There has been a stream of good Soul music coming from the UK lately. Winehouse, Adele, NOISEttes, Duffy a few of the more popular ones. You could probably included VV Brown in there too (if you haven’t listened to her yet, shes got it going on till the break ‘a dawn)
A new one to check out is Rox. She has been on tours with Daniel Merriweather and Mark Ronson (heres a video of her performing Valerie) and according to Pretty Much Amazing, she is produced by Al Shux, the same guy who produced Empire State of Mind.
Here is the video to her first single, My Baby Left Me:

One of my favorite djs, Z-Trip, remixed the Dead Weather’s Treat Me Like Your Mother. He has worked a special place into my heart with his wonderful remix of I Want You Back by the Jackson 5. He is also featured in the movie Scratch and had mixes in the DJ Hero game.

Like the Arctic Monkeys, the Cold War Kids second cd was such a disappointment that I have approached everything after wtih caution. Maybe that is why I have been thoroughly enjoying their newest EP, Behave Yourself, that came out a month ago or so. Check out Audience and others on their Myspace. And the reason I bring up the Cold War Kids now is because the man known as thePhantom alerted me to a video of them playing CCR’s Long As I Can See The Light for Rolling Stone.
Another thing worth a listen is a mixtape promoting a new (Marky Marky produced!) HBO show called How To Make It In America. You can listen to (and download) artists including Yacht, Florence + the Machine, Kid Cudi and Dan Black over at Facebook. (Via, where else, Pop Candy.)

Not only is this band worth a post/listen because they are an awesome soul band, but also because they are from the only American city to elect three socialist mayors. Kings Go Forth are currently on David Byrne’s label, Luaka Bop, and have an album coming out soon. Check them out on their Myspace, YouTube, or the Hype Machine. (via Soul-Sides)

If are a person that evaluates the Super Bowl by taking into account the quality of the ads, then maybe this super bowl wasn’t as great. I, myself, was actually a little disapointed in the Puppy Bowl this year. Videogum has a collection of the funny (relative term) ads, but it didn’t mention some of the awesome songs used.

Arcade Fire is notorious for not letting their songs be used for ads, but justified it by donating the money they made to Haiti. If you aren’t familiar with their first album (the one with Wake Up from the ad), I can’t recommend it more.

The other band I wanted to get to was The Heavy. I have mentioned them before, but they now have a newer cd out that is also worth a listen. Definitely check out How You Like Me Now and Sixteen (with the Screaming Jay Hawkins sample).