When I was nineteen, I worked in a record store. Not like a High Fidelity thing – it was just the Sam Goody in the mall in the Rio Grande Valley. I had a manager there named Eddie. Nice dude, kind of a cokehead, in his early thirties. Long-haired rocker guy, could kick your ass at Guns N Roses pinball. Would have ruled at Rock Band, too, if it’d been around back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Anyway, Eddie spent a lot of his time going to concerts – he’d drive to San Antonio or Houston or Austin, whatever it took, to see Queensrÿche on their latest tour. The guy loved Queensrÿche. And man, was he stoked when Sammy Hagar came to the Valley for a show. He had strong opinions about the latest Dream Theater record, too.

It wasn’t that Eddie ignored all new music, he just wasn’t really interested in new music that wasn’t made by people whose records came out when he was younger. A new Queensrÿche record? Eddie was first in line, listened to it a dozen times the first weekend he had it, really gave a shit about it.

I’m turning thirty this year, and I’m afraid of becoming Eddie. I’ve only heard a handful of 2010 records so far, and all of ‘em are by musicians whose records I was listening to, like, ten years ago. They’re pretty good and all – the new Retribution Gospel Choir album’s real strong, and the Eels record is kind of a bummer, but in a nice way. I love that Lil Wayne rock record too, without a lick of irony (though apparently I’m in the minority there), and I’m just about to check out the new Massive Attack, which looks promising.

And I could have written pretty much that same paragraph back when I worked with Eddie.

So, um, help? Give me new music. Give me things with 2010 release dates, preferably made by people who were too young to ever be on Friendster – maybe even on MySpace. Because here’s a thing – unless you’re Tom Waits, your sixteenth album is not going to be anywhere near as good as your third. I want music that’s not just new to me, but new. I want to figure out what 2010 sounds like.