Sambassadeur - claudine cover, 2006

"The band of Sambassadeur began one night at Joachim’s small apartment where Daniel and Joachim had got together for recording a song. Despite the fact that they were too shy to even look at each other when first playing their songs, the short session resulted in the recording of the song “There you go”."

James - sunday morning cover, 1990

"Sunday Morning is a cover of The Velvet Underground song that was released as a b-side on the 1990 James single Lose Control and the 2001 B-Sides Ultra compilation. It was originally recorded for the Imaginary Records compilation tribute album to the Velvet Underground “Heaven and Hell” released in September 1990 and it also appears on the Come Home live video and dvd. Sunday Morning was chosen as the Velvets cover due to the fact the song would allow both violin and trumpet in James’ interpretation. Tim finishes the song with an inspired medley of lines from other famous Velvet Underground songs."

Fanfarlo - comets, 2009

"This London-based five-piece are fronted by Swedish singer Simon Balthazar, whose presence dominates this rather samey and overwrought debut. With a mannered, slurred singing voice pitched somewhere between David Byrne and Brendan Flowers of The Killers, he is both what makes Fanfarlo most distinctive and also the thing that is most likely to wind you up. Because of the way he sings, the lyrics seem incidental, if not entirely instrumental."

Portugal. The Man - live in the moment live, 2018

“Live in the Moment” (also from the Woodstock album) is a very upbeat, catchy song that could emerge on the charts after “Feel It Still” has run its course. The members of Portugal. The Man are based in Portland, Oregon, and lead singer & main songwriter John Gourley is originally is from Alaska. The other members of the band are Zack Carothers (bass), Kyle O’Quin (guitar, keyboards), Eric Howk (guitar), Jason Sechrist (drums)."

Electronic - getting away with it, 1989

"Bernard Sumner wrote the verse and Johnny Marr wrote the chorus. The lyrics, co-written by Tennant with Sumner, are a parody of Marr's Smiths partner Morrissey, and his public persona as morose and masochistic"

Club 8 - we move in silence, 2003

"song’s atmospheric quality—its soft instrumentation and understated vocals, typical of the band’s twee and dream-pop influences."

Fats Domino - blueberry hill cover live, 1989

"Blueberry Hill" was an international hit in 1956 for Fats Domino and has become a rock and roll standard. It reached number two for three weeks on the Billboard Top 40 charts, becoming his biggest pop hit, and spent eight non-consecutive weeks at number one on the R&B Best Sellers chart. The version by Fats Domino was also ranked number 82 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time."

The Mountain Goats - rain in soho live, 2019

"Rain in Soho passionately paraphrases the Smiths (“There’s a club where you’d like to go…” ) and mourns Soho goth club the Batcave. By the final encore of The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton, he has the whole crowd feasting on his banter and singing his words, including “Hail Satan!” What a shame Andrew Eldritch wasn’t here to see it."

Far Caspian - blue, 2018

"As the very last days of warm weather start to fade away, I find myself trying to cling on to any kind of hazy, dreamy soundscape that I can find. One reason tends to be that I don’t really appreciate this style of track as the darker nights creep in, that’s where I need the gritty guitars and the rock & roll. But whilst we’re in this transition period and autumn doesn’t seem to know what it’s doing, Far Caspian have caught my attention with their lush new track ‘Blue’."

Arcade Fire - everything now live, 2017

"We live in a musical era big on grand state-of-the-world addresses, from Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly to Father John Misty’s Pure Comedy. You can see why Arcade Fire would want to do something similar: they are a band that thrive on grandiose artistic statements, whether that’s geo-personalised music videos or writing fascist-inspired national anthems for The Hunger Games. But in their haste to join in, they seem to have neglected to check whether they have anything original or interesting to say about the state of the world."

LCD Soundsystem - all my friends live, 2011

"The Long Goodbye: LCD Soundsystem Live at Madison Square Garden is a live album by American rock band LCD Soundsystem released in 2014. It is a near-unedited live recording of their final show held at Madison Square Garden in 2011. At the time, this was billed as the band's final show ever."

Bright Eyes And Neva Dinova - poison live, 2008

"I’ve seen Bright Eyes and members of Neva Dinova often perform shows with Bright Eyes and they will play songs from that album. I don’t know if they will tour together exclusively anymore though. They often have guests from various Saddle Creek bands and Bright Eyes will play songs from all of Conner’s work and collaborations and other bands if they feel like it (and I guess own the rights to it still)."

Sufjan Stevens - will anybody ever love me, 2023

“Will Anybody Ever Love Me?” hardly sounds lonely, though: Stevens dramatizes a far-reaching feeling of desperation with a sound that’s bright and expansive, carefully assembling each new instrumental voice—gentle piano, warm strings, a trio of backing singers—like fire logs waiting to ignite."

Genesis - burning rope, 1978

"While Banks was writing "Burning Rope", he decided to shorten the track rather than stretch its arrangements into an extended piece as he wished to avoid repeating himself and drawing comparisons to his ten-minute "One for the Vine" from Wind & Wuthering. It features a lead guitar solo that Rutherford found was a challenge to produce in the wake of Hackett's departure; he was pleased with the final result and called it his best on the album."

Pet Shop Boys - being boring behaviour version, 1990

"It's inspired by a quote by Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of American author F. Scott Fitzgerald ("… someone's wife, a famous writer in the 1920s…"): "… she refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring. She was conscious that the things she did were the things she had always wanted to do."

Belle And Sebastian - like dylan in the movies, 1996

"A simple, bouncy bass-line anchors the track, backed by the elegant orchestration of piano and bright guitar, which both end the song with simple, joyous instrumental solos that highlight the textural colors both provide to such a simple song. The chorus is awash in strings that provide perfect harmonies, filling out the chords with extra flavor, complimenting Stuart Murdoch’s restrained folk-singer warble."

Electronic - forbidden city, 1996

"It is a guitar pop/rock song with a heavily distorted guitar solo by Marr; lyrically it is about a young man who has an abusive relationship with his father but wants to return home despite this antagonism."

The Radio Dept - what will give, 2006

"Normally it's easy to pick and choose what songs to highlight in a review; the best or worst. This is a lot harder. All are of great, great quality, and to pick one over the other would be criminal."

New Order - superheated, 2015

"Bernard Sumner flies under the radar as a writer of love songs, and on a good day he can write a cracking one – usually involving regret, yearning, heartache and lament; all quality ingredients, and when combined with New Order’s classic alt-indie-electronic backings, we’ve all benefitted from having an atypical soundtrack to the emotional journeys of our lives."

Neil Young - long may you run, 1976

"Long May You Run is a studio album credited to the Stills–Young Band, a collaboration between Stephen Stills and Neil Young, released in 1976 on Reprise Records. It peaked at #26 on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold in the United States by the RIAA. The album is the sole studio release by Stills and Young as a duo."