New Music Podcasts: Favorite Cover Tunes, Elvis Costello Live, Gospel Christmas Tunes, & More

Check out the free music podcasts below for holiday and non-holiday music for your Christmas travels. Photo: SteveStrummer 

Since lots of folks are traveling around Christmastime, how about some downloading some music podcasts to listen to to occupy the time? Here are a bunch of them, enough (we hope) to drown about the all loud cellphone conversations of the people around you at the airport or on the train. And the more raucus holiday arguments at the dinner table.

* Over at Coverville, you'll find a stocking full of recent podcasts. First off, there are the first two parts of the podcast's annual countdown show of listeners' 40 favorite cover tunes. Included is recent NBC "Sing-Off" contestant On the Rocks performing their a cappella rendition of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance."

Also on Coverville is the two-part tribute to the Talking Heads, performed by the podcast's listeners. As you'd expect, the quality and styles vary widely, but Coverville clearly has some very talented listeners.

And finally, Coverville offers its Christmas Cover Show 2010, with new versions of not-your-average holiday tunes, including remakes of "Christmas Wrapping" by The Waitresses and "Last Christmas" by Wham.

* The CBC Radio 3 podcast presents Home for the Holidays, a show in which listeners from all over the world make long-distance requests of their favorite songs by Canadian artists to send out to their loved ones.

* If your taste in Christmas music runs to the sacred side, download the podcast of the annual Christmas Eve Gospel Music program on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show. It includes tunes like Mahalia Jackson singing "Silent Night" and the Swan Silvertones doing "Great Day in December."

Also, the Lopate show today rebroadcast (and reposted the podcast of) a live set by Elvis Costello and band at WNYC from back in November. He plays tunes from his latest album, produced by T-Bone Burnett, which shows the country/bluegrass side of the British rocker.

* KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic has a new in-studio live set with Jamie Lidell, the British producer who, the station says, can be found "sliding into neo-soul songs as easily as he slices through spacey folk-blues." For some reason recent MBE podcasts don't show up on their webpage, bou can download the podcast through iTunes (and probably other podcast download programs as well).

Merry Christmas!