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).

Some music happenings:

Lots of music singles for Haiti. There is the Hope for Haiti with a bunch of artists. Lionel Richie got a bunch of celebrities together to remake We Are The World (“flashes of Quincy”). (Which still won’t be as good as the Band Aid’s Do The Know It’s Chirstmas or the less popular but still amazing version by Gram Aid.) Simon Cowel put together a star studded remake of Everybody hurts. And last, but not least, is Shane MacGowan and his bat-shit crazy partner are covering I Put A Spell On You also with celebrity backing.

AA Bondy is the singer-songwriter/indie-ballad type that Norah should be all over. He gets a lot of plays on my ipod because he is the first artist alphabetically and gets covered a lot on Rollo & Grady, but I mention him now cause he has a session available at Daytrotter.

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings are coming out with a new album and are giving away their first single.

Adam Bones, of the late The Late Nights fame, is trying to play South By Southwest. You can help him by watching his video.

While they may not be as cool as WuTang/Beatles, here are a couple new things worth checking out.

• New She & Him album coming in March.   Or give a listen over at the Hype Machine.
• Sub Pop released a collection of mp3s that include a very funny standup one from Eugene Mirman.
• If anyone’s a big a fan of Danger Mouse as I am, you can check out the new collaboration with Shin’s frontman, James Mercer, called Broken Bells.  They are giving away a sample song on the site.
• Not sure how long this band has been around, but I just heard about  the Cave Weddings, so its new to me.  Pretty awesome.
• Drive-By Truckers have a new album.

While it’s not Rachel’s White Rabbits, Frightened Rabbit is a band with a highly anticipated release for 2010 that looks like it is going to deliver on its expectations with songs like these.  I do get a kick out of bands that still somehow sound good with a Scottish accent.

Another band on that list, Spoon, has their new album streaming on NPR for now.