Slowdive - star roving live, 2017

"In “Star Roving,” they have the luxury of being able to pick and choose from their own ghosts, and summon them into the present. The song bears the hallmarks of their more rugged work, but the streaks of noise and layers of out-of-reach-murmurs is sensitive to their later experimentation. This allows Slowdive to bask in the benefit of all their hindsight. Their recorded return not only follows a younger generation of shoegaze-indebted bands, but also comebacks from their peers: My Bloody Valentine, Ride, and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Slowdive, by distilling elements of their prior selves in a way that recalls without recycling, have stayed true to incandescent form."

The Cure - just like heaven, 1987

"According to Smith, "The song is about hyperventilating—kissing and fainting to the floor." The lyrics were inspired by a trip with his then-girlfriend (and later wife) Mary Poole to Beachy Head in southern England. Smith said the opening line of the song ("Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick") refers to his childhood memories of mastering magic tricks, but added "on another [level], it's about a seduction trick, from much later in my life".

Pink Floyd - fearless, 1971

"Fearless" is the third track on the 1971 album Meddle by Pink Floyd. It is a slow acoustic guitar-driven song written by Roger Waters and David Gilmour, and includes audio of football fans singing "You'll Never Walk Alone". It was also released as the B-side of the single along with "One of These Days", and was praised by critics as one of the better songs from Meddle."

Death Cab For Cutie - summer years, 2018

"This song has an amazing blend of elements that have been introduced into their songs in the past decade. There is this ambience to the song that is always there providing background noise. Also, there is the use of synths in the song which I think work very very well. At the end of the song once the guitar with effects, bass, drum, vocals, and synth are playing it's almost perfect."

Sea Power - waving flags, 2008

"Waving Flags is a celebration of unity and human kindness against all opposing forces and since these themes are as important today as they’ve been back in 2008 (maybe even more, actually) it’s fair to revisit this BRITISH SEA POWER classic today in the words of the band’s Yan Scott Wilkinson."

The Blue Nile - tinseltown in the rain, 1984

"Tinseltown is a metaphor. It’s whatever your dream is, whatever your Tinseltown was, whatever you lost. And I think in our minds what was interesting to us was the kind of universal nature of cities… Glasgow’s obviously not the same scale as New York, but if you just shrunk it down to a corner, it could be. It could be anywhere."

Allo Darlin - the letter live, 2012

"the best new group in recent years from a pop tradition that attempts to counter what its members might perceive as the market-corroded fantasy of corporate pop and the detached insularity of many underground records. Led by Australian-born Elizabeth Morris, who previously played with ex-Talulah Gosh frontwoman Amelia Fletcher in Tender Trap, the London foursome established themselves as worthy heirs to Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura, and the Sarah Records roster with their 2010 self-titled debut, all hummable melodies, clap-along rhythms, and poignantly turned phrases. Europe maintains these qualities and improves upon its predecessor in almost every way."

Fleet Foxes - grown ocean, 2011

"Dreams are encrypted deposits from which we mine our own value. We dig and dig and dig within ourselves to find who we truly are, but Robin realizes that his child self is the purest form that he will ever be in. Free of doubt, free of regret, free of self-loathing. He finally understands that you don’t necessarily get wiser as you get older, your vision becomes clouded with the world’s poison. The reason we have to dig so deep for our purpose as we age is because we’re so bloated with bullshit that we feel like we have to dig for miles before we see any true meaning in ourselves. For me, the closing statement of the album is this: children aren’t dumb and ignorant, they’re actually smarter than the rest of us."

The Style Council - shout to the top, 1988

"The country is sliding swiftly from crisis to chaos... the politics of Britain will be frozen in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation between contestants unable to break each other's will." And it was this month that Shout To The Top was released by The Style Council. Although musically it was miles away from The Jam, its lyrics were not. It was an angry shout about the state of the country, the pervasive feeling of despair and a longing to see change at the top of power; a rallying cry from and for the Left."

Johnny Marr - new town velocity, 2013

"the story of a disaffected youth who leaves school to get a head start on life."

The Smith Street Band - young drunk, 2012

"Taken from their 2012 album Sunshine & Technology, Young Drunk is a vivid, bitterly romantic and nostalgic ode to that bright and brilliant moment between youth and old age, when your ill-fitting suburban teens are receding in the glow of a shitty, funny, chaotic and not-quite-adult share house existence. His lyrics are full of piss and joy, and pictures so clear they seem painted on the air in front of you. Good stuff."

Neil Young - peace trail, 2016

"an album that feels refreshingly unlabored and current. On two tracks, Young even adopts an Auto-Tune vocal effect (maybe something he picked up from jamming with D.R.A.M.?). On Earth, the bizarro live album he released earlier this year, the effect was used as a commentary on inorganic food; on Peace Trail, it’s no joke. In the nearly-spoken-word “My Pledge,” Young’s Auto-Tuned harmonies aid the inscrutable narrative (which seems to connect the voyage of the Mayflower with our attraction to iPhones and maybe also the death of Jimi Hendrix?) with a disorienting layered effect."

Belle And Sebastian - winter wooskie live, 1999

"I read that “wooskie” means to set yourself (or someone else) up for embarrassment, which makes some sense given the song’s lyrics. The lonely protagonist imagines himself in love with a woman he sees walking through the snow, and he videotapes her through his window."

Slowdive - no longer making time live, 2017

"a sequel to Alison. Alison is a bit about going on after a split. And No Longer Making Time is about coming back from a split. And in that way it's about the bittersweetness of reforming the band. At the crux of greatness, Slowdive, and relationships in the band, started falling apart. And all the years later they find their way back together, before the time ran out to reunite."

The New Pornographers - high ticket attractions live, 2017

"I was writing the lyrics, and it started moving in that way. When I start writing, a lot of it is stream of consciousness and you can’t avoid what’s on your mind. I didn’t even know it was a political-leaning song until I’d finished it, and then I realized, this was all about the anxiety of living in America right now. Even if [Trump] didn’t win, it felt like all of these racists were coming out of the woodwork. It felt like he emboldened a lot of people. That would have been a problem even if he’d lost, but now it’s far worse."

Friendly Fires - paris aeroplane remix, 2008

"That’s Au Revoir Simone doing the vocals there. Pretty sweet song wouldn’t you agree? Many differences between this and the originally, the most notable being the tempo. Both versions will make you move, but in different ways and speeds. I’ll think of it as slow exit music while trying to get out of this damn office."

Bruce Springsteen - no surrender live, 2013

“[No Surrender] was a song I was uncomfortable with. You don’t hold out and triumph all the time in life. You compromise, you suffer defeat, you slip into life’s gray areas. But Steve [Van Zandt] talked me into putting the song on the album in the eleventh hour. He argued that the portrait of friendship and the song’s expression of the inspirational power of rock music was an important part of the picture. I don’t know if he was right or not, but it went on.”

The Triffids - fairytale love, 1989

"As cousins of The The and Lloyd Cole's sweepingly dramatic, lyrical, 1980s indie-rock, the Triffids are placed neatly between Orange Juice's shorts'n'sandals romanticism and pin-sharp 2008 indie-pop such as the Elephants. But they're also capable of producing some wonderfully strange music. Good Fortune Rose has a beautiful vocal from the band's keyboard player, Jill Burt; a rather charming banjo part; New Order melodies; and Run-DMC kick-drums - a sadly rare occurrence in pop. Fairytale Love invents Tindersticks, and The Spinning Top Song throbs like Yello. Falling Over You even features a rap. In 1989, it seems, anything was possible."

Lush - for love, 1992

"Lush were an English rock band formed in London in 1987. The original line-up consisted of Miki Berenyi (vocals, guitar), Emma Anderson (vocals, guitar), Steve Rippon (bass guitar) and Chris Acland (drums). Phil King replaced Rippon in 1991. They were one of the first bands to have been described with the "shoegazing" label. Following the death of Acland, the group disbanded in 1996."

Car Seat Headrest - not what i needed, 2016

“I knew the flavor I wanted the album to be: a rock-homage record, something young and angsty. I’d work on one song, set it aside, and keep an open mind, because so many of the leads ended up going nowhere.”

Marissa Nadler - nineteen twenty-three, 2014

"July is moon music, quiet music, slurp-merlot-in-the-fetal-position music, a slow-burning tapestry of goth-folk torch songs and woozy-pop incantations about love and loss and memory, whispered by the same spirits as Julee Cruise's airy Twin Peaks vocals".

REM - drive, 1992

"It's a subtle, political thing. Michael specifically mentions the term 'bush-whacked'. But if you want to take it like 'Stand', that's cool, too. You like to think that you can appreciate these songs on any level you want to. I have a lot of records I listen to when I'm just doing the dishes. Like Ride records. I really like Ride a lot. And I have no idea what the songs are about. And I really don't care. I don't even worry about it. Lyrics are the last thing I listen to, unless someone is hitting me over the head with it."

The National - mistaken for strangers, 2007

"the magic “Mistaken For Strangers”, a standout cut that takes the shimmering guitars and circular drums of U2 and reworks their optimistic bombast into a boozy, lonely lament to the ‘unmagnificent lives of adults’. ‘You wouldn’t want an angel watching over you’, sings Berninger, in the song’s most affecting ine, ‘Surprise, surprise - they wouldn’t want to watch’"

Del Amitri - nothing ever happens, 1989

"After a perilous period attempting to record ‘Waking Hours’ in London and L.A., leaving the band frustrated and disillusioned, producer Hugh Jones set the project back on track with the recording of ‘Nothing Ever Happens’, ‘Empty’ and ‘You’re Gone’ at studios in Chipping Norton. Engineer Mark Freegard took over production and recorded ‘Opposite View’, ‘Kiss This Thing Goodbye’ and ‘Stone Cold Sober’ with the band in a Milton Keynes studio."

Beirut - vagabond, 2011

"The track opens with jaunty piano as if he were channeling Elton John or Ben Folds in a tribute to pop music. Twin trumpets pick up the theme and bolster it with a robust confidence as if revisiting adolescence has filled Condon with a renewed swagger. But when his vocal finally enters after the 37-second intro, it’s anything but self-assured. “Left a bag of bones, a trail of stones for to find my way home,” the rootless traveler laments, later adding, “I am lost and not found.” Both the trumpet melody and the vocal melody bear the composer’s stamp, “something personal,” but they create very different emotional effects, as if reflecting an internal dialogue between optimism and doubt. “It’s almost as if the trumpet is the character I want to be, and the voice is the character I am,” Condon confesses. “The vocal is like the shy kid at the party who wants to be the center of attention; you can try to do something about it but that something is not really who you are.”

James - sometimes, 1993

"Sometimes (Lester Piggott)" is the most rock-centric track on the album with its fast-paced acoustic strumming. The "Lester Piggott" part is inspired by the jockey of the same name, which Booth said was "because it has a racing beat". During recording, Eno "went white and sat down" as Booth sang, later stating he had "just experienced one of the highlights of my musical life".

Billy Bragg And Michael Stipe - my youngest son came home today, 1991

"the song does not take sides in the conflict; it does not mention whether the title character is a nationalist or loyalist. However, the song has been adopted by Nationalists and is now associated with Irish Republicanism. When Billy Bragg covered the song, he changed the line "dreams of freedom unfulfilled" (which echoes the language of Nationalists) to "dreams of glory unfulfilled". Memorable gigs can be recalled by fellow artists such as Fran Malone who played with Eric in An Rinn in the 1990s."

Elbow - the take off and landing of everything, 2014

"Certainly, Elbow's sixth album sounds like the work of a band who've realised a mass audience loves them not for the big hit, but for what they really are, however improbable that seems: the stages trod by Rihanna and Coldplay and Michael Bublé are not really supposed to ring to the sound of a resolutely unglamorous prog-influenced band who seem to have taken as their musical starting point the gauzy textures and soulfully bruised but resolutely English vocals of Genesis's 1974 track The Carpet Crawlers. Unlike 2011's Build a Rocket Boys!, it offers no obvious attempt to recreate One Day Like This's rather atypical anthemics."

Alex G - bobby, 2017

"Alex G (aka the Philadelphia musician born Alex Giannascoli) has said that Lucinda Williams is one of his favorite songwriters. His affinity for her simple, honest songs shines through in his art: Even though he traffics in harsh noise and vintage rock, his best work is often understated. He channels that sparseness in his new single, “Bobby,” a loping piece of mud-caked Americana—his most explicitly country-leaning song to date."

The Beatles - i'll get you, 1963

"The Beatles recorded ‘I’ll Get You’ on 1 July 1963, after they’d finished taping ‘She Loves You’. It originally had the working title ‘Get You In The End’. Details no longer exist of the number of takes required to complete the song, as EMI’s documentation was somewhat haphazard at the time. However, the stumbling over the vocals in the middle eight – Lennon sings “I’m gonna make you mine”, instead of the correct “gonna change your mind” – suggest that the group dashed it off quickly. After taping the rhythm track John Lennon overdubbed his harmonica part, and the rest of The Beatles contributed handclaps."

Bonnie Prince Billy - horses, 1997

"An homage to truckers (but not in the way Mark E. Smith would have done it), Horses isn’t my favourite Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy song, but it’s as good a place as any to start."

Nada Surf - inside of love, 2002

"‘Inside Of Love’ seems to have really connected with people. I’ve been told many times by couples that it was their wedding song. This makes me feel 1. very warm inside and 2. useful!"

Belle And Sebastian - o come o come emmanuel, 2000

"‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’ was originally written in Latin with a title of ‘Veni, Veni, Emmanuel’ (documents featuring the title and words date back to 1710). The English translation of the Christmas carol came about in 1851 when priest and scholar John Mason Neale’s version featured in the pages of The Hymnal Noted – a key text in the history of hymns collected by hymnal documenter Thomas Helmore."