Ride - clouds of saint marie, 2019

"More than any of the other new Ride songs, “Clouds Of Saint Marie” shoots for straight-up effervescence. It’s got a chiming, almost Byrds-ian guitar riff, a lead vocal that sounds like a sigh, and a central melody that’s triumphant and wistful in equal measures. It’s a song that seems custom-built for festivals, or for sunny afternoons."

Clouds of Saint Marie I see Clouds of Saint Marie She's over me A memory A remedy A melody Clouds of Saint Marie Make me feel Clouds of Saint Marie Nothing's real (deleted) A memory (is needed) A remedy (repeated) A melody She reigns over me

In Tall Buildings - curtain, 2018

"In Tall Buildings, the music project of Erik Hall is about to release his newest album Akinetic"

Spain - spiritual live, 2012

"Well singing and performing can be two different things. On stage there’s a level of adrenaline that just isn’t there in the studio. Also I’ve learned over the years there’s a obligation to be entertaining that isn’t so immediate in the studio."

The Moody Blues - to share our love, 1969

"On the Threshold of a Dream is the fourth album by The Moody Blues, released in April 1969 on the Deram label. The album reached the top of the album charts, the group's first No. 1 album in the UK. According to guitarist Justin Hayward, "I think Threshold is the defining album for the Moody Blues. And it's the one in the '60's that you would find in people's homes when you went, they would have that album."

Billy Bragg - the red flag, 2006

"Singing songs won’t change the world, no matter how much we might want it to. Music can bring us together in common cause, engage and inspire us, focus our anger, and raise funds and awareness, but ultimately the only people with the ability to bring about real change are in the audience, not on stage. Tomorrow, the singer will be gone, bringing his or her music to another town, but those who were in the audience will still be there."

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - forever live and die, 1986

"it "achieves [the Beatles'] Magical Mystery Tour spirit with '80s tech"

Nada Surf - cold to see clear, 2016

"Since 1992, Caws has fronted the indie/alt-rock band Nada Surf, which similarly saw the height of its commercial success in the ’90s. Their peak came with the single ‘Popular,’ which hit No. 11. Though the band hasn’t had a single chart in the U.S. since then, they’ve found a diehard, adoring indie fan base and received critical acclaim for their string of early-'00s albums. ‘Let Go’ (2002), in particular, is often cited as the band’s high-water mark and seen as one of the top indie albums of the era."

The Style Council - it's a very deep sea, 1988

"Therein, in 2019, Lee, her former husband and bandmate Paul Weller, keyboardist Mick Talbot and drummer Steve White reunited to play 1988 cut It’s A Very Deep Sea. “I’d forgotten how beautiful that track was,” says Lee, “and it was lovely to do it. It got the old juices going again."

Pink Floyd - stay, 1972

""Stay" is one of the most beautiful Pink Floyd ballads. Rick Wrights bittersweet lyrics, uplifting piano playing and tender vocal delivery makes this track easily one of the best on Obscured by Clouds, and one of the most underrated Floyd songs. Also, David Gilmour's guitar work is sublime."

Johnny Marr - getting away with it live, 2014

"Getting away with it happened because Pet Shop Boys and Bernard and I had some mutual friends. And the word kind of got around that Bernard was doing something aside from New Order, and he was doing it with me."

Neil Young - hitchhiker, 1975

"Hitchhiker" dates from 1975, from the sessions for Zuma. The song chronicles various life changes and drug experiences of Young's life up until that point. Young jokes in a contemporary interview that "if it was a TV show, it would be called The Drug Chronicles, T.M.I.", or too much information. Young memorably recalls performing the new song for Bob Dylan and hearing his reaction in Special Deluxe: "One night, Dylan came by and I played him a couple of new songs, "Hitchhiker" and "Cortez the Killer." When he heard "Hitchhiker," a confessional about the progressive history of drugs I had taken through my life, he told me, 'That's honest.' That moment still crosses my mind. It makes me laugh every time I think of it because Bob's humor is so wry. I think it was his way of saying kindly that the song was not very inventive as far as creating a story goes, just that I was following a history and not making up anything new. It's still funny to me, at any rate, the way he put it." Young would revise the song and add a new verse during the sessions. He explains in Waging Heavy Peace: "We hit a groove and recorded "Love and War" and "Peaceful Valley Boulevard," two songs written in Hawaii, and an older song called "Hitchhiker" that I hadn't cut yet. The previous night I had added a couple of new verses and changed some words to make it more relevant to me now, and it was "a good 'un," as Ben used to say. I did that song on Old Black through some amps Daniel had set up, and it sounded rockin'!" An acoustic take of the song from August 1976 would later be released in 2017 on Hitchhiker."

Jeff Tweedy - laminated cat, 2006

"Not for the Season works better. Laminated Cat is a novel reinterpretation but it lacks the punchiness of the original (which is more power pop) and becomes more of a stoner dirge."

Prefab Sprout - all the world loves lovers,1990

"A 19-track album encompassing a variety of musical styles and themes, Jordan has been considered by the band and critics alike to be Prefab Sprout's most ambitious project. The album was produced by Thomas Dolby, who had helmed the band's acclaimed 1985 album Steve McQueen but had been unable to commit to the entirety of its 1988 follow-up From Langley Park to Memphis."

Robert Forster - let me imagine you, 2015

"there isn’t a great deal of melody, unlike the songs of Forster’s former songwriting partner in the Go-Betweens, the late Grant McLennan, who wrote the majority of that band’s better-known, poppier material"

The Beatles - now and then, 2023

"Now and Then" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, released on 2 November 2023. Dubbed "the last Beatles song", it appeared on a double A-side single, paired with a new stereo remix of the band's first single, "Love Me Do" (1962), with the two serving as "bookends" to the band's history. Both songs were included on the expanded re-issues of the 1973 compilations 1962–1966 and 1967–1970, released on 10 November 2023. "Now and Then" is a psychedelic soft rock ballad that John Lennon wrote and recorded around 1977 as a solo home demo but left unfinished. After Lennon's death in 1980, the song was considered as a potential third Beatles reunion single for their 1995–1996 retrospective project The Beatles Anthology, following "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love", both based on two other Lennon demos of the same name. Instead, it was shelved for nearly three decades, until it was completed by his surviving bandmates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, using overdubs and guitar tracks by George Harrison (who died in 2001) from the abandoned 1995 sessions. The final version features additional lyrics by McCartney. Lennon's voice was extracted from the demo using the machine-learning-assisted audio restoration technology commissioned by Peter Jackson for his 2021 documentary The Beatles: Get Back. Jackson also directed the music video for "Now and Then". The song received acclaim from critics, who felt it was a worthy finale for the Beatles. It topped the charts in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Austria, and reached the top ten in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States. It is the only Beatles UK number-one single not attributed to the Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership."

The Blue Nile - tomorrow morning, 1996

"The members of the Blue Nile seem to have taken seriously all those articles and reviews about what audiophiles and technicians they are, and this time around they've spent a half-dozen years concocting an album that sounds like they made at least some of it in their living rooms rather than their space-age studio. They achieve the appearance of simplicity and humanity by foregrounding either an acoustic guitar or piano on most tracks, by restraining other instrumentation, by making their synthesizers sound like strings most of the time, and by using real strings on occasion."

Fleet Foxes- montezuma, 2011

"His voice is simply perfect, and his lyrics are pure poetry. They really spoke to me and continues to. It’s definitely one of my better songs to play on the guitar, and to sing it really takes stress away. Fleet Foxes are amazing, and I will talk more about them and why they are so incredible in perhaps a week or two. “Montezuma” is from Fleet Foxes’ third album, Helplessness Blues."

Wim Mertens - struggle for pleasure live, 2005

"Struggle for Pleasure" is a musical piece released in 1983 by Belgian composer Wim Mertens."

Etienne Daho - saudade, 1991

"Combining West Coast-style surf rock, Velvet Underground-like urban verse, stylish synth pop, and the romanticism of French singer Françoise Hardy, Algerian-born singer/songwriter and producer Étienne Daho has been a gold- and platinum-selling artist in France since breaking into the Top Five there with his fourth album, 1986's Pop Satori."

Elbow - all disco, 2017

"Elbow's seventh studio album, Little Fictions, harks back to those simpler times when the band were first beginning, before the stadium tours, and the Mercury Prizes, and truckloads of records sold. It's slower, and more personal, swapping the grandiosity of, for example, tracks like "One Day Like This" off the their platinum-selling album The Seldom-Seen Kid, for quiet introspection."