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Promising everything: Them featuring the young Van Morrison
Is everything awesome or is it awful, or the full works in between? There’s a whole spectrum of ideas and feelings about ‘everything’ expressed in song, and from last week’s topic guest playlister Noodsy very neatly picks great numbers to capture the big picture
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Hot-dog! Fingers ‘n’ everything …
This week, from a previous idea of nothing, we go to ‘everything’ not literally, but the idea of it, from big promises of love, all-encompassing importance, the the whole shebang, totality, the full caboodle, enchilada, the big ball of wax, all within the prism of song
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Got a gut feeling for what will come up in the latest lists?
Hungry to fill your musical belly with music? Need to digest, and relieve pain? After readers spilled their music guts in response to last week’s topic, guest song doctor Marco Den Ouden explores and prescribes a full menu of tasteful and entertaining ingredients
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Belly up? Billie Eilish contemplates some big ones in her video for Bad Guy
It’s our second ‘brain’ a part of the body that rules us more than we think. Whether in literal or metaphorical lyrics, it’s time to pull in or push out, in the form of song suggestions. Inspired by gut feelings, intestines, belly buttons and cultural and scientific inspiration here …
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Assimilation complete: Kraftwerk
You put in the data and ideas, but what came out? Choosing from many highly non-artificial acts of the intelligence and imagination, guest Loud Atlas used his sharp human instincts create excellent playlists and see what an AI chatbot thought of them.
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From Salvador Dalí’s The Seven Lively Arts: The Art of the Concert
Trip up, or down? Hallucinogens, amphetamines, barbiturates and more, it’s time to feel stimulated and inspired by a big creative subject in the world of music, with songs about and expressing the ups and downs and experience of taking illicit, recreational drugs
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Look back in Angus …
Knob gags and pranks to child savants, this week it’s about not growing up, the pros and cons that entails, from annoying, destructive self-centredness to touching naivety, lack of experience but also hunger to discover, playful creativity. Plenty of examples to inspire, but how is this expressed in song?
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What a woman: Lynda Lyndell
A huge topic and response to last week’ post uncovered many treasures in their original form. From soul to ska, pop, rock and more, guest playlister Barbryn presents a superb selection going back to the roots of numbers with fascinating stories and research
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Not lesser known, but definitely a revealing and true original …
This week it’s time to dig deep for those original songs overshadowed by hit or well-known covers. We can also include remixes and other reworkings, as well as lesser known songs so heavily sampled they make a prominent core more famous version
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Ars Poetica: Lizzo and friends strike an artistic pose
High art to big bum beauty, it’s time to fling off those garments and let it all hang out as guest playlister Tatanka Yotanka goes au naturel with a double dozen pair of playlists inspired by last week’s nominations that brilliantly buff
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It’s a cover-up. Australian Michael O’Brien goes for a famous bet on exposure at Twickenham in 1974. Strangely Christ-like?
Ancient art to modern exposure, Emperor’s New Clothes to strippers, streakers and various performers, exposed souls in songwriting, what is the different between naked and nude, and how does it express itself in song? All revealed here and more
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Oh brother, will this playlist take off? High flyers Orville and Wilbur Wright face the music
Biblical brothers to medieval lovers, abandoned siblings to fictional detectives, inspired by last week’s topic, this week we get double the fun as guest playlister Uncleben brilliantly flies through time to interview notable pairs about their lives and attributed songs
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Playing it straight? It’s all about timing with Laurel and Hardy in Saps At Sea (1940)
What’s their chemistry? Creative or romantic, adventurous or anarchic, real or fictional, who gets a prominent lyrical or titular appearance in a song, ideally where they are the primary focus rather just a passing mention?
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David Bradley in Kes (1969)
It’s time to swoop down and grasp for songs related to these birds of prey, and the emotional and physical impact their generate, from hawks, eagles, falcons, kestrels, kites, ospreys, buzzards, harriers and more, as well as the scavengers – vultures, sea eagles and condors
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Seeking some special rhythm? How about with help from Omara Portuondo?
Jamaica to Japan, inner city London to the American south, Cuba to Scotland and Ireland, this week’s playlists cover all sorts of searches from love to spiritual and material quests, and turn into a treasure trove of finds put together by guest of the week ajostu
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Search engines … Monty Python and The Holy Grail. The low-budget classic film was variously funded by among others, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, Charisma Records, and possibly Elton John
Love, food, shelter, identity, meaning? Rare vinyl? Most of our existence is about searching for something, but in what ways is this expressed in song lyrics? Here’s some other forms of inspiration and, after all, what is the true holy grail?
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It’s an open road for songs and music that capture the experience of driving and the journey …
This is not so much songs about roads and cars, instead those that best accompany the journey, shows not tells, enhances the sensations and capture that strangely magical movement of human and vehicle through a landscape. Enjoy here some road movies for inspiration …
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What goes around …
The end has to come, but how, in an outro or coda, does a song or piece offer something different, original, unusual or memorable, musically or even lyrical form, a twist, a mood change, upbeat, downbeat or even a sense of unresolved mystery?
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Getting into the swing of it: Trapeze artists, 1890
Roll up! Roll up! This week we’re going under the big top and looking to capture the excitement, the artistry, the adventure, tragedy and also cruelty of circus culture. For audience or performers, it’s all about the show, in music and lyrics
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Shadowplay: from the video for Come, by French singer-songwriter Jain
Visual, auditory, via media, rumour, or any other distortion of perceptions, from personal experience to the political, this week we search for songs about the interplay of the senses and idea of illusions as a primary focus
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