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 ...
Sweetest, biggest, baddest, punniest, funniest, spinniest, dreamiest, wooziest? Many more most ‘ests’ feature this week in the very best of superlative selections by guest playlister Uncleben, taking the very best shot from last week’s many nominations
We’re not exaggerating, from most beautiful to the fastest, craziest hottest or worst, this week it’s songs centrally featuring that adjective or adverb that expresses that the thing or person described has possessing more of that particular quality than anything or anyone else of that type
Congregations to murders, vaquejada to izinyoni, Scotland to England and Spain, Africa to Brazil and beyond, collective nouns add vivd poetry to song lyrics. Guest playlister Maki picks out some collective colour from last week’s theme
Parliaments of owls to pedants or ptarmigans? Orchestras of crickets? A quaver of coloraturas, a chime of wrens? It’s time to use the hive mind and the choir of collectivism to find vivid examples of these kinds of nouns in lyrics. Join the gang here with lots of inspiration examples …
LATEST FROM New Albums ...
New album: A deliciously uplifting fifth solo LP by the American singer-songwriter and mult-instrumentalist, fusing folk, country, Americana, Afrobeat to Brazilian tropicalismo
New album: After a series of entertaining singles, the flamboyant, often masked south London artist Elliot Brett’s debut LP is full of bounce and thrust – a humorous, witty, catchy collection of stylish synth-electro-pop mainly about gay sexual adventures in the city
New album: After 2022’s mini-album solo, Afrikan Culture, the acclaimed and prolific British jazz saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, known best for Sons of Kemet and the Comet Is Coming returns with a reset – swapping reeds for flutes, with an LP of delicate, experimental beauty, and featuring guests including Moses Sumney, André 3000, and Saul Williams
New album: Following 2022’s Maelstrom, a fabulous second studio LP from the Dublin quartet of electronic psych-rock with dirty fuzzy synth lines and layered guitars, searing vocals of frontman Eoin Kenny and percussion pushing it all along like unstoppable krautrock train of wizzing, fizzing new wave energy
New album: The American omnipresent megastar returns with a surprise but also widely well-received 11th LP – a twisting, voluminous collection of 31 songs (Anthology version) of luxuriant pop, but packed with extremely caustic, often brilliantly dark, cutting break-up lyrics
Latest from New Songs …
Song of the Day: … but not anymore!” The latest single by the witty Australian artist is a driving drum-machine, thrumming bass and blistering guitar punk banger, a humorous perspective on changing your ways, with vocal style influences such as Suicide and Throbbing Gristle
Song of the Day: Funky, groovy, smooth and stylish, but with candid, caustic feminist lyrics about body and self-image come in this brilliant new single and video by the innovative Scottish London-based artist
Song of the Day: Classic rock-pop with an new twist and a number about being hopelessly drawn to someone’s charm coming from the Belfast duo Mollie McGinn and Orlaith Forsythe, heralding their forthcoming debut album, For Your Sins.
Song of the Day: An infectiously catchy, wonderfully oddball funk-disco single by the LA-based singer and percussionist Brijean Murphy of Toro Y Moi and Poolside, here with multi-instrumentalist and producer Doug Stuart, also delivering an alluringly lazy vocal style, which gives extra appeal considering the subject matter
Song of the Day: Fabulous drumming from a past session by the departed legend Tony Allen, and passionate blues-rock vocals from Foals’ frontman Yannis Philippakis in this opening track from his new project and upcoming EP, Lagos Paris London – out on 30 August via Transgressive Records
Latest from Word of the week …
Word of the week: An adjective with origins in the late 17th century meaning pointing or heading off in all directions – particularly as in the point of a compass, sometimes pertaining to geographical structure, or such as with an exploding firework
Word of the week: This beautifully strange, rhythmic, rhyming, onomatopoeic English word hails from the 18th century, meaning crumpled or gathered up, often pertaining to cloth or clothing, and deriving from the word for crease – a ruckle
Word of the week: This colourfully archaic English verb, thought to have origins in the Leeds and immediate Yorkshire area, means to shake or knock something violently
Word of the week: A tasteful word in a sense – but not, unfortunately, referring to 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
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Using common words or proper names of people, places, animals or more, this week we celebrate the echo in a phrase, where words are repeated, not just over and over, but to create an integrated new phrase where repetition is integral