... And a happy new year

New Year’s Eve offers a proclamation—that being, “This is how I want to welcome the new year!” While it’s easy to assume everyone wants a happy and healthy new year, some of the big musical acts scheduled to help say goodbye to the old year don’t exactly make the happiest tunes. To help comb through the concert options for the last night of 2010, The A.V. Club decided to parse through some of the musical highlights and rate them based on the potential emotional response.

Who: Yeasayer at Metro
What to expect: The band’s 2010 album, Odd Blood, streamlined the artier leanings of Yeasayer’s debut for a brilliant collection of ethereal pop tunes. Mixing themes of love, loss and, perhaps most important, perseverance, songs like “O.N.E.” and “Ambling Alp” shine with an exuberant spirit. The hook-filled, sonically complex tunes of Odd Blood blasting through the speakers at Metro are sure to inspire a good bit of carefree dancing.
Emotional Index Rating: Ecstatic. Even when their lyrics delve into pain and loss, Yeasayer’s songs can’t help but reach for the skies and inspire a similar reaction.

Who: T-Pain at the Chicago Hilton
What to expect: A Playboy-sponsored celebration at a classy hotel featuring a hip-hop artist with a cyborg-like voice. When the show in question features a singer lampooned for his inability to sing, there’s a good chance live music isn’t the focus of the night’s events. Better don the most fashion-forward apparel for this one, folks. A couple hundred-dollar bills for tipping can’t hurt either.
Emotional Index Rating: Robotic. With the auto-tune singing, playmates, and pristine venue, it’s probably best to program a mildly enthusiastic reaction into one’s skull for this show.

Who: Japandroids at Schubas
What to expect: This fun-loving Canadian duo takes one thing seriously: rock. Japandroids love to rock, and their fuzz-filled garage-punk anthems are packed with plenty of energy and passion. Onstage, the band’s high energy and enthusiasm is as catchy as its songs, and it should have no trouble inspiring the crowd at Schubas to, well, rock out.
Emotional Index Rating: Exhilaration. There are few things as enjoyable as a loud, fist-pumping rock concert, and the guys in Japandroids know how to do it well.

Who: Big Freedia & The Divas at the Empty Bottle
What to expect: The queen of New Orleans’ sissy bounce scene, Big Freedia has made a career out of performing raucous live shows. Freedia’s high-octane, bass-heavy electronic hip-hop songs invoke the sweaty, fervent spirit of bounce in name and nature. Of course, what else could one expect from track names like “Azz Everywhere” and “Make Ya Booty Go” except for booty-shaking bacchanalia? Expect the crowd at the Empty Bottle to perspire and dance all night.
Emotional Index Rating: Rapture. With Big Freedia at the helm, it’s sure to be a joyous party to end all parties.

Who: Cursive at Subterranean
What to expect: It might not sound like the happiest show around, but chances are a lot of punks around the country are upset they’re not getting the chance to see Cursive perform its seminal 2000 album, Domestica, in its entirety. Inspired by frontman Tim Kasher’s divorce, the nine songs on Domestica detail a dying relationship set to a good bit of aggressive, angular ’90s-era emo. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but the chance to see Omaha’s finest perform this special one-off show with a few hundred other Cursive fans might not be as depressing as Domestica’s narrative.
Emotional Index Rating: Resentment or relief. Cursive could provide an excellent soundtrack to say goodbye to a bad year, or the perfect score to wallow on your sorrows.

Who: Mucca Pazza at Logan Square Auditorium
What to expect: Bands that include more than a couple dozen members tend to make a name for themselves onstage, a fact the 30 members of Chicago’s Mucca Pazza certainly understand. In concert, the members don marching band costumes, play a mix of punk, Eastern European folk music, and typical marching band fair, and take crowds by storm. As marching bands are known for helping a celebratory air, Logan Square Auditorium is sure to be filled with folks giving their year-end celebration the old college try.
Emotional Index Rating: Jubilation. A high spirit is the key to any good marching band, and Mucca Pazza has that, and without your high school’s lame fight song.

Who: The Black Keys at Aragon Ballroom
What to expect: Sure, Danger Mouse has morphed the Akron, Ohio duo’s blues-punk sound into a radio-friendly aesthetic, but The Black Keys’ soul is as muddied as ever. The band’s newest effort, Brothers, features many of its thematic staples: There are tales of cheating lovers, worn-down castaways, and those suffering from longing, lust, and love, all set to a potent mix of neo-soul, visceral blues, and a spare bit of funk. Unfortunately, the Keys’ newly diversified aural pallet could be lost on New Year’s Eve, thanks to the Aragon’s infamous acoustic issues.
Emotional Index Rating: Misery. Sure, the Keys have pop chops, but the combination of their forlorn lyrics and the potential for bad sound could make for a sad set.

Who: Pretty Lights at Congress Theater
What to expect: Colorado musician Derek Vincent Smith saw his public profile explode when he started Pretty Lights. As Pretty Lights, Smith combines and skewers samples to create lush, airy, and effervescent electronic tunes fit for the dance floor. Smith will feel right at home at the Congress, a venue that’s become a hotbed for hosting electronic superstars.
Emotional Index Rating: Pleasure. Smith’s tunes aren’t exactly high-octane dance numbers, but they’re hypnotic enough to casually groove to.

Who: Cave at the Hideout
What to expect: Local psych-rock act Cave is perhaps best experienced in a live setting: On stage, the group’s affinity for krautrock-style minimalism, ’70s heavy metal riffs, and jamming morph into one energetic, swirling blast of noise. These guys are one of Chicago’s great little secrets, and they’ll have no trouble filling the Hideout’s small space with sheets of sound for those looking to end the year with a blast.
Emotional Index Rating: Blissful. Cave’s sound can cast a pretty hypnotic trance, and one that happens to be punctuated with bursts of scraggly guitar-work.

Who: Pegboy at Abbey Pub
What to expect: A night of no-nonsense rock, capped off with a performance by Chicago punk legends Pegboy. With its lean, straightforward punk assault, Pegboy’s sound foresaw the rise of punk in the ’90s, but without the sickly sugar sweetness of many of today’s pop-punk acts. With a supporting cast of local rock acts in tow, Abbey Pub will be filled with folks looking for lean guitar licks and punk spirit.
Emotional Index Rating: Pride. Watching a beloved local act play to legions of fans for a night of celebration is sure to inspire a positive sense of local fervor.

Who: Rusted Root at the Intercontinental
What to expect: The Pittsburgh band’s sound hasn’t strayed far from the friendly mix of world folk music, jam, and a slight tinge of bluegrass that made “Send Me On My Way” such a massive hit. Then again, for the amount of money needed to get into a New Year’s Eve party at a hotel on the Magnificent Mile, why would anyone want anything more than the kind of light pick-me-up tunes that Rusted Root can deliver?
Emotional Index Rating: Amusement. Rusted Root isn’t the most exciting band around, but it knows how to deliver a solid set of songs, plus the idea of seeing the band in a hotel is amusing on its own.

Who: Sublime With Rome at New Pier Grand Ballroom
What to expect: Though frontman Brad Nowell died in 1996, Sublime is back due to popular demand, this time with a new lead man named Rome Ramirez. The lineup may have changed, but as their newest single, “Panic,” shows, the smooth, ska-punk that made the band a beloved icon of stoner nation is still intact—which means there’s a good chance every adolescent with a weed fixation will pack the New Pier Grand Ballroom.
Emotional Index Rating: Terror. The trifecta of Navy Pier, potentially obnoxious Sublime fans, and more than 15 minutes of ska-punk is a downright frightening thought.