Welcome to The Song Bar, a sociable establishment where visitors enthuse and share in their music tastes, indulge in civilised discussion and create playlists on a whole variety of subjects. Feel free to drop in anytime. We profile music new and old, but our main event is the song blog, where each Thursday a topic will be set, and readers around the globe nominate and recommend music on that theme, culminating in a playlist compiled by a guest writer on the following Wednesday.
So find yourself a seat, grab a drink, have a read and listen, and if you like it, join in ...
– Your friendly Landlord
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Latest from Themes & Playlists ...
Jazz, classical, acoustic rock to neo-folk, gentle pop and soul to ambient electronica, there’s a whole texture of sounds audible when the bang of drums and other struck percussion are absent. Inspired by last week’s topic, guest Nilpferd brilliantly guides us through a more delicate, nuanced musical experience
It’s a mainstay backbone or backline of so much music, but this week all forms of percussion, from drums to cymbals, xylophones. to bells are simply out, and this topic also excludes soloists or duos. But will there be more space, or different styles? Let’s explore all kinds of genres and cultures …
There are many reasons to leave the ground spontaneously, such as for dancing, sex and relationships, but also more darkly - suicide. But inspired by the many leap of musical imagination from last week’s topic, guest pejepeine’s playlists will have you jumping for joy
A Thursday on 29 February rarely happens, so let’s not skip it: Songs about jumps, leaps, bounds, hurdles, vaults of all kinds, literal and metaphorical, no t random occurrence of a related words, but where the leap in question is central to to the song's theme. Get inspired by many varied contexts and guests in the Bar …
LATEST FROM New Albums ...
New album: After many singles and 2018’s Whack World EP of 15 one-minute numbers, the Philadelphia rapper’s debut LP is an oddball, collection of eccentric vocals, an inventive, colourful, lucky dip of hip hop, soul and R&B
New album: The Canadian indie-rock veteran of Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, Divine Fits, Operators, Atlas Strategic and more releases his first solo LP, a scintillating synth-sheen, autobiographical sci-fi cityscape of alt-pop with shades of early 80s Bowie
New album: A first album for 15 years by the Atlanta rock band fronted by the charismatic Chris Robinson with guitarist brother Rich, with feisty, pacey, blues-rock return packed with banging new tunes reminiscent of the Stones to AC/DC to ZZ Top
New album: The British folk singer-songwriter, best known for The Detectorists theme song, returns with a gorgeous, bucolically beautiful fourth LP, swelled by orchestral strings, with songs of love, loss, Albion-tinged melancholy, with ecological disaster looming
New album: Celebrating 50 years of recording, the veteran Chicago jazz percussionist and vocalist returns in his trio of sax and trumpet, and here also with strings, brings his rich vocal tones and infectious with a selection of classics and originals
Latest from New Songs …
Song of the Day: From the London-based Parisian singer-songwriter’s forthcoming album Sad Lovers and Giants, scintillating, catchy, sexy electro-pop with a fabulous street-scene video. The album is out on 31 May via Because Music
Song of the Day: A beautiful, witty, new indie-folk number the Melbourne sisters Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes with a tongue-in-cheek look at how women sometimes blame other women for their own internal issues when it comes to relationships
Song of the Day: Sensual, powerful alternative pop about stirrings of religion-formed guilt by by the Southport-raised singer-songwriter Holly Lapsley Fletcher, out on Believe UK
Song of the Day: A brilliant belter of a Motown-style soul single by the revered Manchester musician and songwriter, capturing the fatal final day of the great singer in 1964, taken from Adamson’s forthcoming new album Cut To Black
Song of the Day: Classy, articulate, stirring and strident indie electro-pop by the British singer-songwriter and guitarist with this lead single from the upcoming brand new album Peanuts, out on Chrysalis Records
Latest from Word of the week …
Word of the week: A tasteful word in a sense – but not, unfortunately, referring any form of gentle, dental, melodic xylophone-style playing, but simply an 18th-century dialect word for chewing or mastication
Word of the week: An adjective describing that which loves the shade, whether person, plant or otherwise, from the Latin, umbra, for shade and related to other derivatives, such as umbraphile, one who loves eclipses
Word of the week: A strangely poetic, archaic Gloucestershire term meaning haphazard, pertaining to a a person who acts at random, possibly a corruption of the Latin term nolens volens, meaning neither willing nor unwilling, related to the word willy-nilly
Word of the week: An evocative Old English-origin dialect word for sycophantic flattery, pertaining to sly persuasion for favours, it derives from two old English words – wær meaning cautious, and sealm meaning speech
Word of the week: An adjective meaning woody, or ligneous, and springing from the Ancient Greek xúlon for wood, and oeidḗs for form, the origin for xylophone, it’s one that sprouts many more roots and branches in our language
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On the eve of Saint Patrick’s Day, it’s time to celebrate all things Irish with an ear for the original language, not merely with songs that use it in lyrics, but also those that express or are influenced by the Irish character and culture, across many musical genres