by SHANE SINNOTT

Yeah! I write this amidst the euphoria of Barack Obama’s victory last week. Sometimes, just when you’re ready to write the whole thing off and settle into a daily routine of predictable despair, things seem to actually change for the better. Or at least, that’s how everybody feels right now. Thom Yorke started things off by releasing a remix of his own “Harrowdown Hill” from The Eraser the day after the victory to celebrate. Called “Tchk Harrowdown Jump Rmx,” Yorke introduced it with the following message (apparently using capital letters and punctuation is uncool in the world of Radiohead): “in celebration of nov 5th/jonnys burthday/amid bonfire and fireworks in the UK/and the dawn of a new era in politics in the USA/i humbly donate a remix of harrowdown hill that was finished ages ago during the band webcasts,/a small reminder of the dark days of Bush’s.../x Thom.” Go here to download: tinyurl.com/a3rfa.

Garnering more attention is that will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas is releasing an Obama song of his own, called “It’s a New Day Coming.” According to music blogs, dude stayed up all election night editing the video, so touched was he. The go-to artist for pro-Obama material—he released “Yes We Can” back in January (tinyurl.com/3xod9m)—will.i.am also had the distinction of appearing as a “hologram” during election night on CNN, to be interviewed by an exasperated Anderson Cooper, who clearly thought the hologram thing was retarded (video: tinyurl.com/6j8xek). Get the “It’s A New Day Coming” MP3 at tinyurl.com/64grak, or the video at tinyurl.com/5jenrb.

But let’s not forget about McCain, my friends. A visit to tinyurl.com/6kou4f will show you Move magazine’s list of “10 songs the McCain/Palin campaign attempted to use that made the artist in question very, very angry.” The best-known case was probably the Foo Fighters’ “My Hero” (tinyurl.com/6yw3fa), but the best was “Barracuda” by Heart (tinyurl.com/5thbw5). The song—which rules, by the way—was briefly used to intro Sarah Palin, whose student basketball-court nickname was “Sarah Barracuda,” before the band found out and announced that they felt “completely fucked over” and that “Palin’s views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women.”