2012: The Reunioning

On the heels of the Happy Mondays reunion tour news from my last post, here's a quick glimpse of a few other anticipated reunions for the upcoming year. More will no doubt be announced before I've finished writing. This economy, right? Double dip global recession. No one buying records anymore. Money's tight all around. Hell, Flava Flav and Dee Snider have been reduced to Wife Swap people! If that's not a sign of a dire music industry then blahblahblah. Anywho, whether their reasons be financial or otherwise, these are just some of the cats who will be getting the bands back together and hitting the road this year:



The Stone Roses
It's finally happening. Perhaps the most long awaited reunion to materialize for this year, the godfathers of Madchester have announced new record deals and a slew of gigs throughout Europe this summer.
 

Pulp
Okay, so technically their "reunion" happened in 2011, but for the year ahead britpop's best (my opinion, deal with it) have announced their first North American dates in over ten years. And I have tickets for one of these shows, and it's Jarvis and it's Pulp, and they're the best, so their reunion is still 2012 and is still highly anticipated in my book.

Mazzy Star
Again, as with the Pulps, technically this reunion started last year with the first release of new material from Mazzy Star in fifteen years (the double single "Common Burn"/"Lay Myself Down"). However, for the year ahead Hope Sandoval and David Roback are significantly upping the ante on the reunion shenanigans. They have confirmed tour dates throughout the US and Europe and also have plans to finally release their forth full-length before the end of the year.

Blur
With some reunion gigs under their belts in 2009, there are rumors of a new Blur album for this year. Whether or not this will actually happen is another story, but it has been confirmed the guys will perform at least one gig together in 2012: at the Brit Awards on February 21st, when they will also pick up their Outstanding Contribution to Music award.

At the Drive-In
The ambitious and fierce hard core throw backs are set to throw down at Coachella in April. I would expect more dates to TBA, unless things go horribly at Coachella—which, I guess, is always a possibility in a desert terrain (coyote attacks, scorpion bites, dehydration, etc). Let's hope for the best.

Black Star
"Fix Up" and "You Already Knew" came out last year, but according to Talib Kweli we can finally expect a follow up to 1998's "Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star."  Given Mos Def's recent name change we can already anticipate that the new album will be called "Now Yasiin Bey and Talib Kailb are Black Star."

Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg
So it's kind of a stretch to call this one a "reunion" (they were never officially "together" and have never officially really been "apart," and Dre's connection to Snoop was always more studio than stage), but it's still kind of fun to have the Willie and Waylon of rap performing together at this year's Coachella. It's also looking good that we will finally have Dre's follow up to "The Chronic 2001" this year.

And it's early in the year. Not only are there still more and more reunions I haven't mentioned here because I just can't (this post is already too long, and to be honest with my short attention span I tuned out after Pulp), but there will be more to-come. Please post comments on who you think and/or hope may also be in bad enough need of money to get back together before the year is out.