Normal service will resume shortly. In the mean time, here’s a Rick Astley/Nirvana mashup by German DJ, DJ Morgoth. (via Douglas Coupland)

Harmonix have just released this superb animated game intro video / trailer for the The Beatles Rock Band game due to be released in September. It’s directed by Pete Candeland who’s most well known for the numerous videos produced with Jamie Hewlett for Gorillaz. Have a look at his portfolio over at the Passion Pictures website.

A new gameplay video was also released and is available to view and download from the game’s website.

The folks at ArcAttack use Tesla coils to “produce an electrical arc similar to a continuous lightning bolt which put out a crisply distorted square wave sound reminiscent of the early days of synthesizers.”

Here’s one, with another guy wearing a “Faraday Suit” to conduct electricity away from the coil, performing the Imperial March theme from Star Wars! Check out more videos on their site.

It’s that time of year again. My annual look back, through the powers of last.fm, at what I’d been listening to the previous year. Here’s the top 20 for 2008:

1. Ladytron
2. Beastie Boys
3. Hot Chip
4. Crystal Castles
5. Broken Social Scene
6. M83
7. Architecture in Helsinki
8. Midnight Juggernauts
9= She & Him
9= Wolf Parade
11= The Kills
11= Modest Mouse
13. Rilo Kiley
14. Cornelius
15. Justice
16. The Young Knives
17. MGMT
18= Soulwax
18= The Rakes
20= Blood Red Shoes
20= Man or Astro-man?

A couple of old favourites in there like Man or Astro-man? and Cornelius and no sign of last year‘s number one, The Fiery Furnaces. You’ll find them right down at number 30! Had I discovered TV on the Radio’s new album a bit earlier I’m certain that you’d would also see them placed quite high on the list. I’ll bet they’ll be up there in 2009’s roundup.

It looks like DoCopenhagen has died so I guess we won’t be seeing any more top music videos. Here’s Pitchforks’ Top 40 music videos for 2008.

Finally, for the nostalgic, here’s 2007 and 2006.

The Rock-afire Explosion were an animatronic band comprised of anthropomorphic animals that played in Showbiz Pizza Place restaurants in the USA through the 1980s. After closing down many of these setups found their way to enthusiasts. Here’s one such setup, performing MGMT’s Electric Feel.

Perhaps even more obscurely, a documentary is currently being produced about car-salesman Chris Thrash, a guy who recently purchased the rights to Rock-afire Explosion with an aim to resurrect them and the Showbiz Pizza Place. (via Penny Arcade)

Ex-Test Icicle Lightspeed Champion performed their track Galaxy of Lost Souls in full Star Wars garb at this week’s NME Awards show. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a video of it online anywhere but did instead stumble across this gem. Lightspeed Chamption performing the Imperial March and Star Wars theme. Lovely.

Update: There’s now a video of them performing at the NME Awards on YouTube. Enjoy.

I had read about this some time before Christmas, but hadn’t checked it out until today. RCRD LBL is an online network of record labels by Engadet/Gizmodo co-founder Peter Rojas and Josh Deutsch from Downtown Records… which sort of poses as a kind of blog thing.

A lot of the music is free to download as DRM-free 196kbps MP3s and bands are paid through the website’s sponsorship. You’re welcome to download anything you like from the site and use it in any non-commercial way you want under a Creative Commons license.

The whole thing is stuffed full of RSS feeds to allow you to follow pretty much anything you’re interested in following and Ivan Pope will love that they have whole bunch of widgets to grab, like this little fella (which, uh, sadly seems to break with the Antikewl Daily stylesheet. Oops! Hopefully they’ll fix that at some point!)…

It’s always interesting to see new distribution ideas in the twisted and scary world of the music industry and I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on this one to see how it pans out. (via Wired)

“There aren’t enough Youtube video re-posts around here,” you say? Here’s another one.

Mike Long, a self-proclaimed “social rocktivist”, plans to perform once dance a day around the world and post each video up on YouTube for the next two years. I can’t think of a better idea. (via It’s Nice That)

Normal service will resume shortly.

With a slight danger of AKD becoming a YouTube video dumping ground, here’s a clip of Cornelius performing Count Five or Six live on hipster kids TV show Yo Gabba Gabba.

There’s a higher quality version of the video over at Jezebel.

To conclude my end-of-2007 music post trilogy (well, 2.5-ogy) I intended to do a top ten albums of the year. I wrote a list, but it was too long. I pulled a few out… it was still too long. So I gave up on the top ten idea.

Here’s a bunch of albums I liked in 2007 in no particular order. There’s more than ten, and I probably missed some really good ones.

The Fiery Furnaces
Widow City
Thrill Jockey Records
thefieryfurnaces.com
myspace.com/thefieryfurnaces
Ex-Guru music video
Fabchannel: Live show video

Modest Mouse
We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Epic
modestmouse.com
myspace.com/modestmouse

Kings of Leon
Because of the Times
Hand Me Down
kingsofleon.com
myspace.com/kingsofleon

The National
Boxer
Beggars Banquet
americanmary.com
myspace.com/thenational

Battles
Mirrored
Warp
myspace.com/battlestheband

Justice
†
Ed Banger
myspace.com/etjusticepourtous

Arcade Fire
Neon Bible
Rough Trade
www.arcadefire.com
myspace.com/arcadefireofficial

The Go! Team
Proof of Youth
Memphis Industries/Sub Pop
www.thegoteam.co.uk
myspace.com/thegoteam

New Young Pony Club
Fantastic Playroom
Modular
wearepony.com
myspace.com/newyoungponyclub

!!!
Myth Takes
Warp
chkchkchk.net
myspace.com/chkchkchk

Of Montreal
Hissing Fauna, are you the Destroyer?
Polyvinyl
ofmontreal.net
myspace.com/ofmontreal

Simian Mobile Disco
Attack Decay Sustain Release
Wichita
simianmobiledisco.co.uk
myspace.com/simianmobiledisco

What have I missed?