Watching Elf this weekend got “Baby It’s Cold Outside” stuck in my head. The version by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan is still the gold standard as far as I can tell.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-70qMhLfjLI)

I finally watched the hour-long Radiohead episode of The Colbert Report, where I heard the song “The Daily Mail” for the first time. Here’s a separate recording of the same song:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kRnA8BLrCg)

I really like how things build up to the last quarter of this song.

I can’t say that I was a really big fan of the band Beirut in the past. I liked them, but wasn’t crazy about the music. However, their latest album, The Riptide, did resonate with me, so I’ve listened to it a lot over the last couple of weeks. I can’t put my finger on exactly what I like more about this album, maybe it’s just an effect of taking a fresh look at the music. Regardless, here’s one of the songs from it, “Goshen”:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYdXi-AseF8)

I ended up listening to Sigur Rós a lot in the last week. Here’s Fljótavík, which is one of my favorite songs by them:

(http://youtu.be/eHnP_NNv_3A)

Chris featured Hoppípolla (also by Sigur Rós) on his blog last week. You should also listen to that if you haven’t already.

Christopher O’Riley has some amazing piano performances of Radiohead songs. His album, True Love Waits is a compilation of these songs, and is well worth listening. One of my favorites is his adaption of Let Down:

(http://youtu.be/HZtLXmVstjY)

A lot of YouTube audio collages and remixes don’t come out too well, but I think this one of Radiohead’s Paranoid Android does a good job of capturing the spirit of the original while adding a wider variety of flavors:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-cfWYN0cZI)

I’ve been listening to Radiohead a lot in the last couple of weeks, especiall the albums Kid A and In Rainbows. They age really well.

Yesterday, Chris featured Fitz and the Tantrums – Don’t Gotta Work It Out on his blog. I hadn’t heard of Fitz and the Tantrums before. They described their music as “soul-influenced indie pop”, which seems pretty accurate. I also like the band name a lot.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpK63g3-AOI)

If you want to hear more, Chris also posted their song MoneyGrabber.

“You Don’t Know What Love Is” by The White Stripes. This is definitely one of my favorite White Stripes songs.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQAWSXrA2ig)

Gnarls Barkley – Going On

This song kept coming up on Pandora, and the more I heard it the more I liked it.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_R9fId_Rqo)

The video’s pretty cool, too.

Another song I heard through pandora and then wondered why I hadn’t heard it earlier: “The High Road” by Broken Bells. Broken Bells consists of James Mercer (from The Shins) and Danger Mouse. The combination isn’t one I’d expect, but I like it a lot, especially in this song.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mkr19RSG6k)