Goals, glories, disasters, fanfare and failure, from the great players to local heroes, and all the ups and downs of the sport, after a superb game of nominations, guest manager Loud Atlas picks and pitches perfect formations with playlists inspired by last week’s topic, but who is on the teamsheet? Check it out …
Read moreFlesh this out: big and ‘meaty’ songs and music
This week’s topic is sensual rather than cerebral, and extremely subjective. It’s less a lyrical lookup, more seeking out music that makes you, at least metaphorically, vibrate, and even salivate. Please suggest examples and describe the accompanying feeling
Read morePlaylists: songs with notable outros and codas
From the seamlessly beautiful to the outrageously expansive, the gently whispered to the incendiary solo freakout, where do you start with great outros? From the beginning to the end (of the end), AmyLee picks a blistering selection from last week’s topic nominations
Read morePlaylists: songs about eternity
Space, time, the rhythms of life, expressions of the divine, love? Eternity in its many permutations is to be found in these captivating playlists picked by guest ajostu, inspired by the near-endless nominations from last week’s topic
Read morePush those buttons: electronic dance and synth pop songs 1980-2000
Following a previous topic that went up to 1983, this week we explore the arc of this music’s sonic history through a new era of MIDI and digital, from the Fairlight CMI to the Roland TR-808 and beyond, and in lyrical pop songs more than instrumentals
Read morePlaylists: songs about horizons
Distant hillsides to sea sunsets, skylines and vapour. trails to massive events, this week’s playlists are a thing of timeless beauty, picked by guest ajostu from an ocean of nominations, stretching far and wide across the musical globe
Read moreUnsung: songs by underrated, overlooked artists and bands
This week it’s time to dig deep and broad for new names that rarely get a mention, certainly never make the charts or win prizes, sell much or get the recognition they deserve. Let’s refresh the synapses of musical hive mind knowledge
Read morePlaylists: songs from or about Italy
This week, it’s the full Italian job! And there’s far more to it than exploding cars – a whole queue of hooting horns, gesticulation and finest food and wine in musical form, all picked by excellente playlister philipphilip99 from a fleet of nominations
Read moreNew meets old: songs where different-era elements combine
This week we seek strange combinations from starkly different times – old songs covered on new instruments, new songs played on old instruments, traditional musicians playing with younger, or old styles mashed up with the new
Read morePlaylists: songs with great keyboard solos and riffs
And the piano played on … During these testing times, inspired by the deft choices of readers and fast fingers of players, guest ParaMhor picks two note perfect playlists and adds some memorial extras for the dearly departed
Read moreMeet me in the middle? Songs about compromise
It’s all about the C-word in song, but does it strengthen or weaken us? Does it hold society together or kill artistic integrity? You can’t always get what you want, but can you give a little, take it a little? Can we work it out, or just do it my way?
Read morePlaylists: songs about crisis
From personal turmoil of the human brain to total tumult of the planet, Temptations to Kate Tempest, this week’s playlist writer ParaMhor turns last week’s whole world of fabulous nominations into a cri de crisis par excellence
Read moreSpread the groove: 12-inch singles and remixes up to 1979
Dub and reggae, funk and disco, hip hop, punk postpunk, pop, electronica and more, this week let's span the 60s-70s period that gave birth to this format and spin favourite records it highlighted
The art of noises: electronic music and songs up to 1983
Early 20th-century experimentalists to MIDI, industrial, dance, new wave, French musique concrete, Japanese chiptune to German elektronische, let’s explore old-school noise and value those valves worldwide
Read moreI told it my way: songs with unusual narrators
New perspective? Songs with storytellers that are different and on the fringes – repressed women, eccentrics, the mentally challenged, criminals, children, otherworldly spirits from gods to ghosts, animals, aliens, plant life, or even objects
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 moreGo ahead, punk, make my … songs about days of the week
Blue Mondays to lazy Sundays, strange Tuesdays to Fridays on your mind, peruse your calendar of titles and lyrics to make it a cultural and musical week to remember
Read moreSong Bar 1st Birthday special: songs about the number one!
One-horse towns to the one you love, singularity to being single, this week we celebrate the bar’s first birthday with a topic that may be a one-off but may also see many things distilled into one
Read moreDon't read or listen to this: ironic songs
From sarcasm to situation, dramatic twist to tragic consequence or perspective, let's take a wry look at songs that say one thing, but then reveal another
Read more