Madonna has always know how to put on a show, and she went all out for her Super Bowl halftime show. We might be partial to Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, but we can definitely appreciate the queen of the 80s prancing around in her thigh high stockings.

Madonna also brought in some modern stars like LMFAO to spice up the show even more with some shufflin’.

We were pretty damn impressed with The X Factor winner, Melanie Amaro. Here she appears with Elton John as they face off in a funny, medieval music showdown. You can download the full version of Melanie Amaro’s “Respect” on iTunes now!

Click here to listen to Foxy Shazam’s The Church of Rock and Roll on Spotify

All right, so there is no video to speak of here – all you see is a cover of the single. But we had to highlight this track because it’s AWESOME, a surefire Single of the Year candidate…if we still made lists like that.

The first single from their new album The Church of Rock and Roll, “I Like It” isn’t the biggest sounding Foxy Shazam song ever recorded (though not by much), but it sums up their passions and goals better than pretty much anything they’ve done up to this point. Big, Queen-like harmonies: check. Slightly off-kilter arrangement: check. Swagger: check. Sex: checkmate. Good luck getting that so-simple-it’s-brilliant chorus of “You’ve got the biggest black ass I’ve ever seen / And I like it, I like it” out of your heads between now and Monday morning. The one question is: how on earth are these guys from Cincinnati? They arrested two guys in Cincy for holding hands once.

The big selling point of “Days of Our Lives,” the exhaustive two-hour BBC documentary on epic rock quartet Queen, is the material culled from the band’s very early days and their very last days. There are live performances from Smile, the group guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor formed before Queen, and some video of future singer Fredde Mercury singing “Big Spender.” The later footage, shot on the sets of the last music videos Mercury would perform, his body slowly but surely being ravaged by AIDS, are at once heart-warming and devastating. Mercury was positively gaunt, yet he gathered every ounce of will he could muster to go out fighting.

May and Taylor are wonderfully candid in their interviews, as are fellow managers, producers, roadies, and side men they recruited. (They even brought in Ultravox’s Midge Ure to talk about the band’s legendary performance at Live Aid.) Everyone has good stories to tell, and there are no attempts at revisionist history. If an album didn’t work – say, 1982′s Hot Space – they own up to it, and May is the first to admit that some bad business decisions early on led rendered them financially destitute for years, and it was out of desperation from that that they made A Night at the Opera. Best of all, each album is given an equal amount of coverage, with the exception of the soundtrack to “Flash Gordon,” of which the title track is played but never discussed.

The one unfortunate aspect of “Days of Our Lives” is that bassist John Deacon did not come back to do an interview, so the producers were forced to rely on archive interview footage for half the band. Yes, he’s retired from performing, but this seems like as good an occasion as any to put the Queen hat back on for a day and talk shop. It’s a small quibble, though, because the documentary hits all of the highlights of a truly remarkable career…with one small exception: there is no mention of the “Bohemian Rhapsody” scene from “Wayne’s World.” We would have loved to see them talk about that. (Eagle Vision 2012)

Click to buy “Queen: Days of Our Lives” from Amazon

Click here to listen to Hard-Fi’s Stars of CCTV on Spotify

We would not bank on this, but we’re fairly positive that one time, while watching a New York Jets game, we heard this song in the background leading up to the kickoff following a Jets score. Which, if true, is awesome on a number of levels. One, because we love that mile-wide “Heeeeeey, Oooooooooh, Ahhhhhhh” hook in the chorus. Two, because it’s called “Suburban Knights,” and the New York Jets play their games in New Jersey. Those jokes just write themselves.

Hard-Fi lead singer and principal songwriter Richard Archer is a funny bloke. We spoken with him three times, and each time he seemed to be talking faster than he had the previous time, which is pretty impressive considering that he talked really fast the first time we spoke. (Eventually, we got playback equipment that allowed us to slow the tape down. Man, what a godsend that was.) Sadly, the band’s most recent album, 2011′s Killer Sounds, is import-only, a growing trend with UK acts (Kaiser Chiefs, The Feeling). Luckily for us, it’s available on Spotify. Seriously, how did we live without Spotify?

Speaking of which, yes, the above Spotify link does not point to the album that features “Suburban Knights.” There is a reason for that – Stars of CCTV is better. It also features a nifty cover of the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.” Dig in.

Click here to listen to Diamond’s Don’t Lose Your Cool on Spotify

Man, is this a nice breath of fresh air – high-energy pop rock without the snark.

This Baltimore/Chicago quartet has surely run into dozens of comparisons to Weezer and Jimmy Eat World, and they are both apt and fair, but there’s something different here; the vocals aren’t pinched. There is an effortlessness in singer Justin Gilman’s voice that Rivers Cuomo will never know, and the hooks are gargantuan. Between this and the upcoming album from Cheap Girls, 2012 is already off to a good start for pop that rocks, and thank goodness. We were running out of patience for all of those hipster folkie outfits with a full-time ukulele player.

Tam Johnstone is a FOB (Friend of Bullz-Eye) dating way back to 2002, when he released his first album under the name The General Store. His father is Davey Johnstone, who has served as Elton John’s guitarist since Madman Across the Water, and naturally, son was interested in music, but didn’t want to be a daddy clone. The General Store’s first album, Local Honey, is pure West Coast pop, with gentle slide guitar and breezy harmonies, as well as a countrified cover of the Thompson Twins’ “Hold Me Now.” The band’s second album, Mountain Rescue, was much more in the Neil Young vein.

And then there’s this.

Now recording under his own name, Johnstone is unveiling a completely different side of his musical personality. The lead track from his new album Fantastic Animals (this one just under Tam’s name), “We Are Animals” is a spot-on Adam Ant tribute – which makes sense, considering he’s spent the last two years in a cover band – and in fact bests everything Ant’s released since “Friend or Foe.” Tribal drums, check. Plucky acoustic guitar backed by heavy bar chords, check. High-pitched vocal, checkmate. Curiously, Ant himself is doing his first US tour in ages. He’d probably get a standing ovation if he played this.

Click here to listen to Andrew W.K.’s I Get Wet on Spotify

Some of you may remember that this is the song we ran for last year’s pre-New Year’s Eve Friday Video column. What can we say: it speaks to us.

It’s sad that good time rock and roll music has been out of style for nearly a decade. Call it a generational thing, but all of these bands that whine about their feelings…they really did ruin rock music. We miss fun. Please come back, fun.

Happy New Year, everyone. Make sure you live to see the dawn of 2012. Of course, the Mayans say that we’re all dying at year’s end, but don’t you want to be there to see it happen?

Click here to listen to Kate Crash’s My Zombie Nation EP on Spotify

We couldn’t have picked a better label boss for glam princess Kate Crash if we had tried (and we are using the word ‘princess’ very liberally here) – she’s signed to Joan Jett’s label, Blackheart Records. Two seconds into “Walk My Own Way,” and the comparisons are crystal clear. Crunchy guitars, giant dance-friendly drum riffs, and attitude by the truckload. Heck, just look at her.

We would totally hit that. The catch, of course, is that she’d probably hit us back, hard.

This clip is a fun old school-type guerilla video. We’d let Kate walk any way she wants, as long as it was in our direction. Happy holidays, everyone.

Although described on its cover as “a chronicle of Paul McCartney’s cathartic journey through New York City in the aftermath of 9/11,” one doesn’t necessarily see a great deal of catharsis going on in “The Love We Make,” which originally aired on Showtime earlier this year. Granted, it’s easily arguable that the effects are internal, but the truth of the matter is that the majority of what we see can best be classified in two ways: the bits where McCartney hangs out with famous people, and the bits where average Americans are beside themselves about the fact that they’ve just had a close encounter with an actual, honest to God Beatle.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with either of these things: it’s kind of amusing to see someone walking down the street and suddenly realize that they’re looking at Paul McCartney, and, truth be told, it’s also entertaining to be a fly on the wall when celebrities are in conversation with each other, particularly if – as is the case here – they slip into a casual familiarity that’s rarely on display when they’re being interviewed. But the film’s co-director, Albert Maysles, suggests that McCartney’s intent with “The Love You Make” was to use music to bring relief to those who were impacted by the 9/11 attacks and honor those who lost their lives in their efforts to save lives, and while that’s fair enough, the end result would be a lot more entertaining if it wasn’t presented in such a pretentious fashion. I mean, a photo of the State of Liberty on the cover? Really, Paul…? No one’s trying to suggest that you didn’t have good intentions by sticking around NYC in the wake of the attacks and trying to raise people’s spirits, but c’mon…

Although “The Love We Make” isn’t nearly as profound as its presentation tries to make you think it is, McCartney fans will still enjoy the film if they take it simply as – Beatles reference utterly intentional – a day in the life of their hero. We see him practice with his band and watch him do a few interviews, including an appearance on Howard Stern’s show. (Pre-interview, he encounters fellow Stern guest Ozzy Osbourne for what is, amazingly enough, the first meeting between the two rock icons; post-interview, McCartney seems shocked that Stern asked him if he’d ever had sex with a black woman, confirming conclusively that, although he may have been aware of Stern, he clearly hadn’t listened to him very much.) Later, we see Sir Paul dismiss a passerby who tries to get plane fare out of him and watch him get annoyed by autograph seekers who refuse to stop following his limo. There’s also a great moment when McCartney is clearly in no way as excited to hear about the Beatles cover band The Fab Faux as one of its members, Will Lee, is to tell him about it.

Is “The Love We Make” worth seeing? It is if you’re a fan of Paul McCartney. Even then, though, keep your expectations realistic. Just because the man has good intentions doesn’t mean that the end result is always going to be a career highlight…and if you don’t believe me, you need only listen to his song “Freedom,” which he offers up as the grand finale of his performance at the Concert for New York. God bless him for trying to raise everyone’s spirits, but the song’s pretty terrible.

Don’t worry, though: “The Love We Make” is better. At least a bit, anyway.