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Today we ask a couple of our critic-friends what they’re looking forward to in 2009 in the worlds of pop, rock, and classical music. This might just be the best time of the year, because looking forward to something is often better than actually getting it. This can be true of almost anything – a movie, a new TV, a date – and it’s certainly true with music. I wonder how all those Guns N Roses fans felt after a decade and a half of expectation when they finally got to hear “Chinese Democracy” last year. Even if you thought it was great (it wasn’t), was it great enough to justify all the anticipation? Could anything be that great? So I try not to get too excited about these things. Yes, U2 has a new album coming, and yes, their last two records have proven that they are on the top of their game, again. But they’ve stumbled before (“Rattle and Hum” anyone?) so we’ll see… I’m also looking forward to hearing the US premiere of music by the Austrian “spectralist” composer Georg Friedrich Haas in February. But spectral music, which involves a computer analysis of the sound and very detailed work with overtones and other fun stuff, can sometimes be very gnomic and inaccessible, so again, we’ll see… Last year at this time a reporter asked me what I was looking forward to in 2008. I mentioned the Coen Brothers’ movie Burn After Reading. Well, that turned out not to be classic Coen Brothers. But hey, they’re releasing another movie this year, apparently, and I just can’t help myself, I’m looking forward to that now. After all, they can’t produce two clunkers in a row, can they? Tell us: What are you looking forward to hearing in 2009? Leave a comment.