Regretfully, I'm writing these all in a rush at the last possible minute, so if I miss something as I'm scanning back through the 2010 archives, well, add it to the list. Here goes.

I regret not wearing a suit to the Stranger Genius Awards. At the time, I told myself that my best black T-shirt plus jeans would be formal enough, that this was the earned nonuniform uniform of the Rock Critic, anyway. But as it turned out, I was the only person dressed so casually and publisher Tim Keck gave me a rather withering look about it. Oops. I even had a suit, too. But I'd had the pants taken in poorly, and it hung heavy with sentimental memory, and one time a friend had lightly teased that it looked like an "Ahmadinejadsuit," meaning, I guess, antiquatedly modern, or out of touch, or overly serious, or possibly just "gray." In any case, I probably should have just had the pants altered again and worn the thing, maybe with a colorfully unserious tie.

I regret not being harder on the new Mad Rad album, or not digging into it at greater length. Every outlet in town ran something on these guys around the record's release—understandable, given the headlines they've generated in the past years—but most of these articles were neutral profiles or puff pieces that tactfully avoided actually weighing in on the album itself. Profiles are fine, puff pieces are fun, but I think Seattle, and, hell, even Mad Rad themselves, deserves some honest-to-god music criticism amid all the hometown boosterism and back-patting. Tough love makes us all tougher.

I regret so few people went to see Cold Cave when they came through town. Their set was short and loud and sweet, and you should have been there.

I regret Owl City and CocoRosie, although for almost polar opposite aesthetic and intellectual crimes against humanity.

I regret the way Fremont gets on weekend nights.

I regret everything Weezer have done since those bootlegs that surfaced pre–Green Album. I also regret that I had to choose Pavement over their Bumbershoot set this year, because apparently Weezer somehow erased a lot of similar ill will that night. I'm still suspicious, "Blinkerton" tour or no. (Also: The dog on the cover of Raditude was apparently not Photoshopped, as I wrote in "What the Hell Happened to Weezer?" in the 2010 Bumbershoot guide. I regret the error. But I regret Raditude more.)

I also regret how spotty Belle & Sebastian's albums have been in the past 10 years—although the occasional shining single, EP, or spectacular live show at Benaroya Hall helps make up for it.

I regret that Das Racist's biggest Seattle show yet was such a sloppy dud. Better luck next time, dudes.

I regret that, every year, the craziness of the busy summer festival and touring season so diverts my attention from Seattle's always bubbling musical underground, and that it always takes until the fall/ winter slowdown for me to pause and look around and remember how much great stuff is happening around us all the time. I will try to remember this every day in the coming year.