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There have been a lot of songs through the ages about wanting something for Christmas, from teeth to a real good tan on down, but the most common Santa wish in pop is some variation on "You." That's what the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are asking for on this appealing track posted to their MySpace, which kind of slinks along with a half-drunken gait as the fuzzy distorted guitar winds through those "In the Still of the Night" chords and the elves say "Fa-la-la-la-la-la."

Stream:> Yeah Yeah Yeahs: "All I Want for Christmas"

Bon Iver doing "Skinny Love" on Letterman late last week is a nice enough way to wind things down; it was certainly Justin Vernon's year. Pitchfork readers had For Emma, Forever Ago in their top 5 (though we had it at no. 29 our 2007 list in its self-released form). Down the road when I'm thinking back on 2008, I'll be remembering this one. Here's what it sounded like after a billion shows this year.

Fire and ice can both burn flesh. Swedish sibling duo the Knife understand: Alien detachment, intellectual coldness, and creepy horrorshow undertones meet with blistering emotion in their synth-based records, which include 2006's stunning Silent Shout and its "Heartbeats"-featuring predecessors. "If I Had a Heart", the first track to emerge from the Knife female half Karin Dreijer Andersson's solo project as Fever Ray, puts the dry ice right against raw skin and holds it there for as long as the track can bear.

No heartbeats, but a radioactive hum underlies the entire song, while a more percussive synth click-clacks the rudimentary melodic backing. "This will never end 'cause I want more," Dreijer begins, in harmony with a goblin-like version of her own voice. The droning electronic details-- a bright ping here, a metallic buzzing there-- come slow but dizzyingly, joined by another, higher Dreijer vocal and a subtly throbbing bass drum sound. "If I had a heart I could love you," goes a crucial line. This does end, eventually, when that fluorescent-grey hum finally subsides. Whether caused by excruciating heat or excruciating cold, those scars where a human heart should be aren't going anywhere. More, like Britney, gimme more.

[from the "Fever Ray" single; out now on Beatport, Klicktrack, and ITunes; also on a forthcoming album; due 03/18/09 on Rabid in Sweden, 03/23/09 in the UK, and 03/24/09 in the U.S., on Mute]

Director Saam Farahmand filmed the Belgian duo Radio Soulwax on a tour that spanned 120 shows in Europe, Japan, the U.S., Latin America, and Australia. The film features interviews and appearances from tour-mates and associates including James Murphy, Justice, Peaches, Klaxons, and others, in addition to tons of performance footage. The DVD is available from their official site.

Toss the popcorn bag in the microwave and bust out the Sprite, tonight's the big night: Daft Punk's mysterious road odyssey Electroma screens on Pitchfork.tv. The movie, a story about "two robots who journey across a mythic American landscape of haunting, surreal beauty on a quest to become human," to pull a quote from a recent news story, is playing from now until Saturday, December 13 at 8 p.m. EST. Electroma is available on DVD from Vice. C'est Magnifique.

Update: That's it! Thanks for watching. Check out Radio Soulwax in Part of the Weekend Never Dies.

So, we have a new book out, The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present, published by the Simon & Schuster imprint Fireside Books. It explores our 500 favorite songs from 1977-2006-- interspersed with sidebars on the most vital subgenres from electro to grime to riot grrrl-- to construct an alternate history of the past three decades of popular music. In the coming weeks we'll be posting streams of tracks from the book here in Forkcast and giving you a sneak peek at some of the entries. 

We recently announced The Pitchfork 500 iPod Giveaway Sweepstakes. Go to the contest's website and type in your information before 9 p.m. EST on December 15 to enter. What might you win, you ask? Well, the grand prize winner will receive an iPod Classic and a $100 iTunes gift card, and 10 lucky first prize winners will score a copy of the book.

Speaking of which, The Pitchfork 500 is available in your local bookstore right now. Or you can order it via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Insound, Powells, or Simon & Schuster.

And now, here's Matt LeMay on Pavement's "Summer Babe", with a stream (good for one free play every 24 hours, via Lala) below the text.

Mother Goose, the Brothers Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen had better watch their backs. Sort of like how terrorists attacked our imaginations not too long ago in a three-part "South Park", now tanks and fighter jets are laying waste to Little Red Riding Hood, Humpty Dumpty, and other denizens of the fairy tale kingdom. What this has to do with Bloc Party's driving, aggrieved Intimacy single "One Month Off" I can only guess, but it might have something to do with the oft-repeated (there's even one of those superfluous power-ballad key changes) chorus: "I can be as cruel as you/ Fighting fire with firewood." Lead singer Kele Okereke's vocal gets chopped up and put through the electronic-effects scrambler in the closing seconds, and then it turns out we're watching "Nursery Rhyme Review" on a projector. It's a cute video, just a bit of a subtle tie-in to a not-so-happily-ever-after song. (via Stereogum)

[from the "One Month Off" single; due 01/26/09 on Wichita]

"Brooklyn band" was cliché long before rents pushed would-be bohemians farther and farther out into the boroughs, but horn-backed funk bands still aren't exactly Billyburg's biggest export. Enter Chin Chin, who work in the tradition of Curtis Mayfield and P-Funk on their self-titled debut album this year for hip-hop label Definitive Jux. "Go There With You", the title track from the band's new free holiday EP, settles into sumptuous Soulive slow-jam grooves and the kind of pillowy horn section you'd expect to show up as a sample on a pre-Auto-Tune Kanye West record. Lead singer Wilder Zoby's silky come-ons recall the late Jeff Buckley in "Everybody Here Wants You" mode. For a track on a holiday EP, it doesn't really have much to do with the season, but it just might get you in some kind of spirit. You can download the whole EP here.

MP3:> Chin Chin: "Go There With You"
[from the Go There With You EP; out now on Definitive Jux]

STFU! Peter Bjorn and John have posted a cryptic MySpace bulletin directing fans to what appears to be a new video, the first from the Swedish indie-pop trio's forthcoming fifth album. The new record will be the band's first proper follow-up to 2006's sleeper international hit Writer's Block, after an OK instrumental LP and meh Peter Morén solo album this year, plus Björn Yttling's routinely excellent production work for Primal Scream, Lykke Li, Taken By Trees, Shout Out Louds, and more. Really good news: "Lay It Down" is exactly the kind of WTF move these guys needed after the insane mainstream success of "Young Folks". More details as they become available, but I don't want to spoil this one for you. OK, maybe one public-service spoiler: Lyrics NSFW.

Video:> Peter Bjorn and John: New Song
[presumably from a forthcoming album; due 2009 on Wichita/Co-Operative]