Even though the traditional recording industry continued to struggle against its inevitable demise like a giant ground sloth mired in the La Brea Tar Pits, 2009 was a pretty good year for music in general.

The first buzzword of ’09 has to be fusion. New combinations of R&B, hip-hop, rock, dance, Latin and country continued to emerge with help from acts like Kid Cudi, Asher Roth, 3OH!3, Pitbull, LMFAO, Wale, Infected Mushroom, Lady Gaga and even Lo Cash Cowboys. And it looks like the trend will accelerate in the coming year.

Coming in at No. 2 is style. The days of bands showing up wearing whatever was clean (or not) seem to be coming to an end. Whether it’s the preppy chic of bands like Vampire Weekend, the semi-glam looks sported by The Killers and Fall Out Boy or the all-out glam favored by Adam Lambert, the wigged-out esthetic of LMFAO or the high style glamour of Beyoncé and Rihanna, artists have started dressing for success again.

So who’s going to be the Lady Gaga of 2010? Good question. If I could answer that for certain, I’d be a very wealthy man. Since I can’t, here a few of the people I believe we’re going to be hearing a lot about next year.

Wonder Girls – It sounds like a crazy idea – five female South Korean singers who sing R&B ala The Supremes, En Vogue and Destiny’s Child while performing classic Motown choreography. But this girl group created by South Korean music mogul Park Jin-Young has already scored three monster hits abroad. (Plus they’re absolutely adorable.) Now their sights are set on the U.S.

I’ll admit there are hundreds of other acts out there that are probably worthy of attention in the coming year. And you can bet that as soon as I unearth them, you’ll be reading all about them right here on Pollstar.com.

Wikipedia-
Pollstar is the world's largest resource for international concert tour information. It collects and organizes information on concert ticket sales and artist tour schedules.Pollstar services are subscription based, distributed worldwide and include the weekly magazine as well as access to an on-line database of international concert tour information and music industry contacts. Pollstar also provides news, box office summaries, tour itineraries and research for industry professionals.
As a member of the Associated Press (AP), Pollstar is frequently cited in news reports covering the music business and concert performances.

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