In honor of my favorite album of the year, the band Miracles of Modern Science bring us a little taste of the alternate universe when 80’s hair metal is done by indie folksters. Ladies and gentlemen – Bon Joviver and their smash hit, “You Give Love A Bad Name.”

“I submit to you that if a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for,
he isn’t fit to live.” – MLK

I was on my annual 10 day Digital Cleanse, which I may or may not write about soon – but during that time, I didn’t get the chance to recap the end to an incredible Gamecock season – the main stage beatdown of perennial powerhouse Nebraska in the Capital One Bowl, putting the bookend on a historic season.  11 wins for the first time in over 100 years of football. Undefeated in the SEC East for the first time. 9-0 against Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama and Clemson in the past two seasons. Finished ranked in the top 10 for the first time. These – my friend – are great, great days to be a Gamecock fan. Jump on now, before the bandwagon get’s too full. Don’t worry I won’t talk about Gamecock football for at least 5-6 months now.

Oh and don’t forget the play of the year. We’ll miss you Alshon.

We’re only 2 weeks into the new year. So before we get too far, take 3 minutes and remember the year that was 2011, thanks to Google’s yearly zeitgeist.

Like last year, I’m posting the 10 artists who stayed in heavy rotation the most for me this year, for one reason or another. Don’t blame me, iTunes is the one keeping up with all this stuff. Tracked by last.fm

Sure, January 15 is a perfect time to write about my top albums of 2011. Everyone needs two weeks to think through a whole year’s worth of music. Though, again, not that my opinion matters any more than anyone else with ears. Nonetheless, here are my top 10 albums of 2011, complete with mini-reviews (in 140 characters or less, of course) and a few honorable mentions. The envelope please…

1. Bon Iver – Bon Iver
Picks up where ‘For Emma’ left off and takes us on a richly layered ride out of the lonely woods and into the flawless snow-covered city. Pretty perfect.
Top Jams: ‘Holocene’, ‘Calgary’, ‘Beth/Rest’

The leaves are gone. And so is the golden glow and warm temperatures. But in exchange for that, I’m giving you a wintry mix of melancholy jams to keep you warm until the sun comes back. Christmas has come early my friends.

And speaking of that, here’s a spoiler alert: if you’re looking for some hipster Christmas tunes to drown out your mom’s traditional holiday jams, you’ve come to the wrong place. Besides, you should totally embrace these 4 weeks of sleigh bell sing-a-longs and reindeer classics. But if you are looking for a break from the normal Christmas songs – or if you’re like me and you’re going to burn down the radio station if they play ‘Christmas Shoes’ one more time, here’s just a few great albums that have done the trick for me:
A Very She & Him Christmas
A Very Special Christmas (Vol 1 & Vol 2)
Maybe This Christmas Tree

Now with that said, here’s Good Medicine Volume 10, suited best for all your cold weather needs and with a shelf life that should hopefully last you all winter. Enjoy.

1. I Hope This Gets To You – The Daylights
2. When You Were Mine – John Heart Jackie
3. Cannons – Youth Lagoon
4. A Lack of Color – Death Cab for Cutie
5. We Found Each Other In the Dark – City and Colour
6.. The Ghost Returns – The Lovely Few
7. Ice Age – Pete Yorn
8.. Peace Song -Kye Kye
9. Knees – Peter and Kerry
10. Skinny Love – Birdy
11. Winter Song – Sara Bareilles & Ingrid Michaelson
12. Big Jet Plane – Angus & Julia Stone
13. Rosyln – Bon Iver & St. Vincent
14. The Woods  - Daughter
15. One Day – Sharon Von Etten
16. Hear the Noise That Moves So Soft and Low – James Vincent McMorrow
17. Rebel Jesus – The Wood Brothers
18. I Am Still Running – Jon Foreman
19. January White – Sleeping At Last

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD
And being that this is the 10th volume, let’s make this one interactive. Over the past 18 months-ish, Good Medicine mixes have been downloaded almost 3,000 times and I would love to know where it all went. If you download the mix, please leave a comment and let me know where you’re from – and which of the first 9 Good Medicines were your favorite, if you’ve been around a while.

If you missed any of the first 9 Good Medicine mixes, get them now:

Good Medicine Vol. 1: Remember Me, Summer
Good Medicine Vol. 2: Summer Lights
Good Medicine Vol. 3: The Impossible Cool
Good Medicine Vol. 4: Hold Me Close, Keep Me Warm
Good Medicine Vol. 5: Quicken The Heart
Good Medicine Vol. 6: Hello Sunshine
Good Medicine Vol. 7: Go Outside
Good Medicine Vol. 8: Fight the Night
Good Medicine Vol. 9: These Golden Days

* If you like what you hear, you had better go support these bands. It may be Christmastime, but these are just some stocking stuffers. Go buy the real thing, you freeloader.
** Original cover photo by Matthias Heiderich.
***And if any of the bands on here don’t want their music on the mix, just let me know and I’ll remove it promptly. Thanks.

I haven’t owned a good printer since HP started giving them away with computer purchases back when I was in college. They were great at first – useful, shiny, full-color – until you ran out of your first ink cartridge after printing 20 pages. Then you were always too lazy to go to Office Max to replace them, so you’d change the text color to something you still had ink of – I think I turned in a paper with blue type once because the black cartridge was shot. And then when that runs out, you have to stumble over to the computer lab at 10 o’clock to print of your Map Quest directions. Ah, the good old days. And now, following the coming demise of the home computer after being mauled to death by your mom’s iPad, it’s time to watch your back, HP. Introducing the Little Printer, releasing in 2012. The Little Printer, and it’s accompanying app, let your subscribe to publications, your social media content, to-do lists and more, which it prints out on nice little receipt-size paper strips no longer than 10in in length. And you choose the content and delivery time. It’s the newspaper for the Twitter generation – and it’s a pretty fascinating concept. I’m not sure it’s the right answer, but I think it’s got the right idea.

10 wins. And for only the second time in school history. And it happend against our hated rival – who we held to 300 yards fewer than their season average, and their lowest offensive output vs. South Carolina since the last 60’s. Oh and it was the third win in a row vs Clemson since 1968-1970. Yeah, I’d say it was a pretty perfect weekend.