Every Tuesday Single Minded highlights new tracks hitting stores (or the Web) this week. On Fridays, come back for rarities, remixes, mash-ups and more.

American Gangster Opera [The Rap Up]
To the delight of high school music teachers everywhere (and the collective horror of their students), someone has set Jay-Z’s latest opus to sliced-up snippets of opera and Broadway showtunes. Kids: Whatever they make you do with this, it can’t be as bad as having to research the lyrics to “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Trust us.

Vince Guaraldi, “Linus & Lucy” [Pocketknife Remix]
Well, the youth of America have finally run out of things to remix. Upside: this is fantastic, jittery and jubilant and out-of-control. We’d like to think this comes from Linus’s “lost years,” when he bought bright sneakers and strange pants and always seemed to have a cold.

Janis Joplin, “Me & Bobby McGee” [Demo]
Stripped-back version of Joplin’s posthumous classic is a glorious combination of ragged singing and off-the-cuff studio banter. Legend has it that Joplin went into the studio to bang out this version and, presto, eight years later Pink was born.

De La Soul, Live in France 2007 [Daily Motion]
A healthy portion of a live De La show — in Montmarte, of all places. Bonus: thanks to the subtitles, you get to learn how to say “It’s not bouncing” in French.

Distinctly Jamaican Reggae [Jammin Ja Sounds]
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus: unbeatable reggae blog Distinctly Jamaican Sounds gives you a holiday mixtape, and casually suggests holly might be useful for something other than just hall-decking.