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An Anna’s hummingbird at work
A hum-dinger, or at least a hum-singer of a topic, one in which we're seeking songs that feature that sound, perhaps mostly by the vocalist when not singing lyrics, but perhaps other effect and forms of vibrating hum, from rock and pop, famous classical operatic passages, jazz, R&B, reggae and much more
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Psych is always on the move …
Delay, fuzz, distortion, flanger, echo, sitars, and mind-altering drugs? It’s a style chiefly associated with the late-60s but what are it’s key characteristics and where else do they come up in the world of music? Let’s go on a journey through time and space …
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Yuri’n the hotseat: Gagarin
After last week's orgasmic theme and playlists, it’s time for thrusting engines over another kind, rockets and space ships, real or fictional, fantastic, wondrous, frightening journeys of all kind, as we boldly go to new musical territory
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Get on the retro (dance) floor …
This week we look back to look forward with artists who wrote new songs with a style from the past, ignoring their zeitgeist and harking back to a former era or decade though musical stylings, choice of instruments, lyrics and more
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Brief Encounter …
Songs that capture that moment of a surprise encounter, wherever it is, doorstep or elsewhere, and wherever it might lead – to romance, tragedy, comedy, death, or more, perhaps profoundly life-changing, or brief, and fleeting
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There’s more than one way of having in ball in New York. The 1930s …
It’s the city of the world that never sleeps, but this week let’s explore what kind of music, particularly instrumentals, but also lyrics, capture the particular spirit, culture, feel and rhythms of its extraordinary five boroughs
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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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Meeting of metaphor or the literal? Well, it's all a question of scale …
No, it’s not the World Cup. Or is it? This week let’s delve into music’s interpretation of the murky world of imagined or otherwise undercover plots from Roswell to JFK, 9/11 to Russian interference, and er … lizards
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Louis Armstrong liked a good blow now and then
Mary Jane to hash, pot to pipes, it's time to take a toke on songs that hit on this long-established recreational drug and painkiller, from its many names to the effect it has on mind, society and music
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A famously eye-catching Small Faces album, but there are many tasty song titles are out there …
Tantalising, striking, quirky, perhaps violent or sexually strange, offbeat, bizarre combinations of words, numbers or symbols and more, awful, wonderful, suggest songs that cry out to be heard and live up to their title
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Time to log on …
Log Lady to Blue Velvet, Beefheart and fantasy fish, doppelgängers and all-seeing owls, this week we delve in an alternative world where lyrics and music capture an area between dream and reality
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