Playlist
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Short & Spiky
Punk, post-punk & new wave of various vintages that doesn't belong on "Northern Echoes" or "Electric Blue". 90s Britpop seems to belong here too, it shares the same spirit. London and New York artists feature strongly.
24 brani
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Music 21
A list of twenty-first century artists from various genres, chiefly acoustic indie, post-rock, nu-folk and nu-jazz.
16 brani
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Not Entirely Serious
Play this list if you must, but leave your street credibility by the door. You can collect it on the way out. Probably.
25 brani
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Poets Cornered
In London's Westminster Abbey, Poets Corner commemorates some of the great names of English verse - like Chaucer, Spenser and Byron. Here at Poets Cornered we're not so fussy. Big names like Sir John Betjeman have to rub shoulders with popular performance poets like John Hegley and Linton Kwesi Johnson. There'll be no wandering lonely as a cloud round here, thank you very much.
20 brani
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Desert Island Discs
An überlist of my very favourite tracks. The title is taken from a long-running BBC Radio show, where a celebrity spends an hour choosing the dozen records they would have to have with them on a Desert Island. LastFM insists I pick 45. Here they are.
7 brani
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A Lista Mundial
The name is Portuguese for "World List" - pretty self-explantory, really. I tend to favour Latin American, French and West African artists. There are also some Indian and Middle Eastern artists. Here you'll find Jacques Brel, King Sunny Ade and a good helping of fado (Portugal's answer to the blues). Fun Fact: Gilberto Gil, featured on this list, went on to become Brazilian Minister for Culture - in the first Lula government!
75 brani
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Reggie
Reggie music (or to give it it's proper name: Reginald) is Jamaica's gift to the world. Quite a how a place the size of an English county can produce one of the world's leading music genres isn't clear to me, but it's an impressive achievement. I like early Ska and the first Ska Revival based around Two Tone Records, also classic seventies/early eighties reggae acts like Bob Marley and UB40. Fun fact: I was living in Coventry, home of Two Tone, when it all kicked off. Happy days!
66 brani
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Electric Blue
I've always liked what the music press calls "artrock". This seems to cover any artists who likes everything to be Just So, not just the music and the words, but the band's look, the production, the album cover, the lot. Some call them "control freaks" others "perfectionists", but whatever you call them, the musical result are well worth waiting for. This list features the likes of David Bowie, Roxy Music, Peter Gabriel, Souixsie and the Banshees, and Kate Bush. It's also expanding into ambient with names like Brian Eno, Laraaji and Philip Glass. Fun fact: before Roxy Music became famous their sax player Andy Mackay taught music at my wife's school!
85 brani
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Northern Echoes
In the late seventies and early eighties, factories were closing across the North of England, my home area. Many young people were unemployed, so they formed bands and sang about their lives. A similar thing happened in Central Scotland. They say tough times produce great music and we had Joy Division, Echo & The Bunnymen, Simple Minds, The Smiths and many more. And you try tellin' t' younger generation that an' they'll not believe you. Nay, they'll not ...
58 brani
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One Misty Moisty Morning
A genre-crossing list of my favourite British and Irish traditional and traditionally-inspired music, plus the odd Breton "guest worker". It includes folk, folk-rock, new age and country-rock. The Celtic nations are well-represented, by acts like Clannad, Enya, Runrig, The Proclaimers and Boys of the Lough. English acts include Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention and Richard & Linda Thompson plus a dash of morris-reggae from the inimitable Edward the Second and the Red Hot Polkas! Also featuring the great-grandfather of rap Sir John Betjeman (oh yes ... )
73 brani
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Iced Green Tea
My Cool Jazz, Bebop and Fusion list. Cool Jazz was a slow, melodic jazz style from 1950 and 1960s. It grew up as a reaction away from the harder BeBop style that came before. Fusion arrived in the 1960s: attempts to fuse jazz with rock, funk and other styles. This list features artists like Miles Davis, Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock and Weather Report. Fun fact: With the election of Barrack Hussein Obama, there is now a Miles Davis fan in the Whitehouse!
70 brani