The end of the year usually signals a lack of new music releases (or, at least, anything of note).

Thankfully, Foo Fighters, Jonsi & Avicii have come to the rescue with some of the hottest music of 2011 and they did it, just in time for the holidays!

The Week’s Best Single: “These Days” – Foo Fighters

“These Days” is the third single off the Foo Fighters’ seventh studio album Wasting Light, which was released earlier this year to critical acclaim.

The album was recorded in Grohl’s garage entirely on analog tape, making the album more of a pet project and labor of love than working on a job.

Grohl previously said that this album was the band’s return to rock music and Wasting Light was their “heaviest album” to date.

“These Days” fits perfectly with his assessment – layered melodies and crashing drums build the song into the sort of post-break-up anthem that serves the band’s longevity while stirring the egos of the heart broken back into form.

The Week’s Best Album: “We Built A Zoo Soundtrack” – Jonsi

Cameron Crowe‘s filmmaking skills are only eclipsed by his ability to produce some of the most notable soundtracks in film history.

So when Crowe needed to find the perfect music for his latest film We Bought A Zoo he turned to Jonsi, also known as Jon Thor Birgisson (the front man for Icelandic rock band Sigur Ros).

Crowe previously worked with Jonsi when he featured songs from Jonsi’s band Sigur Ros on the Vanilla Sky soundtrack in 2001.  Fast forward ten years and the two artists have teamed up to produce a soundtrack that maintained the simplicity behind the themes in the film without  overshadowing the film itself.

Jonsi’s exceptional understanding of delicate melodies and his ability to translate the emotion of a scene into music paves the way for him to become the next Trent Reznor at the 2012 Academy Awards.

[You can check out our "We Bought a Zoo" videos and pics with Scarlett Johansson and Matt Damon HERE]

The Week’s Best Music Video: “Levels” – Avicii

Tim Avicii is one of the foremost popular electronic musicians around and his single “Levels” is considered to be dance anthem of 2011.  So it’s only natural for a song so popular and so widely played that the music video would need to be as edgy, hypnotic and interesting as the track.

The video opens like an homage to Spike Jonze‘s music video for Chemical Brother‘s “Weapon Of Choice” starring Christopher Walken.  A humdrum office worker in a frumpy brown suit, heard “Levels” and must break out of his self imposed hell of a lifestyle by dancing.

And after he spreads the dance around the office he pushes a boulder up a mountain while looking frenetic and disheveled until he lands in a hospital where he is dressed white from head-to-toe and strapped to the bed.  Here is where things go from kooky to just plain weird, and it works for the song, solidifying the track with a music video as unique as the song itself.