How do you demonstrate the craft of crooning? It brings a broader range than you imagine. After the many nominations springing from last week’s topic, defining as all about style and using the microphone, guest playlister ParaMhor brings some perfect performance picks …
Read moreTip of the iceberg: songs about the id, ego and superego
It’s time to wrestle with the conflicts and complexities of the conscious and sub-conscious mind captured in song lyrics. From that famous paper published by Freud a century ago, there’s also inspiration here in film, literature, comedy, musicians and more …
Read moreCome here often? Songs with pick-up lines and marriage proposals
What’s your line, from chat-ups to marriage proposals that appear in the lyrics or tenets of songs? This is not just love songs in general, but must contain lines with some ice-breaking approach, declaring attraction or more, with the most immediate short- or longer-term intentions
Read morePride playlists: songs about gender and LGBTQ+
Coded 30s black blues to a 1950s Mexican diva, 1970s and 80s politics to full on out dirty disco in 2021, this week’s guest playlister Pop Off! celebrates a personal birthday with Gay Pride parade that goes beyond the obvious anthems
Read morePlaylists: songs and music in three-four time signatures
Beethoven to Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin to Funkadelic, Joe Cocker to Cocteau Twins, it’s time to waltz into a set of lists that swing across time and genres, picked expertly by guest playlister DJ Bear from a mass of nominations
Read moreGet on up: songs about or inspiring motivation
New Year resolutions, revelations or revolutions? Whether it’s from or for love, money, survival, fear, self-respect or more, let’s open 2020 with songs that may motivate, but ideally also tell us where that comes from
Read moreNotes for the NHS: songs about nursing and healthcare
This week we’re giving it the special treatment to mark the NHS 70th anniversary, but also looking for music that mentions any kind of medical care, especially nursing, and its emotional effect in lyrics
Read morePlaylists: songs about waking up
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
Read moreHang on a minute … it's songs about waiting
Anticipation, excitement or apprehension, for anything from the rapture to Robert De Niro, opportunity or a bus, the light, love or in limbo, place your songs in our waiting room and see what happens …
Read moreHurt so good: songs about channelling mental and physical pain
Hurt can be the source of most songs, but this week we look at the when pain can be positive, and suggest songs that take the upbeat, or even pleasurable view of pain in the mind and body
Read morePlaylists: songs about chance and coincidence
Crossing The Streets and serendipity, to turning different corners with George Michael, this week's guest writer Maki takes his chance with not entirely random nominations to create inevitably perfect playlists
Read moreThe Song Bar's Musical Tribute: Celebrity Deaths of 2016
Muhammad Ali to Mose Allison, David Bowie to Prince, George MIchael to Victoria Wood, enjoy our list of the greats who left us in 2016 , all with a musical twist. We shall remember them
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