The last time 50 Cent appeared live on an obscure European TV show he was caught doing something highly suspicious in his dressing room.

There's nothing illicit, however, about his latest appearance, as a contestant on the Turkish version of 'Deal Or No Deal' ('Varmısın Yokmusun').

The reason for his unlikely cameo is unclear. 'Fiddy' has never toured Turkey, or even sold many records there. Still, the audience seem to love him. They're certainly more receptive than the crowd at Reading 2004, one of whom memorably hurled a deckchair onstage during 'In Da Club'.

Next week: Lil Wayne on 'Countdown'.

There was much angry spluttering in the office when we listened to the album of abysmal Radiohead/Jay-Z mash-ups that surfaced online recently.

You can hear it in full at Jaydiohead.com, although be warned: 'Dirt Off Your Android' is the only track that doesn’t suck gigantic balls.

Perhaps it's the weaving, irregular nature of his 'flow', but - Danger Mouse's 'Grey Album' aside - remixing Jay-Z is almost always a terrible idea. Combining 'Encore' with Muse's 'Supermassive Black Hole', for example, was never going to work.

Fusing 'Dirt Off Your Shoulder' with The Verve's 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' is slightly less jarring, but there's something about Jay-Z's tone that combines well with heavy guitars (which is presumably why he hooked up with Linkin Park in 2004). Hence Metallica mash-up 'December 4th Was Sad But True' has a satisfying, crunchy solidity to it.

For me, though, the best remixes are ones that puncture the earnestness of the originals. Call me puerile, but there's something irresistible about 'Neun And Neunzig Problems', a wonderfully brainless fusion of '99 Problems' with Nena's 1984 Cold War protest song, '99 Red Balloons'. I defy you not to smile when the chorus kicks in at 0.45.

Jay-Z also pops up on Queen/OutKast remix 'Hey We Will Rock You', a good example of a mash-up that tries just that little bit too hard. Others, meanwhile, boast clever titles but not much else – see 'Britney's Massive Hole', which yokes together Muse's 'Supermassive Black Hole' and Britney Spear's 'Do Somethin''.

Generally speaking, the more unexpected the combination – the bigger the 'jolt' - the more entertaining the results. Everyone's heard AC/DC's 'Back In Black' bolted on to Eminem's 'My Name Is' and Public Enemy's 'Black Is Back' (although the latter is admittedly magnificent), but how much more refreshing to hear Kanye West's 'Golddigger' spliced cheekily with Beethoven's 'Symphony No.5', or Eurythmics' 'Sweet Dreams' bundled up with 'Seven Nation Army'?

Using that logic, then, (and side-stepping well-worn favourites such as Soulwax's 'Smells Like Teen Booty') here are a few more outstanding examples of the art.

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Like a supercharged version of our own aggregated super-list of last year's most critically-acclaimed albums, Hype Machine have unveiled their Music Blog Zeitgeist 2008, detailing the 50 artists, songs and albums that generated the most heat amongst bloggers over the past year.

They're gradually counting down from 50, unveiling the top 10 on Friday 9 January (I'm betting Radiohead top all three categories).

Hype Machine's content tends to have a stateside, collegiate spin, since the majority of music bloggers are American college kids. Even so, these lists offer an immensely authoritative snapshot of global music listening habits, and a valuable full stop on a year that threw up plenty of incredible albums, but not much in the way of generational, tribe-uniting trends.

In fact, you could argue that the 'zeitgeist' of 2008 was that there was no zeitgeist - the very notion of critical consensus having been eroded by the infinite proliferation of viewpoints afforded by blog culture.

Back at work? Finding it hard to adjust? Idly contemplating suicide as the realisation sets in that the festive break is over and there's nothing to look forward to except a grim, penniless slog through January? Then perhaps these motivational Hunter S Thompson posters will help. Or perhaps not.

Introducing Google Smart Ass.

Random list: 6 musicians who predicted their own deaths.

The buzzwords of 2008, according to The New York Times.

2008 mash-up: the 25 biggest hits of last year arranged into a four and a half minute song.

Download a free track, 'Meddle', from Little Boots.

There's a lot of love among Hype Machine addicts right now for Dropbox, a new app that enables you to back your MP3s up online, thus freeing up valuable space on your hard drive.

You can get 2GB of storage for free, or pay $10 a month for 50GB.

So now there's no excuse not to subscribe to the Daily Download RSS feed and load up on free MP3s...

[Dropbox]

In what would be a rare first, it's looking likely that two different versions of Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' will be filling the top two spots on the UK singles chart for Christmas.

It's a shame 'X Factor' winner Alexandra Burke's version will almost certainly outsell Jeff Buckley's (despite a campaign to push Buckley's to the top by 'The Sun''s Gordon Smart, among others), because it seems to me that the tragic troubadour's version is the perfect Christmas song.

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