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Long player: A young Diego Maradona enjoying one of his other hobbies, 1980
At the zenith of the season, with tournaments ending and beginning, let’s pass our attention to the beautiful game, skill, artistry, eccentricity, but also history, culture, with metaphors, and hopefully avoiding the bad songs, the goal is dig deep into music from around the world …
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Rogues’ gallery, some of the many …
Notorious, violent, controlling, paranoid, ruthless, and excessive, history is filled with them, their rise supported by the fear and apathy. Constantly a threat, from history to the present and future, what are their traits, and how are they portrayed in song?
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Game on: all kinds of music are on board …
Not video or cards, this week it’s the turn of games played on a tabletop with moveable pieces, anything from chess to Monopoly, playing out the patterns of human life and behaviour in microcosm. But how are they expressed in song lyrics?
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Original material: Sun Ra
Join this potentially long thread of a subject through time to capture the wonderful weft and warp of songs about all kinds of fabrics natural or otherwise – wool, cotton, hemp, linen, nylon, muslin, silk, and much more, clothing to curtains, their manufacture and industry, metaphor, colourful, darker, or lighter associations
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The classic poisoner’s choice …
Natural or handmade, animal or chemical, fast or slow, murderous or accidental, we inhabit a world of toxins and venoms, but how are they expressed in song? With inspiration here, the more specific and colourful the better but there’s also the mental and metaphorical …
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Early music recording attempts at the end of the 19th century
This global history topic takes in many events, inventions, people and social trends, but beyond dates and facts, it is particularly about life of the times, habits, attitudes and values, and can also include fictional and other artistic styles
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Santa’s scary helpers: Krampus procession in Austria
From the ceremonious to the cerebral, the wonderful to the weird, the historical to the hysterical, let’s explore the world of traditions through all spheres and societies, from religion to culture, relationships and death, and of course, Christmas
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Hot on the horizon: The Meitan Tea Museum in Guizhou Province, China stands more than 70 metres in height
The routine, the ceremony, the warming up, the cooling down, the flavour, the comfort, the refreshment and everything that goes with it. This week we’re brewing up and leafing through our music collections …
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In the open: Houston demonstration, Tiananmen Square, Monument Valley, John Constable’s Stour Valley
City squares to vast wildernesses, parks and stadiums to commons, fields of solitude to peaceful demonstrations, to locations of violence, revolution and change, this week we find space to breathe in songs about places where society expresses itself
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Living maps? Leo Belgicus by Hondius & Gerritsz, 1630
Accurately marked with facts and perfect proportions? Or fuel for fantasy and the imagination? Maps make stories, and stories make maps, and their fascination leads to where X marks the spot. So let’s go there and start digging …
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There is a light …
With this week’s topic cycle straddling two months, let’s capture both in songs that may be autumnal, seasonal, celebratory or mournful, during a time of year of change, activity and a strange red-tinged beauty
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It’s time to play the music …
It’s all about manipulation. This week’s theme could centre around relationships, work, politics, or other forms of entertainment, where also the puppets do the performing and play on the theme of who is really in control …
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Onwards!
They express the joys, hopes, triumphs and tragedies of the human race coming together, – mixed emotions, war to civil rights, weddings to funerals, religious and sports to military might to floral festivals. But where do they come up in song?
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Orangutan. Of course
From animals to objects, plants to birds, and all of its cultural associations, the meeting of red and yellow, symbol of change, joy, entertainment and also warning, this week let’s explore songs are about anything clearly of this colour
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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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Ministry of Untruth? George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four ... with a slight update
George Orwell to the Emperor's New Clothes, Mao Tse Tung to Tiananmen Square, this week's guest writer Marco den Ouden skilfully picks songs from last week's topic that perfectly play with the truth
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Awkward … your life in their hands. May, Trump and poor old Washington
Mass campaigns to crowd manipulation, political U-turns to personal deception, suggest songs about the art and artifice of changing facts for dubious or other purposes, but here to make truthful playlists
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