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Roy would …
This week’s topic takes a particular accent towards music inspired by the great British West Midlands city and its surrounding area, a rich cultural mix of ethnicities and styles, industrial history, upheaval and humour
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Where will lightning strike in this week’s playlists?
Ancient lightning gods and rods to pioneers of current, this week’s bright spark EnglishOutlaw connects nature, history and scientific experiment into musical form with playlists inspired by last week’s electrifying topic
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Bright sparks ArcAttack make the Tesla connection
Capacitance, or resistance? This week on the circuit it’s time for bright sparks to plug in and make lyrical connections with songs that refer to electricity in all literal or metaphorical forms, from famous inventors to natural forces
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Over the moon with Smashing Pumpkins
What a production! Cartoons to big-screen movie references, emotional stories, quirky comedies and extraordinary dancing, from a massive choice, this week’s guest Marco den Ouden chooses two perfectly eye-popping playlists
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What will be your weapon of choice this week?
Music and film are often intertwined commercially, but where does a video become an artform to the level that the visual elements enhance, complement and become symbiotic with the song? Let the action commence …
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Dare to be different. Mitski
Embarking on adventures into the avant-garde, hip-hop, jazz and more, crossing continents and skimming multiple styles from waves of nominations, this week’s guest Nilpferd creates playlists enduringly indefinable
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Genres? What are they?
This week let’s push the envelope and dig out often lesser known artists and works that wriggle away from definition, those who or mix sub-genres and styles with such originality it’s hard to place them. But can you still define them?
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Spellbinding: Koko Taylor
What’s been brewing in the musical cauldron this week? Making the magic happen from a huge casting of spells and songs from readers is guest playlister George Boyland, who conjures up two miraculous selections
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Sorceress Siouxsie Sioux
Good, bad, beautiful or ugly, purveyors of black or white magic, and the effect they have on others, from witch-finders to fans, this week we explore the culture of witchery, but which way, and what magic will this conjure up in songs?
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Hip priestess? Shakira video
Shoulders to toes, hips to knees, this week’s playlists, picked by our flexibly skilful guest Noodsy from last week’s topic connect up through all the styles and genres, from Shakira to Sparklehorse, The Beat to The Beach Boys …
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Join us … the joint is jumpin’
… as well as knuckles, ankles, shoulders and any other key bendy and swivelling bits of the body, human or otherwise. It's all about making connections, and freedom of movement …
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The striking ex-Welsh miner Adrian Street. But what song has he wrestled into total submission?
Worst week ever? Just how low can we go? This week’s counterintuitive topic brought hundreds of highly entertaining gems, out of which the wonderfully mischievous guest playlister Olive Butler created two terrifically torturous lists
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Do your wurst: What could go horribly right? The Producers (1967) starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel
The brilliantly bad to the awesomely atrocious, whether in sound or lyrics, this week it's time to stretch the realms of musical and lyrical taste into the outer regions, and boldly go where we've never been before
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Timeless melodies: a page from the Antikamnia Chemical Company’s Skeleton Calendar for 1901
When does The Fall come, is it in autumn or spring? And what and when might Brian Eno or Vashti Bunyan bring? All this and more as this week’s playlister Rachel Courtney aka uneasy listening gets creative with musical calendars
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What comes around …
This week we seek to search out and reclaim meanings for the months of the year, largely through the Gregorian calendar of the big 12 from January to December, whether that be by mood, setting, or different associations
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Rokia Traoré … dancing with a constant companion Mélancolie
The Bar is delighted. Places, emotions, elements, the weather and even music itself take human traits as this week’s guru Uncleben is excellence personified, guiding through two exhaustive and illuminating playlists on this topic
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Faces in rock: Samples from Japan’s famous Rock Museum
Rock face? This week we explore lyrics that attribute human characteristics to objects, concepts, natural forces and many other non-human things. Enjoy a few famous, inspiring examples in songs, poetry, literature and photography
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Ernest Hemingway wrote, on his final day: ‘The sun also sets’
It’s an important, topical theme, and has fuelled many songs, but has addressing it also saved lives? This week, from reasons to method, even with some dark humour, through music and more, we examine at this very serious issue
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Which will make the album?
Photography isn’t always happy holiday snaps and selfies. This week’s musical cameraman, EnglishOutlaw, creates two albums of perceptive, sensitive, thought-provoking songs, with a tale of love portraits that develop unexpectedly
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Help! A knockout moment from Muhammed Ali and the Beatles in 1964
Every picture tells a story, but this time let’s do it with songs inspired by, or about photographs or photography, and to help inspire here’s a selection of rare and usual shots to provoke memory, imagination, mystery and wonder
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