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Ancient sights: Stonehenge on the June summer solstice as the sun rises at a precise viewpoint ..
As we suddenly approach 21st June again, it’s time to explore concept and imaginative meaning of life's perceived halfway points, from the solstice to geographical centres to middles, the axis mundi, the half moons, to the half-times …
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Get re-connected with some 90s memories here …
This very fertile music decade was the last of the millennium, and was filled with fear but also hope. Guest DiscoMonster summons memories with a tremendous time-travelling selection, partying like it’s 1999, and inspired by last week’s theme
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Remix your 1990s thoughts and memories here …
In a decade that saw a huge expansion of sub-genres and production technology, including sampling, it’s time to suggest alternative singles and remixes creative and innovative, as opposed to repetitive and exploitative
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Keyboard lollypops: Classic Hohner melodicas
This simple mouthpiece-and-keyboard reed-free aerophone has an analogue charm that can bring a surprise solo or drone texture to a song. But where does it appear and when does it work best?
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Is this your town? Hit the streets and let the music play …
A huge subject, population, history and rich culture, how can you capture this great city in song? Londoner MussoliniHeadkick presents a fabulous set of lists spreading far and wide, especially south and east, inspired by last week’s topic
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Reflections on the Thames, Westminster - by John Atkinson Grimshaw (1880)
From inner London’s famous sites to the suburbs, its a melting pot of people, culture and music, of fame and fortune, fires, pioneers and history’s rebuilding. It’s time to go metropolitan and capture this great city in song
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Anoushka Shankar’s family tree traces through the sitar’s sound
Indian classical to the ‘67 Summer of Love, psychedelia and into the beyond, this beguiling instrument has coloured eastern and western music for decades. Guest playlister Nicko plucks out many magical sounds from last week’s theme
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Crossing cultural boundaries: Ravi and daughter Anoushka Shankar
What’s that sound? It is most associated with a master of Indian classical, but this week we also explore how the sitar has crossed into western and other genres, including electric and electronic recreations
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Egypt’s Pyramids of Giza
Ancient or modern, long gone or still standing, man-made or even natural, these sites are monuments that inspire universal awe and imagination, and bring us together. But how are they captured in song?
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Truly beyond this world - Björk’s Utopia
Out of this world and into many wondrous others, this week’s playlists take you on a cosmic journey through genres and galaxies, skilfully steered and chosen by guest voyager Nilpferd from last week’s topic
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What’s Gorn on here, then? Kirk and a famous old foe …
It’s time to boldly go beyond our planet to explore songs about and inspired by other planets, stars and galaxies, real or those of science fiction, and ideally those are imagined to be, or were once inhabited
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A rare moment of peace for Marilyn Monroe’s restless mind - reading James Joyce’s Ulysses at Long Island, in 1955
It’s a literary narrative technique capturing our chaotic minds and random flow of thought processes, often with non-linear sense of time, free association, saturated with sensory experiences with strange rhythms, but how is it used in song?
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Banjo player, 1856 by William Sidney Mount
It may immediately make you think of The Beverly Hillbillies or Deliverance, but this bright, resonant, plucky instrument has a long history with origins in another continent, and spans many stories, cultures and genres
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Sakura saturation: a cherry blossom avenue
Their brevity very much integral to their beauty, they are simple yet also complex in their burst of colour. These flowers of stone fruit trees have been inspiration for artists, poets and songwriters for centuries
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Strait of Hormuz …
Filled with stories, history, myth, trade, and conflict, these potent stretches of water sometimes connect two seas or basins, continents, cultures and east and west, and are filled with danger. So how does song capture these many passages, channels and sounds?
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The incomparable Fela Kuti
Famous classical composers to a certain theoretic physicist, as well as a wealth of unusual skilled people, this week guest Loud Atlas takes a sparklingly talented turn picking playlists from from the latest topic and song nominations
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Christ on a bike! There’s always one …
Cultural counting as a figure of superstition and bad luck, it can also have other associations, but whether number, name, place, amount, date, age or more, this week it’s time find your significant thirteens in song as we head through a new Friday 13th
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Zeugma and more … Elvis Costello & The Attractions
It’s a figure of speech in which a word applies to two or more others in different senses, giving a concise form of wordplay. Inspired by last week’s topic nominations, guest playlister magicman picks out many sparkling examples and more
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The yoke’s on you, Dad …
On this celebration day of the written word, let’s embrace the many songs which lyrically use a word to govern two or more other words or phrases in a line or sentence. It comes from the Ancient Greek meaning "a yoking together". Time to pull out words and pints …
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… you’re in for a big surprise …
Aliens to unexpected identity, unusual sounds to strange artistic combinations as well as the lyrical subject itself, guest Marco den Ouden brings a box of brilliant surprises in response to our Big 10th Birthday Topic
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