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Bright sparks ArcAttack make the Tesla connection
Capacitance, or resistance? This week on the circuit it’s time for bright sparks to plug in and make lyrical connections with songs that refer to electricity in all literal or metaphorical forms, from famous inventors to natural forces
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Over the moon with Smashing Pumpkins
What a production! Cartoons to big-screen movie references, emotional stories, quirky comedies and extraordinary dancing, from a massive choice, this week’s guest Marco den Ouden chooses two perfectly eye-popping playlists
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What will be your weapon of choice this week?
Music and film are often intertwined commercially, but where does a video become an artform to the level that the visual elements enhance, complement and become symbiotic with the song? Let the action commence …
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Genres? What are they?
This week let’s push the envelope and dig out often lesser known artists and works that wriggle away from definition, those who or mix sub-genres and styles with such originality it’s hard to place them. But can you still define them?
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The striking ex-Welsh miner Adrian Street. But what song has he wrestled into total submission?
Worst week ever? Just how low can we go? This week’s counterintuitive topic brought hundreds of highly entertaining gems, out of which the wonderfully mischievous guest playlister Olive Butler created two terrifically torturous lists
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Do your wurst: What could go horribly right? The Producers (1967) starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel
The brilliantly bad to the awesomely atrocious, whether in sound or lyrics, this week it's time to stretch the realms of musical and lyrical taste into the outer regions, and boldly go where we've never been before
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What comes around …
This week we seek to search out and reclaim meanings for the months of the year, largely through the Gregorian calendar of the big 12 from January to December, whether that be by mood, setting, or different associations
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Help! A knockout moment from Muhammed Ali and the Beatles in 1964
Every picture tells a story, but this time let’s do it with songs inspired by, or about photographs or photography, and to help inspire here’s a selection of rare and usual shots to provoke memory, imagination, mystery and wonder
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Yoda. Seeing the lighter side
This week we’re not being clever,, simply seeking wisdom in individual lyrics or across a whole song. From philosophers to musicians to authors, how is is it gained, through humility, experience, courage, or a just turn of phrase?
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Put your deposits here …
Ruled by them or robbing them, debts and deposits to crises and economic crashes, this week it’s time to turn our musical attention to banks and bankers, and realise that aside from facts and figures, they are also all about people
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It’s just a stage I’m going through: Bregenz Music Festival in Austria
Bars, basements, intimate, sweaty or large or legendary, forests, festivals, stratospheric stadia, snug pubs to prisons, caves to operatic amphitheatres, let's musically celebrate venues and spaces mentioned by, or associated with songs
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Don’t do it, Father Dougal …
… and how can it all go right? This week let’s see if we can make musical manoeuvres in the current climate, causes and cures for crises, whether they be political social, economic or personal
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David Bowie and ‘family’ on the set of The Man Who Fell To Earth
Transcending distance and time, and sometimes in another dimension, space itself, this week we look to go the full distance to explore the trials and triumphs of enduring love, or otherwise, made or broken by absence
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Heartstrings are harder to repair that guitars …
From gaffer and duct tape, housing to mending a broken heart, let’s repair towards fantastic playlists created by the handy skills of our guest treefrogdemon, who was inspired by a full toolkit of suggestions from last week’s topic
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Global repair
From cars to people, mind and body, clocks or guitars, the world at large or little local difficulties, let’s start 2019 by fixing up and looking sharp with skills and toolkits on this topic
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Stop me if you’ve heard that one before …
Is there an echo in here? Those with sharp ears will enjoy some remarkable and fun comparisons as this week’s playlister Olive Butler perfectly picks out some of the soundalikes from a double topic over the festive period
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Superb lyrebird - sounds like everything else, but nothing sounds like it.
The topic over the Christmas holiday season is a form of convivial, parlour game in which pairs of songs can be nominated that share musical or other echoes - but which came first and where are the comparisons? You decide …
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Three-dog night
Triangles and holy trinities, this week let’s explore the musical dynamic within groups in which three artists perform as a self-contained unit, not merely pop, jazz, classical, or folk, but across all all genres
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Wild West guitar wiz Wilko Johnson
Bang bang! This week it’s time to find your range, come out with all guns blazing with songs about bullets, guns, cannons, bows and arrows. Gun culture arguments and more, let’s shoot from the hip
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No two walks are the same …
We all walk slightly differently, so this week it’s all about music that expresses various strolls, swings, swaggers, ambles or strides, and whether in politics or personal, marching bands or military, let’s capture the movement of the people
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