Josh and Nick ring in the New Year by celebrating a pleasant surprise: a plethora of great new musical releases coming out this January. The Paste guys share details about the albums they are most anxiously anticipating, and highlight some especially exciting upcoming album releases. Hear songs from the January releases of the Decemberists, Iron and Wine, Modern Skirts, Cage the Elephant, and Ponderosa, among others. Shifting from a look ahead to a recap of the past year, Paste lists their top ten films of 2010, just in time for awards season.

‘Tis the night before Christmas and the Paste guys are celebrating with their favorite Christmas songs of 2010. Los Campesinos, Sleepy Rebels, The Boy Least Likely To, Deer Tick, and Lovedrug are among the musicians with both original and long-beloved Christmas tunes out this year. Nick and Josh start the show with a look back to their last print issue of Paste Magazine, featuring the track “Heaven and Earth” by Blitzen Trapper.

Following their recent pattern of lists, the theme of this episode of Paste Signs of Life is the best cover songs of 2010. The Bird and the Bee cover Hall and Oates, Andrew Bird covers Shel Silverstein, the Ravonettes do the Stone Roses, and St. Vincent, Beck, and Liars cover INXS. This episode gets started with a track that is a new favorite for the Paste guys, “Blood” by The Middle East.

The countdown continues as the Paste guys name their top 20 albums of 2010 and play selections from those records. Cee-Lo, The National, Mavis Staples, Justin Townes Earle, and LCD Soundsystem are among the artists with records deemed worthy of a top-20 spot on the Paste list. Following their usual model of beginning with a song from a past Paste Magazine sampler CD, this episode of Signs of Life gets rolling with The Dave Rawlings Machine’s “Ruby.”

This week, Paste follows a tradition that’s been going strong since around 2002, sharing their top albums for their year. For their show today, Paste dives in at number 40, picking a selection of songs to play from their list of albums ranked 40-21. Free Energy, Josh Ritter, Big Boi, Blitzen Trapper, Grinderman, and Vampire Weekend are some of the featured groups with albums in the 40-21 range. Stay tuned for the top twenty list next week! As always, this episode gets kicked off with a tune from a sample CD included in a past print edition of their magazine. This week, “The Reeling” by Passion Pit from Paste’s 2009 Summer Festival Guide is an appropriate choice, as Passion Pit’s album was one of the Paste guys’ favorites of last year.

So, will you never forget the day The Beatles joined the iTunes universe? The Paste guys suggest that maybe the hype was a little overdone, but embrace the news as an excuse to pay tribute to the iconic foursome. Signs of Life presents an afternoon of Beatles covers, with The Black Keys doing “She Said, She Said,” Al Green’s take on “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” “Two of Us” as performed by Aimee Mann and hubby Michael Penn, and Johnny Cash’s version of “In My Life” among the many great Beatles covers out there. In keeping with this week’s theme of big hype, the Paste guys talk about the much-anticipated premeire of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I,” and the difficulties that ensue in turning beloved fiction into big screen success. Like every episode, this one kicks off with Sea Wolf’s “Wicked Blood” from Sampler 57, an issue that featured Jason Schwartzman of HBO’s “Bored to Death” on the TV-themed cover.