tell you the truth, the only reason I decided to even listen to this band was their awesome name, and the fact that it kinda made me envision them beating Brian Wilson senseless with a surf board.  That being said I do really like Brian Wilson, but I also really like this band.  This single from Surfer Blood’s P4KBNM’d debut album really has everything: beautiful vocal effects, excellent guitar melodies, and angst filled lyrics and even more angst filled vocals.

Best Guilty Pleasure(S)- I Hate College- Wiz/All The Right Moves – One Republic

Now that the “I Love College” and Asher Roth himself have lost all novelty, and, in turn, relevancy Trinity College (aka the 21st “Douchiest” College in the US) Senior Samuel Adams (aka Wiz) took it upon himself to breath fresh, over auto-tuned, air into the track without really changing the meaning of the song (“I hate college but love all the parties, finish finishing kegs and crushing bottles of Bacardi”), although he does offer some hope that his education hasn’t been a total waste (“School’s good for one thing I must add, and thats havin’ a plethora of my vocab”).

Although I still dont really understand how OneRepublic became famous (something to do with MySpace), they are one of the catchiest pop rock bands around and with the first single off their sophomore effort Waking Up they should continue chart dominance.  The video is also fun, yet kinda Panic! at the Disco-y.

Best Older Song(S)- Ride Wit Me- Nelly/ Country Grammar- Nelly

When I was in 4th grade, my parents basically forced me to attend after school athletic programs, despite my obvious total lack of any ability or desire.  So one Friday afternoon we were listening to z100 on the bus and “Ride with Me” came on.  I started singing along as did one of the coaches.  When we got to the chorus, I took the necessary pauses as per the edited version on the radio, but my coach went ahead and belted, “if you wanna go and get HIGH with me SMOKE AN L in the Benzie…,” so I turned to him and asked him what “smoking an L in a Benzie” was.  He kinda looked at me funny, laughed, then called one of his friends, told them, and laughed more, thus successfully creating one of the most embarrassing situations I have ever been in.  That being said, when Country Grammar was released back in 2000, I was 9 (my apologies if that makes anyone feel old) and I loved it.  I rediscovered the album recently and fully believe it to be one of the best hip-hop albums I’ve ever heard.

Jam of the Week- My Way (Feat. Lil’ Wayne)- jj/Symphonies (Remix) (Feat. Kid Cudi)- Dan Black

My biggest musical discovery over the break was mysterious Swedish pop band jj.  Their first full length effort, jj n° 2 quickly became one of my favorite albums of 2009.  On the album, which was released on Tough Alliance owned record label Sincerely Yours, jj mixes upbeat ambient pop harmonies with somewhat dark lyrical subjects.  Last week, when their website put up two new tracks, I jumped on them.  The better of the two, “My Way”, features Lil’ Wayne’s verse from “Don’t Trip” by Trina, intermixed with typical jj style pop making it my favorite track of 2010 so far.

In a close second, however is a KiD CuDi remix of Electro artist Dan Black’s new single “Symphonies”.  Dan Black, who gained some level of notoriety  by covering Biggie over a Rihanna sample, released “Symphonies” last summer in the UK which, along with an amazing video, became somewhat popular.  For the US release of the single, CuDi laid down a few verses to throw into the track making it unbelievably good.