Sade – "By Your Side"

That's one silky vocal.

DJ Shadow — "You Made It"

The Club Blue pick for 1/25/07.

Nicole Atkins — "The Way It Is"

Here's the performance that earned Nicole Atkins a host of new fans. (The studio version is here, for comparison.) Here's her Wiki entry, official website and MySpace page. Her recent tour with The Pipettes must have been an interesting pairing.

I particularly enjoy the look on her face at the end, and hope that every performer has had that feeling at least once. In her case, it's her first solo national TV gig, and she knows she's absolutely nailed it.

U2 — "MLK" (live)

A fan video of the studio version is here. There are also some great a capella choral versions of this song (I performed one years back), but none with good sound quality that I could find online.

Alvin Youngblood Hart — "Gallows Pole"

As promised, a little blues.

Sarah McLachlan — "When She Loved Me"

Since I posted "Save Me" from Aimee Mann last week, here's another one of the Oscar nominees from that year, written by Randy Newman, who's playing piano. It's from Toy Story 2, where it's used for a Velveteen Rabbit-like sequence. It's much better than the song Newman finally won an Oscar for, some much more generic, forgettable song called... hmm...

Iron and Wine — "Southern Anthem"

The Club Blue pick from 1/04/2007, which has a longer post.

Aimee Mann — "Save Me"

I felt like a little Aimee Mann tonight. Some people prefer "Wise Up," but this is still my favorite tune from Magnolia, where it's fantastically used.