The fight for diverse and conscious voices

http://mashupbreakdown.com/nhh
A neat tool for those of us who want to know how remix tracks are made - Mashup Breakdown(http://mashupbreakdown.com) - has been filled with the second-by-second illustration of the component pieces of The Kleptones' "Night at the Hiphopera." This 23-track reworking of the Queen album is laid out in gorgeous detail. You can just listen, you can watch the components light up as they play, or you can mouse over bits to see what they are without waiting for the music.

So far this is just one of four albums laid out in the tool. It's obviously a ton of work so it's not surprising more artists haven't done it yet, but I can hope it will catch on.

http://audioporncentral.com/2010/12/diane-birch-a-strange-kind-of-love-peter-murphy-cover-2.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeUbj_xpv7c
Diane Birch, whose Sisters of Mercy cover I extolled earlier, returns with a passionate and soulful cover of Peter Murphy's "A Strange Kind of Love". Researching the original led me to find the second video, which is... wow. Murphy live acoustic, backed by (among others) Trent Reznor. If I was very very rich, I would pay to have Birch and Murphy do this as a duet. By the way, Birch's EP is out and costs all of $5 on iTunes now so you really have no excuse.

http://www.frankmusik.com/
If you remember Peter Murphy then you may also remember the Vocoder and how one day Kraftwerk made it work and then suddenly it was everywhere. Now comes Frankmusik (Vincent Frank) with a very modern dance track built around a simple yet catchy vocoded hook. This is something of a departure from his earlier stuff, which is pretty standard electro-dance tunes. He's also sporting a very retro pseudo-James Dean look in the video. The song is a little repetitive but I prefer the new look/sound so here's hoping he does more in this vein.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Uz9C3m4QXc
Also related - another eerily beautiful cover. This by Niyaz (http://www.niyazmusic.com/ - warning, starts playing on load) is my absolute favorite Cure track, "Love Song". Niyaz comes out of a world music tradition and while she's faithful to Robert Smith's vocal style, it's layered over choral backgrounds and gentle beats from a wholly non-Cure style. Still, she does it excellent justice. If you'd like to hear more of her stuff I would recommend starting with this YouTube playlist (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91pMQfuZf04&feature=list_related&playnext=1&list=MLGxdCwVVULXcNrTRTIwEi7iIz8JVfVGzs) (h/t to MizA for that pointer)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjVNlG5cZyQ
I'm still not a big fan of P!nk (despite prop'ing her Grammy performance back in February) so I had missed this video and the song. It's once again a fairly standard pop tune, but listen to the lyrics. P!nk drops herself squarely in the punk with one very large "f you" to the mainstream. The video also contains some brilliant moments, including nods to Rosie the Riveter, ICP, and hair metal. Do not miss the kiss at 0:28, and I confess the reveal at 2:06 made me laugh out loud.
(h/t to intuition_ist this time)