Your Custom Text Here
It’s a fragile thing, but we still drink it in
Sudden or slow-motion tragedy, from breakup to sudden loss of a loved one, or any other of life’s soul-destroying events, this week it’s time to drown all sorrows in the bar and find the most potent selection of heartbreak songs
Read more
Bumblebee
Time to get busy! From honey to nectar, pollination to special dance moves, lyrics literal or metaphor, or in sounds, with World Bee Day coming up, it’s time to feel the musical buzz of these inspirational insects in all that they mean to humans, and how we should protect them
Read more
Results are in the air tonight
Applications have been made, papers marked, but from last week’s many entries, which made the grade and will reach graduation to make the playlists? Examiner Marco den Ouden reveals the full results …
Read more
Jarvis Cocker’s student pass for the art course he took when aged 25
Days of college, university, polytechnic, art school, institute or more, this week we examine education after secondary or high school and graduation, what it all means, from learning to social experience, captured though the prism of song
Read more
What’s at play below ground level? Walk this way …
There’s a whole other life going on underground, but what form does it take? Unearthed from last week’s nominations, guest ShivSidecar digs deep to present a wondrous otherworld of fabulous music choices
Read more
Go deeper ...
Dig deep: it’s time to go downstairs, take the lift and explore songs in an underground setting - basements or lower, from tube and metro stations from servants in the kitchen, to sewers and pipes, this is often where society is run
Read more
Handy: which band was inspired by the rather cutting-edge Struwwelpeter story?
Enchanting, mysterious, beautiful, crazy, or the downright cruel, the imagination doesn’t come any more vivid in fairytales. Woven from last week’s nominations, guest Loud Atlas spins a set of sharp tales into superbly absorbing playlists
Read more
The famous Grimm’s edition illustrated by Arthur Rackham
They fuelled the fevered imaginations of our childhoods, and contain many adult themes of love and lust, violence and identity, but how are these characters and narratives used in song? Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin …
Read more
A bigger splash: humpback whale breach
Cetaceans are dolphins, whales and porpoises – familiar yet mysterious, those large, intelligent water mammals that have inspired oceans of songwriters, but in what way? On freedom, tragedy, slaughter, or wondrous, otherworldly sounds?
Read more
Breaking news: who will smash through into this week’s playlists and have a ball?
Breaking: it happens suddenly, slowly, in many forms, and places – hearts, minds, bodies, objects, houses, relationships. Guest guru Uncleben picks up the pieces from last week’s many suggestions and puts them together with cracking results
Read more
Smash hits: Donna Reed as Mary edits the collection in 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life
Hearts, bones, laws, bread, levees, glass, ice, records, lyrically as literal or metaphor, and so much more. It’s time to break new musical ground, from the destructive or creative, darker or lighter contexts of this topic
Read more
Flemish harpsichord
Across all genres, it’s time to revive and bring out the delicate sound of this once popular, plectrum-triggering keyboard instrument – not just the harpsichord, but its smaller relatives – virginal, clavichord, clavicytherium, ottavino, pedal and other variants
Read more
The common nightingale
The inspiration of poets and songwriters for thousands of years, advertising with infinite music invention and energy, it’s also the national bird of Ukraine, defending its territory. So let’s celebrate the nightingale, and thrush cousin, in music and lyrics
Read more
Urban jungle? A growing trend …
Ugly or beautiful, hostile or friendly, boring or dynamic, urban environments are where people live but they are constantly in flux. This week it’s time to get a different sense of place in this potentially vast subject that also can do into tiny detail
Read more
Visions of the future: The Flaming Lips
Visions, prophets, psychics, spanning history and the future, with good news and bad – inspired by many nominations from last week’s topic, these superb playlists, picked by guest amylee, journey through time and space
Read more
Preface to a translation of Nostradamus’s Prophecies
From Julius Caesar feeling the sharp end in the Roman Senate to Nostradamus and his verse of things to come that will make the world worse. But what predictions will come from this week’s quatrains? Some playlists, for sure …
Read more
Avalon man: Mississippi John Hurt
Avalon to Cádiz, New York City to Paris, Mexico to West Indies, this week’s playlists make up a music journey of poetic proportions, an atlas d’amour perfectly prepared by guest picker Uncleben, jet propelled by last week’s huge topic
Read more
The heart-shaped island, Galesnjak, Croatia
Where are we going, exactly? With lyrical or title references as specific and detailed as possible, let’s take a global trip of songs and music giving affection to particular towns, areas, viewpoints, streets, or even smaller nooks and crannies
Read more
Chet Baker: in search of the ideal
Days, nights or settings, love, relationships, words, compliments or phrasing, sounds, singing and so much more, guest of the week Loud Atlas comes up with all the aces with series of immaculate playlist choices reflecting last week’s perfect topic
Read more
Evolution’s purest clickbait: kitten in field
Nothing’s ideal, no one’s impeccable, nothing’s completely pure, but this week it’s time to search for the beautifully formed, the perfectly pitched, the adorably flawless and more as the lyrical focus. Or that’s the plan …
Read more