Awesome Music

The 73-year old soul queen Aretha Franklin performed her 1967 single (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman at the 2015 Kennedy Center Honors as part of the event’s tribute to singer and songwriter Carole King, who co-wrote the song. See the entire show on CBS.

(PG-13 Language) Alex Lewis, Chris Reinacher, and Eugene Lee Yang of BuzzFeed Video look back at some of the biggest pop hits of 2015, and the words only they heard when listening to them. We’re surprised they didn’t include any Uptown Funk though.

Before they decided to go with Sam Smith, it seems that the theme song for James Bond’s Spectre was going to be sung by Radiohead. As a holiday gift, the band released the track for free. It’s an awesome Radiohead song, but Thom Yorke is still no Adele or Shirley Bassey.

LCD Soundsystem briefly reunited to record their New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down for Christmas. Frontman James Murphy says he’s been singing it to himself for the past 8 years, but they never found the time to record it.

Electronic artist Ryan Hemsworth and collaborator Kotomi perform for people all over the world with the help of virtual reality in the music video for Surrounded, from his EP Alone for the First Time.

Psych rock group Harrison Fjord perform a song from their EP Puspa in Space on Arizona’s beautiful Mogollon Rim. Come for the funny band name, almost go for the concentrated ’90s essence, then ultimately stay for the cool sights and sounds.

For the past month, the Beatles’ official Vevo account has been uploading high definition videos of some of their live performances. These videos and more are available in 4K resolution in the Beatles 1 video collection.

Level Frames makes ready-to-hang 25.5” x 17.5” frames that contain actual vinyl records of classic albums, such as Dark Side of the Moon and Madvillainy. The album cover is shown in full while the record peeks out of its sleeve. Available in black or white maple frame.

A Charlie Brown Christmas is a holiday tradition around here. Here’s a slightly edgier take on the Christmas classic, set to the hardcore thrash punk sounds of Bad Brains. Say, that kid at 1:14 stole our dance moves.

Jimmy Fallon enlisted the help of The Roots and the cast of Star Wars: The Force Awakens to each sing a part of John Williams’ Main Theme from Star Wars. And yes, Mark Hamill is nowhere to be found yet again.

(PG-13: Language) A New Place 2 Drown is the title for several artworks all made by or with the trip hop phenom Archy Marshall aka King Krule. It’s the name of his new album, the poetry and art book he made with his brother Jack and Topsafe’s short film about him.

Comedian and voiceover artist Daniel “Slash” Barker turns in an impressive series of musical impressions, ranging from David Bowie to Busta Rhymes and everyone in between. There are a couple of clunkers (Michael Stipe and Johnny Cash), but most of them are spot on.

(PG-13: Language) The debut music video of up-and-coming technical rapper Jamal Gutierrez, aka A-F-R-O. From his free mixtape Tales from the Basement. You wouldn’t know it from his booming voice and verbal gymnastics, but the kid’s just 18 years old.

Player Piano presents a medley of three Star Wars tracks on wonderfully-themed pianos and stages. Sonya Belousova’s flamboyant, quantized and off-tempo style can be disconcerting, but overall it’s a well-done performance. Buy the sheet music here.

A long lost performance from Prince’s 2008 Coachella appearance – an oh so special cover of Radiohead’s Creep. The clip had been removed due to copyright issues, but now even Prince himself seems to approve. The video quality stinks, but it’s the music that counts.

(PG-13: Language) NPR Music compiled its favorite albums of 2015 into a Spotify playlist. You can also listen to singles from as well as brief reviews of each album on NPR’s website. You may not like all of them, but there’s something for everyone there.

A coffee table book featuring beatmaker Ross Schwartzman aka DJ Ross One’s extensive collection of hip hop t-shirts, sweaters and other merchandise, including bootlegs and one-offs. LL Cool J should bring back the Troops while he can. More at NYT.

Producer ToToM combined Kanye West’s rhymes with Queens of the Stone Age’s riffs. If you love Yeezus you’ll probably dig this bizarre mashup as well. You can download the album for free, but ToToM will also donate any proceeds to charity.

For A Very Murray Christmas, Phoenix covered Mike Love’s uplifting holiday single, with a few out of tune grunts from Bill Murray. The song was supposed to appear on a 1977 Beach Boys Christmas album, but it was never officially released until Love re-recorded it this year.

A subscription service that sends you one vinyl record every month pressed just for its members. The record also comes with a 12″x 12″ print related to the album and a cocktail recipe. Gift subscriptions are also available. Check out its past releases here.

While we might question the masks The Bottle Boys are wearing in their Star Wars music video, there’s no doubt about their musical talents, as they play a pitch-perfect remake of Cantina Band, originally played by Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes on Mos Eisley.

Musician and vocal impressionist Anthony Vincent of Ten Second Songs fame turns in an unexpected cover version of Adele’s hit track Hello in the style of Green Day. At least it starts out as a Green Day track. By the end, it takes on a life of its own.

For his latest clip, Eclectic Method celebrates the holidays with a musical mashup of sound bites fromn classic Christmas movie clips and TV shows. It’s catch enough that we’ll forgive him for using the colorized version of It’s a Wonderful Life.