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Shonen Knife are stirring the hot chocolate
Looking for some musical refreshment? From Shonen Knife’s Hot Chocolate to Emmylou Harris’s Deeper Well of water, this week’s playlist writer Rachel Courtney has a fully-stocked bar for you inspired by last week’s nominations
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The Song Bar is really milking this topic …
This week at the Bar we're putting aside the booze, and ’cordial’ly invite song suggestions about any amount of softer beverages, from the fizzy to juicy, milkshakes to mocktails, and hot or cold water drinks
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Beyoncé. She's in Formation
Dance, hip hop, jazz, soul, indie, rock or pop, music is alive and kicking in new directions this century. Kendrick Lamar to Beyonce, Dizzee Rascal to Sleaford Mods, this week’s playlister Nilpferd picks out some pertinent themes
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London Olympic Stadium, 2012. An internet message, but does it also help define music-making culture this century?
This week we’re looking for songs or instrumentals recorded since 2000 that help define what the first 18 years of this century are all about: genres, landmarks, movements, trends, sounds and fusions
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Bouncy inappropriateness: The Smiths
Death, depression and other dark matter is given the jaunty, upbeat treatment by guest playlister DJ PP99, spinning superb and starkly contrasting styles and subjects from last week’s nominations
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Altogether now ....
The lyrics are about dark matters, but they are played with extremely contrasting upbeat music. This week let’s explore songs that, through stark contrast, can unlock humour, tragedy, comedy and empathy
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Ghetto blaster beach bag. What? You don't have one?
Welcome to the left luggage office. Baggage to boxes, trunks, baskets or handbags, look inside this clutch of music with two wonderful playlists by this week’s playlist writer takeitawayGuru opened from last week’s theme
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Cassettes? What a carry on.
Travelling to shopping, fashion houses to homeless hobos, suitcases to handbags, briefcases to guitar cases, bags are the performer’s constant companion carried out in many songs, but it’s also about the contents …
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A voice everlasting: Mahalia Jackson
Want to achieve immortality? After a fountain of youth of song nominations last week, guest playlist writer treefrogdemon takes amusing musical solutions via reincarnation to science, Neil Young, Bob Dylan to David Bowie
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The Immortal Jellyfish, Turritopsis dohrnii, which can reverse the life cycle process
Gods to vampires, myth to religion, nature to the supernatural, or simply need to preserve yourself in song, this week we explore that age-old obsession with living forever, or at least a mighty long time
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Neneh Cherry's taking a confident Buffalo Stance
From the plucky and cocky to the bold and brave, Beyonce to Blondie, Sparks to Stevie Wonder, this week’s guest Severin has picked two superb playlists from the nominations that will have your striding down the street
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Paws for thought: is confidence is what you see in yourself?
It's cleverer and sexier than brains or beauty. Musicians and performers have it spades – but in equal measure to insecurity. So this week let's explore songs all about wanting it, getting it, using it or losing it
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The Boswell Sisters
Armstrong and Astaire to the Boswell Sisters and Al Bowlly, Whispering Jack Smith to Sarah Vaughan, this week's guest playlist writer DiscoMonster digs out many a treasure in a golden age of discovery
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The silver-tongued Cole Porter entertains friends in the 1940s
Tin Pan Alley to the Great American Songbook, blues, jazz standards, show tunes, gospel or folk, this week we escape the modern era to find songs of exemplary craft, performance or pertfectly capture their era
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The paradise tanager, an exotic songbird
Cuckoos to chickens, geese to gulls, a host of exotic birds and ascending on high with the lark and nightingale, this week's aural aviary expert Hoshino Sakura spies a beautiful set of musical calls from last week's topic
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The nightingale. A star singer of the bird world.
Spring has finally sprung, and to celebrate, let’s look at, from science to poetry, how the most natural and winged songwriters have inspired humans to make reference to their work in their own through music or lyrics
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Wake up ... with Sudan Archives
Dawn in India to Donovan, Bacharach-David to The Beatles, this week's wonderful selections by guest playlister ParaMhor from last week's nominations will have you feeling wide awake and refreshed
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Don't be alarmed. Something to whet the whistle, darling?
From gloom to horny joy, scary or strange surprises to dire straits, this week let's explore all the lyrical and musical sides of regain consciousness in song, with some stimuli here from other forms – film and books
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That's not us.
Who are you? Who are they? Hackers to the hidden, secret societies to strangers in crowds, masked meetings to sexual liaisons, this week's playlists are superbly assembled by a famous but Anonymous figure
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A scene from anonymous hacker thriller series Mr Robot, starring Rami Malek as the complex central figure
Whether feeling like a nobody, or actually being anonymous, from hackers to the lonely and helpless, from fame to unknown heroism, let's explore this contradictory feeling as expressed in lyrics, from spotlight to the shadows
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