The Grammys created the awkwardly named Best Rap/Sung Collaboration category ten years ago, around the time Ja Rule's various "thug love" duets were dominating the airwaves. The award recognized a growing sector of popular music that didn't quite fit into the preexisting rap, R&B or pop song awards, and its creation was a prescient move. In 2001, 13% of Billboard's Year-End Hot 100 Songs featured at least one rapper and one singer; in 2011 that number had doubled to 26% (after peaking at 33% in 2010). The category's a little more unpredictable this year, as NARAS snubbed the biggest dancefloor-friendly rapped-and-sung hits of the year ("Give Me Everything," "Party Rock Anthem," "On The Floor," "E.T.") in favor of more urban radio fare.

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Let's all do our best to keep this from happening

So another enjoyable terrible Super Bowl Halftime Show is in the books, and as we wash "I Gotta Feeling" out of our eyes and ears for the thousandth time, the question becomes: Who will grace the stage in 2012? How old will their most famous album be? Will your mom like it? Will Twitter? Will you? Let us now gather the most likely suspects and complain about them in advance.

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Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: Rob Harvilla, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. We'll be here all week!

At least one song on this record is really good!

Gentlemen,

If I had to pick one example of hashtag rap that I liked more than any other, it would probably be Nicki Minaj's "And I just be coming off the top -- asbestos," from Young Money's "Bedrock," if only because of its somewhat feminist implications. The song reached No. 2 on the Hot 100! Surely that must represent some strike in favor of female sexual empowerment. (Or maybe radio listeners finally realized the charms of Lloyd, whose silky come-ons were also available on "Lay It Down," one of the many r&b songs from this year with which I had passionate, intense flings.)

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Welcome to Sound of the City's year-in-review rock-critic roundtable, an amiable ongoing conversation between five prominent Voice critics: Rob Harvilla, Zach Baron, Sean Fennessey, Maura Johnston, and Rich Juzwiak. We'll be here all week!

Pay Rich Juzwiak what you owe him, Jay Leno. Twitpic by Dave Itzkoff.

Pals,

I spent this year trying to be a more empathetic and broad-minded critic, so it hurts me to open with acrimony. But since Zach teed it up so delicately, let's look back by looking to the future: In 2011, someone needs to put Taylor Swift, and her guitar, in a well and seal it shut. Because while the case that 2010 was The Greatest Year For Music Ever is a fun one to make, it cannot be denied that even as others were more acclaimed, no one was more popular or more present than Swift. How quickly she beat back Kanye West's surge to chart glory, by leapfrogging him just a week after his epically anticipated and then slobbered-over My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy's debut. I spent some time in these wintry days trying again with Speak Now, seeking her precocious wisdom, her plaintive but pretty way with melody, her winsome charm. Turns out, she still sings out of key, tramples you with cliché, and grossly overplays the sympathy card. I came away thinking that Swift's "Not her, pick me" brand of songwriting is its own worst enemy. If all these silly boys keep making the wrong decision, at what point do we think maybe something is actually wrong with the girl? (Look dear, you quest for John Mayer, you get John Mayer.) I know, I know, why I gotta be so mean?

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Stephen Malkmus, at the first of Pavement's 50 shows here. Pics by Rob unless noted otherwise.

The 100-plus shows I saw this year spanned from the Cake Shop to Radio City Music Hall, from Williamsburg block parties to Michael Bolton's house in Connecticut, the events that occurred therein all furtively documented on an iPhone notepad and sometimes captured via relentlessly amateurish photography. The best were a mix of usual suspects and total surprises, current hitmakers and reconstructed old-timers, all hitting whatever stage with some combination of joy, ferocity, indifference, disdain, and messianic grandeur. Here are the 10 that made my imminent hearing loss seem nonetheless somehow totally worth it.

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"When you've run out of peaks," Jon Caramanica wrote in yesterday's Times, by way of reviewing Monday's ridiculous Jay-Z extravaganza, "all that's left are ridiculous, sublime stunts, new ways to climb old mountains." This is counterintuitive but true: a guy like Jay-Z has been around so long, and accomplished so much, that merely selling out Yankee Stadium two nights in a row isn't enough anymore. Nor is bringing half of rap's current royalty across the country to help fill out the stage, or performing more or less flawlessly for 90 minutes. We expect these things from Jay-Z; he expects them from himself, too. So these days, paradoxical as it is, his shows are all about small moments, deviations from the script. And here was the one that struck us Monday night: Jay-Z and Drake performing "Light Up," from Drake's Thank Me Later. There's a moment on the song where Jay talks directly to his newest protégé, and onstage--you can see it in the above clip, about six minutes in--he walks over to Drake and does it in real life, too. "Drake, here's how they're gonna come at you--with silly rap feuds, trying to distract you," Jay says, the two standing inches apart. The brief interaction was electric, and confirmed something we've been feeling for a while now. Advice rap is a real thing, and we are living in the golden age of it.

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This actually happened

Jay-Z/Eminem
Yankee Stadium
Monday, September 13

Better than: The shows in Detroit, I have to think. Sorry, Detroit.

So let's start somewhere in the middle: Chris Martin! The dude from Coldplay! Seriously! Out he shuffles roughly halfway through Jay-Z's nearly-two-hour parade of star-studded absurdity, gingerly singing the hook to "Heart of the City (Ain't No Love)," and soon a bewildered sold-out Yankee Stadium crowd is cajoled into singing the whoa-oh-OH-oh-oh hook to "Vida La Vida," not quite comprehending how this happened, or why. Chris also sits down at a piano and taps out the riff to "Clocks," as Jay raps about how success is like suicide. Mercifully, they do not do "Beach Chair," which would've been actual suicide.

This show was incredible.

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Jay-Z and Eminem began their triumphant two-city, four-show run last night at Detroit's Comerica Park, and if that show's any indication, when they show up at Yankee Stadium September 13 and 14, they'll be bringing along every famous rapper they (or you) can think of.

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DUE TO OVERWHELMING DEMAND, as the PR-speak goes, the Detroit-to-NYC mini-trek two of the biggest rappers alive have planned for September is doubling in size: two shows per city now, with Yankee Stadium shows now scheduled for both Monday Sept. 13 and (the new one) Tuesday Sept. 14. Tix on sale here tomorrow, apparently, though the new dates ain't shown up there yet. Let's hope this doesn't turn into another Pavement thing.

Oh, and Jay & Em's much-discussed David Letterman rooftop show finally airs, Friday night.

So the "secret" Eminem/Jay-Z show on the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater, initially thought to be a casualty of the dreaded Drake Riot Aftermath, actually happened last night, a mini-performance to air on Late Show with David Letterman Friday to promote both the duo's upcoming concerts and Em's new (not very good!) Recovery. (Marshall popped by Bowery Ballroom last night as well.) No riots, no calamity. And above, the result: NY Post close-up video footage of a fan's digital-camera footage. Glad everything's back to normal.