A very special announcement of the self-indulgent variety

On August 10th, this here (mostly) music blog will turn two years old. Some blogs have been around for bajillion times that, but this little anniversary is no less important to the two writers of Shiny & New. Both of us are enormous music geeks; we talk about it, read about it, listen to it night and day, and we'd always wanted a music blog of our own. We can't begin to express how proud we are of our little collection of ramblings and thoughts, and that 'dedicated cult audience' we have gained along with it. So we definitely wanted to mark the occasion... but with nothing too extravagant - we'll save that for our decade anniversary.

Over the next twenty days until our birthday, you will see a new post a day marking a song of great importance to this blog. They may not, and in some cases are definitely not, our favourite song by that artist, nor may they be the 'best' song by that artist - they are the most significant to the two writers of this blog in terms of influence, sentimentality and milestones. All will be explained further in the individual posts. It's just a little something for us to look back over what songs have carved the new roads our music tastes winded down, evolved and grew. We hope you don't find it too cheesy - but then so what if it is cheesy? We all love a bit o' cheese.

There will be banners (see below) marking which writer is writing said post, featuring our mascots and personal icons/heroes; Chaz Bono and Linda La Hughes. Nifty.