Hypeful wishes everyone a safe and happy hypeful New Year. I’m ringing in NYE with The Flaming Lips (& excessive champagne) tonight and welcome 2008 with open arms. There’s plenty to be hypeful about in ‘08 - a presidential election, Olympic summer games, and we’ll finally get to see that bloody Cloverfield monster!

Hypeful is going to take the day off tomorrow to recover & recharge, but I want to leave you with 8 tunes featuring an “8″ in the title to help celebrate the new year!

MP3s:
Cool Kids - “88″
Deerhoof - “+81″
Explosions in the Sky - “Day 8″
The Libertines - “Eight Days A Week”
Modest Mouse - “Interstate 8″
Plasmik - “Eight to Nine”
Polyphonic Spree - “Section 8 (Soldier Girl)”
Rufus Wainwright - “Dinner at Eight”

The holiday box office reports are in and America’s appetite for Helen Mirren is insatiable! Sadly, however, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story was ignored by audiences. Admittedly, I’ve yet to see it - but after the tons of lavish promotions and favorable reviews I refuse to believe it’s not one of the funniest movies of the year. I’m planning on helping its box office numbers by taking in a screening or five ASAP and encourage you to stop watching your DVD of The Queen and go see Walk Hard with your friends.

Need more convincing? Maybe this once-in-a-lifetime all-star performance of “Walk Hard” will help change your mind! It features Ghostface slow-rapping while Jewel yodels in the background!

MP3:
Ghostface Killah, Jackson Browne, Jewel and Lyle Lovett - “Walk Hard”

Check out the trailer below for the upcoming documentary Young@Heart (out on 4.18.08), which follows a Senior Citizen Chorus who has delighted audiences worldwide by performing covers of everyone from The Clash to OutKast to Radiohead. Sounds like an awesome This American Life segment, no? With an average age of 80, Y@H courageously tackle some unexpected tunes and give whole new meanings to familiar lyrics.

An amazing example is the below clip of Y@H’s Fred Knittle performing Coldplay’s “Fix You”. This song was intended to be a duet between Fred and another chorus member, Bob Salvini. A week before the performance, Bob sadly died of a heart attack and Fred (who suffers from congestive heart failure) was left to carry the song on his own. Echoing Josh Cash’s take on “Hurt,” this performance could be used as a litmus test for the human soul.

Videos after the jump!

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In a post titled scotch_mist (which sounds a lot like something I might be drinking on New Year’s Eve), Radiohead announced that they be broadcasting a special webcast performance on December 31. Radiohead will perform In Rainbows in its entirety via a pre-taped set that can be watched on both the internet and TV. The performance will be simulcast on radiohead.tv, current.com, and on the Current TV channel starting 12 a.m. ET on Dec. 31 (with three repeat times throughout the next day).

The last ep of 30 Rock gave us two things - big laughs and another Tracy Jordan holiday novelty track, “It’s a Jordan Christmas!”! With lyrics like “Imagine Christmas wishes shooting out of your eyes…,” Tracy has followed up “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” in the best way possible. Hopefully it’s not too late for you to squeeze this new tune into your holiday playlists. I love it so much, I want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant!

MP3:
Tracy Jordan - “It’s a Jordan Christmas!”