The Charlatans - page one, 1992

"Between 10th and 11th received unfavourable reviews from music critics, many of whom criticized the band, especially Burgess, for being lazy. Burgess' lyrics and the album's artwork also drew negative comments. Retrospective reviews of the album were more favourable, and some called it an underrated release. The album peaked at number 21 in the UK and number 173 on the US Billboard 200. "Weirdo" charted at number 19 in the UK, number 22 in Ireland and number 67 in the Netherlands, while "Tremelo Song" charted at number 44 in the UK."

Steve Hackett - spectral mornings, 1979

"The album finishes with the title track, which began life as a vocal piece. However, after Hackett played the vocal melody to his band on the guitar, Pete Hicks decided that the track sounded "great as it is", telling Hackett to "keep the piece as an instrumental", leading Hackett to joke later on that Hicks talked himself out of a job on the track. It has become his signature instrumental from his solo career. Many progressive rock guitarists, such as Steve Rothery (from Marillion), consider this track to be an inspiration."

Soft Cell - loving you hating me, 1983

“Loving You, Hating Me” was the proposed third UK single from the album The Art of Falling Apart by English synth-pop duo Soft Cell. It was never actually released in the UK and only saw release as a single in the US. The “Special Mix” contained in this US 12″ promo is unique to this release and has not appeared on CD. The duration of this track is printed on the sleeve as 6:59 while the label lists 7:50. The label is correct. “Loving You Hating Me” is a song about the battle of the sexes – a punch up rather than a full blown war! In a January 1983 interview with Soft Cell published in Melody Maker, Marc Almond explained: “Everybody has sadomasochistic tendencies, most people love to be hurt because of the drama and it’s pleasurable hurting somebody else because, afterward, you can feel really sorry for them”.

Vanishing Twin - magician's success, 2019

"Part psych-folk, part whimsical indie, London-based Vanishing Twin’s (comprised of Cathy Lucas, Valentina Magaletti, Elliott Arndt, Phil MFU and Susumu Mukai) “Magician’s Success” is a vintage-tinged tune. The track, from their forthcoming record The Age of Immunology (due 7 June) floats along, filled to its brim with quirky honking sounds, delicate strings, a steady guitar and easy-to-remember lyrics. It’s easygoing but delightfully grown."

Art Garfunkel - scarborough fair live, 2019

"How I've missed performing," says Art after singing the opening verses of 'Scarborough Fair/Canticle'. "It's been over a year now, so I wanna gather with my audiences this fall, and this is my calling card."

Stars - the big fight, 2004

"Glorious, shimmering torch songs for indie geeks is the lot of Stars, a Montreal act who sound as if they know their way around the bonfire of the vanities usually set off by broken-hearted romantics. Boy-girl vocals from Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan articulate everyday tales of desperation, chance encounters and melodramatic kitchen-sink rows (see The Big Fight for more on this)."

Sambassadeur - final say, 2007

"Everything about Sambassadeur's latest album is rich, from Anna Persson’s syrupy vocal tone, to the lush orchestration that garnishes each track. Having taken their name from the carnivalesque Serge Gainsbourg song ‘Les Sambassadeurs’ you expect there to be an abundance of vibrancy and passion on European, the band’s third release; though tempered by doubt and restraint, emotion lies beneath the layers of onion peel in the grey gutter of sadness."

Soft Cell - soul inside, 1984

"I had the huge pleasure of seeing 1980s icons Soft Cell at Hampton Court Palace this week. And what a joy it was. Marc Almond in magnificent voice exuding energy and charisma in abundance, Dave Ball (performing in a wheelchair following his fractured vertebrae last year) in every sense the straight man. From classics like Torch, Bedsitter, Say Hello Wave Goodbye and of course Tainted Love to newer material like Nostalgia Machine and rousing encore Purple Zone, the band soon had its somewhat ageing fan base on their feet and singing along. I thought they were the best band around in the 1980s – and hindsight hasn’t changed my mind. They are retrospectively so underrated it’s a crime."

Old Jerusalem - summer of some odd year, 2007

"A golden bell ornament that archeologists believed belonged to a priest or important leader from the Second Temple period, was found in an ancient drainage channel in ruins next to the Western Wall on Thursday, the Antiquities Authority announced. The small bell, which has a loop for attaching to clothing or jewelry, was found underneath Robinson’s Arch. The area underneath the arch was formerly the central road of Jerusalem, which led from the Shiloah Pools in the City of David to the Old City and the Temple Mount. The excavations were led by the Antiquities Authority and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority and financed by the City of David Foundation, which runs the archeological park across the street. “It seems the bell was sewn on the garment worn by a high official in Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple period (first century CE),” the excavation’s lead archeologists, the Antiquities Authority’s Eli Shukron and Prof. Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa, said in a statement. “The bell was exposed inside Jerusalem’s main drainage channel at that time, among the layers of earth that had accumulated along the bottom of it.”

Etienne Daho - winter blue, 1988

"He was born in Oran (Algeria) in 1956. His childhood was marked by the departure of his father, who abandoned his wife and children, and by the Algerian war, which the family left behind when they settled in Rennes, France. It was music, and rock in particular, with which the teenager once again found an escape. He quickly tired of his studies, and from one odd job to the next, he tried his hand at songwriting, while keeping up with the local rock scene. In a bit of a gamble, he even managed to organize a concert, meeting up with some of his favorite bands, including Marquis de Sade and Elli and Jacno's Stinky Toys. A year later, in 1979, he took to the stage at a festival, overcoming his shyness on stage."

Headlights - get going, 2009

"All of their albums have unforgettable tunes. This one, at the end of their music careers, like too many great unrecognized bands see, is just as great as all their others. Their groove is like no other. Buy all of their albums."

Prefab Sprout - america, 2017

"Like perhaps his closest early contemporary, Green from Scritti Politti, McAloon’s love songs often acknowledged their own impudence in seeking to follow in the footsteps of songwriters such as Jimmy Webb and Stevie Wonder. McAloon sometimes casts himself as a true believer in idealised love who nonetheless remains aware of evidence to the contrary."

Dido - see the sun, 2003

"See the Sun" sees Dido swoop in as saviour for a broken heart, which was described as a "mini-anthem that has all the right items in their proper places."

Saint Etienne - stop and think it over, 2002

"Stop and think it over is a beautiful acoustic glide through a well kept up garden near the city, before returning to fully be captured by the pure catchyness of "Shower scene" which brings the listener's full attention to what St Etienne sounds like when doing dance pop at their best attempt. Beautiful."

Art Garfunkel - the sound of silence, 1993

"Up ’til Now is a compilation album by Art Garfunkel. The album is a mixture of three previously released solo tracks, seven new songs, and two alternate takes of previously released songs."

Boney M - rivers of babylon cover, 1978

"Rivers of Babylon" is a Rastafari song written and recorded by Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of the Jamaican reggae group The Melodians in 1970. The lyrics are adapted from the texts of Psalms 19 and 137 in the Hebrew Bible. The Melodians' original version of the song appeared on the soundtrack album for the 1972 movie The Harder They Come, which made it internationally known. The song was re-popularized in Europe by the 1978 Boney M. cover version, which was awarded a platinum disc and is one of the top-ten, all-time best-selling singles in the UK. The B-side of the single, "Brown Girl in the Ring", also became a hit."

The Moody Blues - watching and waiting, 1969

"I think To Our Children’s Children’s Children [1969] is the one Moodies album that didn't come across on the radio. It didn't jump; it was soft, it was quiet. Everybody was so delicate with it and handling it with kid gloves. The way it was mastered was quiet, and the way it was transferred to disc was delicate. In the end, it ended up getting a little lost. "Watching and Waiting" — when we heard that song in its studio beauty, we thought, "This is it! All of those people who had been saying to us for the past 3 or 4 years, "You'll probably just do another Nights in White Satin with it" — no! We had shivers up the spine, and that kind of stuff. But when it came out and you heard it on the radio, you kept saying, "Turn it up! Turn it up!! Oh no, it's not going to make it." So it didn’t happen."

The Walkmen - angela surf city, 2010

"Angela Surf City" is sardonic, sad-eyed, and loud all at once - because, you know, it's the Walkmen."

The Jesus And Mary Chain - jamcod, 2023

“Our creative approach is remarkably the same as it was in 1984, just hit the studio and see what happens. We went in with a bunch of songs and let it take its course. There are no rules, you just do whatever it takes. And there’s a telepathy there – we are those weird not-quite twins that finish each other’s sentences.”

Stars - real thing, 2017

"Canadian indie-pop veterans Stars are throwing their hat into the ring for 2017 — this year of Canadian comebacks — and today they’ve shared another track from their forthcoming new album, There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light. They’ve already shared a few tracks from it — “Privilege,” “We Called It Love,” and “Fluorescent Light” — and today they’ve unveiled the album’s tracklist and a release date (10/13) alongside a big-sounding new song called “Real Thing.”

Keane - crystal ball, 2006

"Crystal Ball" is a song performed and composed by English rock band Keane, featured on their second studio album, Under the Iron Sea (2006). The song was released on 21 August 2006 as the third single from the album. "Crystal Ball" peaked at number 20 on both the Dutch Singles Chart and the UK Singles Chart."

Sea Shapes - chronically online, 2023

"New York’s Sea Shapes are a new name on my listening horizon. It’s a one man project and the previous releases have been influenced heavily by post-punk and shoegaze."

Fun - out on the town, 2012

"Ruess recalls that he was listening to "so much hip-hop" during the production that it became a big influence for him, specifically Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The band felt inspired and gradually began working on new songs, each carrying an obvious hip-hop influence. Consciously, the band began working in the hip-hop factor and realized they wanted a hip-hop producer."

The House Of Love - yer eyes, 2009

"it’s always worth noting the original presence of Andrea Heukamp on the early House of Love singles. Though she was gone by the time of the album debut, having left on good terms due to tiring of touring – a decision bandleader Guy Chadwick freely admitted later was a deep blow, and perhaps the root of the band’s slow but sure mutation over the following years – there’s little in the way of lads-all-together sentiments on those songs and on the full debut; more a considered, still questioning approach to what it is to be a man, exactly."

Marillion - childhood's end, 1985

"I was in 'Padres Bay' when suddenly I felt a child standing behind me on the stairs. I knew he was dressed as a soldier and vanished as soon as he entered the corner of my eye. Perhaps it was my muse; perhaps it was the drug. It was enough to propel me into reaming off a large scrawl of prose."

Enya - only time, 2000

"Only Time" is a song by Irish musician Enya. It was released on 6 November 2000 as the lead single from her fifth studio album, A Day Without Rain (2000). The song reached number one in Canada, Germany, Poland and Switzerland, number two in Austria, and became Enya's only top-10 single as a solo artist in the United States, peaking at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. It became an anthem for the victims of the September 11th attacks, with Enya donating to a fund for the victims' families."

Genesis - window, 1969

"The song opens with a piano riff that creates a lot of excitement and anticipation, but don’t get fooled. That riff disappears abruptly after twenty seconds, never to return. Instead, we get Peter singing a lovely little melody with understated horns spelling a very pretty guitar sound from Ant, and strings"

Pet Shop Boys - left to my own devices album version, 1988

"'Left to My Own Devices' was an experiment in seeing how mundane a pop song could be, before setting it against extravagant music."

Of Monsters And Men - sloom, 2011

"It’s about a six-hour flight from the East Coast of the United States to Reykjavík, Iceland, the hometown of up and coming sextet Of Monsters and Men. And the band’s debut album is like that moment during such a transatlantic flight where travelers realize that the journey is just a little bit too long, but ultimately worthwhile."

Sérgio Godinho - o primeiro dia, 1978

"His last albums in the 1970s are Pano-Cru, from 1978, and Campolide, from 1979. In these albums, Godinho starts a transition to less politically-charged lyrics and singing more about everyday life."

Art Garfunkel - bright eyes, 1979

"Bright Eyes" is a song written by British songwriter Mike Batt and performed by Art Garfunkel. It was written for the soundtrack of the 1978 British animated adventure drama film Watership Down. The accompaniment was re-orchestrated for the film from its original form as a pop song. The original pop track appears on British and European versions of Garfunkel's 1979 Fate for Breakfast and on the US versions of his 1981 album Scissors Cut. "Bright Eyes" topped the UK Singles Chart for six weeks and became Britain's biggest-selling single of 1979, selling over a million copies. Richard Adams, author of the original novel, is reported to have hated the song."

The Radio Dept - this past week live, 2007

"There’s been fights and threats regarding contracts. They’ve cancelled more interviews than all the other bands I’ve worked with altogether. They are unworldly time optimists (they can miss a deadline by three years). They’ve demanded – and received – so much advances that we haven’t been able to pay our bills. I’ve had to bribe them with drugs to persuade them to talk to selected parts of the press. They’ve been soundly pissed off when a colour of their artwork didn’t turn out exactly the shade they intended … the story goes on.”

 Such a great song!

 

Saint Etienne - join our club nineteen ninety-two release, 1992

"Join Our Club" is a song by English musical group Saint Etienne, released by Heavenly Records in May 1992 as a double-A side with "People Get Real". Saint Etienne wrote the song after the label refused to release "People Get Real" as a single. The band deliberately tried to write the most commercial song they could, and it ultimately reached number 21 in the UK Top 40. The lyric alludes to a number of other songs, some recent hits at the time it was written (e.g. "Smells Like Teen Spirit", “Justified and Ancient,” “We Got a Love Thang”), others older favourites of the group (including Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing" - coincidentally, a hit cover version for Incognito the following month - and The Lovin' Spoonful's "Do You Believe in Magic", which like "Join Our Club" itself is a celebration of the pleasure of listening to music, and whose title is used as a recurring hook). In the UK, it was a between-album single, released between Foxbase Alpha and So Tough. "Join Our Club" appeared on the US version of So Tough (the announcer’s intro mention the “Chicken Soup Mix” with a chuckle), while "People Get Real" appeared on the US release of Foxbase Alpha. Both later were included on You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone, a b-side collection in the UK."

Anna Meredith - ribbons, 2019

“If the sweet, drifting “Ribbons” and wide-eyed finale “Unfurl” feel underwhelming, that’s probably relative to the album’s more daring soundworlds. FIBS highlights Meredith as a much-needed creative force. Her shape-shifting genre-defiance constantly surprises and intrigues, but it’s good to get back down to Earth afterwards”.

Cat Stevens – morning has broken cover live, 2022

The hymn originally appeared in the second edition of Songs of Praise (published in 1931), to the tune "Bunessan", composed in the Scottish Islands. In Songs of Praise Discussed, the editor, Percy Dearmer, explains that as there was need for a hymn to give thanks for each day, English poet and children's author Eleanor Farjeon had been "asked to make a poem to fit the lovely Scottish tune." Farjeon later included a slight variation on the original hymn text under the new title, "A Morning Song (For the First Day of Spring)", in her collection of poems for children entitled The Children's Bells, published by Oxford University Press in 1957."

Beirut - mount wroclai idle days, 2006

"Twenty-year-old Zach Condon's war-torn alias is just the start of his obsession with conflict. The title of his debut album evokes Stalin's notorious labour camps and he's found inspiration in the battle-scarred spirit of the Balkans. Yet his music is a sublime mix of optimism and resignation. Mandolin, ukelele, horns and simmering percussion conjure up mournful celebrations; violins strike the tangled melee like shards of lightning."

The Cranberries - twenty one, 1994

“Twenty One was written on September 6th 1992” (Dolores’ 21st birthday)"

Micheál And Eilish - mná na héireann cover, 1990

"Mná na hÉireann" (English: Women of Ireland) is a poem written by Irish poet Peadar Ó Doirnín (1700–1769), most famous as a song, and especially since set to an air composed by Seán Ó Riada (1931–1971). Peadar Ó Doirnín lived in Forkhill in south Armagh, Ireland and is buried in Urnaí graveyard nearby in County Louth. He is best known for his song 'Úrchnoc Chéin Mhic Cáinte'. It was the editor of an anthology of his poems (1969), Dr. Breandan Ó Buachalla who gave the lyrics its title 'Mná na hÉireann'."

Noah And The Whale - jocasta, 2008

"This album is absolutely perfect if, like many University students, you often find yourself at registers on Friday nights contemplating the meaning of love in the context of an uncertain life with death around every corner. Or maybe you’re just going through a bad breakup, or you’re in love with an uninterested best friend. Either way, Fink’s lyrics packs a powerful emotional and philosophical punch. It’s not for the light of heart, as shown through songs like “Jocasta.” For those of you that don’t know Greek mythology, she’s the mother of Oedipus. For those of you that still don’t understand, ask a psychology major and get prepared for a really uncomfortable conversation."

My Morning Jacket - the way that he sings, 2001

"I love the song and the sentiment. And as great as Jim's voice is, the last minute of the song when they're all just jamming is just incredible.... chills inducing.....I always hope they extend that outro when I heard it live. It's just too short."

Azure Ray - other than this world, 2002

"Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink have always had the unique ability to transform tragedy into transcendent, healing music. Azure Ray, their main creative outlet since 1999, began as a response to the horrific death of Taylor’s boyfriend, Peter Smith. For many musicians the gravity of this kind of trauma would be inescapable but Taylor and Fink managed to face it head on then build a fascinating, sonically adventurous body of work that has subtly reformatted part of the singer/songwriter landscape."

Art Garfunkel - so much in love cover, 1988

"So Much in Love" is a song written by George Williams, Billy Jackson, and Roy Straigis (initially under the name John Joseph). It was originally performed by Williams's American soul vocal group the Tymes and was released in the summer of 1963 on Cameo Parkway Records, which produced many pre-Beatles hits of the 1960s such as The Twist. It quickly became The Tymes' first hit single, topping the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on August 3, 1963, and remaining there for one week, as well as peaking at No. 4 on the Hot R&B Singles chart."

Mike Oldfield - blues, 2003

"Tubular Bells III is the eighteenth studio album by English guitarist, songwriter, and producer Mike Oldfield. It was released on 31 August 1998 by Warner Music UK as the third instalment in his Tubular Bells album series. After relocating from England to the Spanish island of Ibiza in 1996, Oldfield started work on the album and gained inspiration to incorporate electronic music from the island's local bars and clubs."

The Radio Dept - lean back lean forward, 2003

"Lean Back, Lean Forward", Album Mjuk I Mössan, Compilation released by Swedish label, Absurd Records."

The Moody Blues - legend of a mind, 1968

"The song's lyrics are about 1960s LSD icon Timothy Leary. Leary was an advocate for the use of the drug, enjoying its spiritual benefits, with one of his catchphrases being "Turn on, tune in, drop out." A re-recorded version of the song, with different lyrics, "Legend of a Mind (Timothy Leary Lives)" appears on the 1996 album Beyond Life With Timothy Leary. The song is perhaps best known for its opening lines: "Timothy Leary's dead / No, n-n-no he's outside looking in", which allude to Leary's use of eastern mysticism (most notably The Tibetan Book of the Dead) to frame the psychedelic experience."