Welcome to 2025. It’s time to blow a few lyrical and musical thought bubbles and get the grey matter moving. How is thought expressed in song? Is it an inner speech? Is it through the fingers? All this and more with much to think about, here ….
Read morePlaylists: songs and music featuring sounds of bells
Who is it? Bjork, of course, jingling a silvery Alexander McQueen number
They’re sometimes the sound of Christmas, but these resonant instruments can crop up in all sorts of situations and music. Reverberating from last week’s topic, guest VikingChild creates Xmas and non-Xmas selections and are extremely a-pealing. Let them ring out!
Read moreWhat a carillon: songs and music featuring sounds of bells
The bells! The bells! Handheld bells ...
They resonate through time, marking beginnings and endings, life and death, and have a host of meanings and contexts. Alone or in harmony, large or small, as instrument or sound effect, what tintinnabulum tickles your fancy in music?
Read morePlaylists: songs about detectives and private investigators
They call him Mr Tibbs: Sidney Poitier shows Rod Steiger how real detective work is done - In The Heat of The Night (1967)
There’s a body, but what’s the motive, and whodunnit? Gathering a cast of famous detectives and a pile of tracks about them to spin in the Bar, Chief Inspector Marco den Ouden solves the case with musical cues and keys, inspired by last week’s topic
Read moreCase notes: songs about detectives and private investigators
What’s inside the bar this week?
There’s a smoky haze in the Bar this week as dozens of suspicious individuals sit down for a quiet drink, but what are they up to? Are they real or fictional. It’s time to do the sleuth work and find some musical inspiration
Read morePlaylists: songs about items bought in a hardware store
The full works …
Need to nail down that job you’ve been putting of? Short of tools and other materials? Inspired by songs nominated from last week’s topic, guest TatankaYotanka has a superb musical shopping list and gets it all stylishly done
Read moreTotally wired: songs about any items bought in a hardware store
Hose or hoes, or …?
This week the Song Bar turns into a pop-up store to handle all your musical fixes. Tools, materials, plumbing or wiring, we’ve got it all, and the theme is literal or metaphorical, so please browse and choose …
Read morePlaylists: songs defined or redefined by television
Are you watching? The musical and visual chemistry of Breaking Bad
Sometimes the visual and audible become inextricable. From nostalgia to drama, guest of the week Loud Atlas channels nominations from last week’s TV topic into playlists that are must-sees and required listening
Read moreStation to station: songs and music defined or redefined by television
Charlotte Moorman performing Nam June Paik’s TV Cello, New York, 1971
From themes to incidental music, it’s time to tune in for songs inextricably linked, either because it began life written for a TV programme, or later became indelibly associated with something on the box
Read morePlaylists: songs that energise
Go!: The Go! Team
It’s positive, infectious, subjective yet strangely magical in effect. Spread across the genres and inspired by last week’s topic, ParaMhor brings his superb selection of music that will brighten your day and put a spring in your step
Read moreSheer release: songs that energise
It's highly subjective, but we're throwing out there what songs, or pieces, give you that big physical or mental boost. So, what music puts a pep in your step? What pushes out the puissance, releases the pizzazz, flows the juice, brings vim, vitality, vigour, zest, zing or the zip?
Read morePlaylists: puzzling and mysterious songs
Captain Beefheart … of course
Prepare for a journey into the unknown and deeply strange. Whether in lyrics or musical sound or structure, guest playlister severin leads us through canticular caverns of wonder, inspired by last week’s topic
Read moreWhich piece fits? Puzzling and mysterious songs
Japanese gramophone puzzle
A two-fold topic: first we’re seeking songs that initially produce a mix of incomprehension, wonder, bafflement, bewilderment, mystification, and game-changer amazement, or those about puzzles themselves, jigsaws and other mental and physical solution-solving challenges
Read morePlaylists: songs from or about Japan
Pizzicato Five
Sublime beauty to kick-ass cool, serene traditional to urban punk and pop, Japan’s got the lot. Inspired by last week’s topic and nominations, guest ajostu picks some personal favourites to capture the breadth of this country’s musical treasure trove
Read moreOngaku! Songs from or about Japan
Sleeve of Japrocksampler: How the Post-war Japanese Blew Their Minds on Rock 'n' Roll – by Julian Cope (2007)
It’s a huge market for the industry, inspired by outsider music, and this extraordinary land also delivers much of its own, but what songs captures the essence of Japanese people and culture? Here’s a tiny dish of metaphorical sushi to get your tastebuds tingling ….
Read morePlaylists: songs about underdogs
Underdog under dog
From the financially underprivileged to the militarily outnumbered, sporting longshots to those barred by the race, from last week’s topic suggestions, guest Loud Atlas’ powerful picks show how the apparent minnows can become mighty
Read moreAgainst all odds: songs about underdogs
Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, was complete underdog when he faced Sonny Liston in the shock defeat of 1964
You’ll find them in real life or fiction, history and myth, sport, music, school, prison, books or film, but the arc of the underdog always inspires emotions and makes for a great story. How is it conveyed in song?
Read morePlaylists: songs about chairs and other sitting furniture
On your deck …
Comfort, solitude, danger, voyeurism, power, inspiration, work or versatility? They can mean many things, and inspired by last week's topic, guest DiscoMonster plays marvellous musical chairs that sit across all tastes and styles
Read moreLet's rock: songs about chairs and other sitting furniture
Lounge lizard
We live much of our waking lives in them – working and socialising, swivelling to dining to reclining, sofas and couches, ornate thrones to humble stools, beanbags, pouffes, to the office, barber’s, dentist’s and beyond, but how do they sit up in song?
Read morePlaylists: where album tracks are better than singles versions
Funkadelic: forever expansive
They're almost alway more expansive than the 7-inch versions, and this week guest DiscoMonster chooses albums cuts is simply far more satisfying experience, musically and lyrically, inspired by last week's topic
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