Just like that, it’s that time again, where the holiday season is upon us and the mad scrambles down store aisles to find just the right gifts for friends and loved ones commences. It’s a yearly ritual that always seems to come sooner than later. It’s also a sign that the year is coming to a close, and of course there’s no question that 2016 will remain in memory and history as one of the most turbulent, challenging, and painful times ever seen. It is for that reason that the holiday time should hold even extra special positive emotional weight, as community and solidarity run high among people during this time, acting as sort of metaphoric concrete that fills in the gaps that division among many created. And music too, is an eternal, external, and ultimately internal healing agent for the soul, regardless if times are happy or sad, joyous or maudlin. Music also reflects those aforementioned emotions and more. Here’s some of the best released this past year that will for sure excite even the most hardened by the whirlwind of the times and warm someone’s soul like kindling a hearth on the coldest December nights.

Check out our 2016 Holiday Geek Gift Guide for Music…

Jack White, harbinger of all things cool and creative, best known as the progenitor, singer/songwriter, and guitarist extraordinare of The White Stripes, whose main purpose was to simply usher back in the power of rock and roll for rock and roll’s sake in this day and age, has been named this year’s ambassador for Record Store Day, which is to take place on April 20, 2013.

That day becomes a celebration of all things vinyl, that black spherical piece of wax which for so many decades was the norm and rightful heir of how music was played, creating not just a “revolution” (pun firmly intended) in sound and sound production and presentation, but also created an entire lifestyle for so many of its fans and collectors.

In the wake of the supposed vinyl demise about a decade or so ago, when digital mediums became the norm in how one listens to and collects music, the vinyl record has become a sort of mainstay still, not just to those who have a penchant for the vintage and historic, but it’s also created a sub-genre unto itself of multitudes of fans who still swear by its sonic glories.

It looks like Disney has hired a new composer to conduct the score for Gore Verbinski‘s upcoming western actioner The Lone Ranger. We previously reported that White Stripes and The Raconteur’s frontman Jack White was set to make his film-composing debut by conducting the score for the film. It seemed like a perfect fit at the time, given White’s musical background. But somewhere in between that announcement and the release of the second trailer, White dropped out.

The Playlist discovered the change when they saw Hans Zimmer‘s name attached as the composer instead of White’s. This isn’t the first time that Zimmer has conducted the score for a Verbinski film. Zimmer also conducted the score for all four Pirates of the Caribbean films and Rango has well.

Right now, Amazon is offering up the album White Blood Cells by The White Stripes for only $2.99 in MP3 format.

There’s 16 tunes on this album for only $2.99, which makes this sale a no-brainer, but here’s a few stand-out tracks : “Fell In Love With A Girl,” “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known,” “Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground,” and a song you’ll recall from Napoleon Dynamite, “We’re Going To Be Friends.”

The album is also available on CD now for $9.99.

Trent Reznor and Jonny Greenwood have been known to dabble in conducting a few notable soundtracks. Renzor, whose most recent work can be heard on David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, earned himself an Academy Award for his work on Fincher’s The Social Network. Though Greenwood’s work for There Will be Blood was deemed ineligible for an Academy Award – due to use of pre-existing material – the soundtrack did earn itself a Grammy nomination for Best Score Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media.

Now its time for former White Stripes lead Jack White to step up and conduct the score for major a movie soundtrack. Disney Studios announced today that White will be making his first score conduction with the Gore Verbinski-directed The Lone Ranger.