Emo Go Bye Bye

The Best Genre That Gave Us Music This Year: Mainstream hip-hop and hotness.

There's no doubt about it: 2003--especially summer--was ruled by mainstream hip-hop. Hova, B, Fab, Missy, T-Lake, how did you do it? A little thing called hotness. What, exactly, was that hotness? It came from all of you. You were hot; hot was you. Way to create yourselves.

The Worst Genre That Needed To Shut Itself Up: Emo.

Just, gross. You know?

Best Couple In Music: Beyoncé and Jay-Z.

You complete each other.

Worst Pop Icon To Look To For Reassurance If You Are Worried That Becoming A Mom Or Becoming British Will Make You Lame:

Madonna.

Between her two equally-appalling children's books, her moralizing diatribes against file sharing, and her embarrassing attempt to rap about "soy lattes" and "yoga and Pilates," Madonna wins the turn-for-the-worse award of 2003.

Best Attempt At Something:

The Darkness, Permission To Land.
Amid the "who can be most self-aware" spirit of the post-punk revival, it often seems as if rock 'n' roll is dying and irony is taking its place. The Darkness, for all their flaws, at least have their priorities straight: irony is dead, and rock 'n' roll is alive and kicking--a step in the right direction.