Joe writes: Quentin Tarrantino's current focus on revenge fantasies makes for some fantastically enjoyable films, albeit without the freshness, purity or shock factor of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.
In his choices of music Quentin continues to excel and I was particularly pleased to hear Jim Croce getting the Three Dog Night treatment on Django Unchained. Not only that but the version of I Got A Name on the soundtrack sounds like it was dubbed from vinyl, complete with crackle:
Here's a Jim Croce TV performance of Lovers Cross:
Joe writes: Top notch songwriting and singing from new artist Sivu, and a great production from Charlie Andrew who did such a good job on the Alt-J album.
Joe writes: This new Tribes song is so good. Channelling 1970s American soft rock is so much more enjoyable than channelling 1990s grunge (although I liked them when they did that as well). And there's a sax solo at the end!
If this had been the Bowie comeback song it would still be no. 1, especially if Bowie were singing it.
Phil writes: Another great Billy Joel song that slipped by me unnoticed when I was busy bringing up WGM and his brother - and not listening to much 'new' music:
Joe writes: Really like this, even though he's from Brooklyn with a name in French. The YouTube clip is audio only and can't be embedded but it's worth a visit there anyway for the top comment, which reminded me of this spoof.
Phil writes: An unexpected (by me) new single from Bowie, Where Are We Now? I like it. Had to post it:
I didn't expect it to be on YouTube yet. As I was wondering which song to post for his birthday I heard Professor Brian Cox on the radio say, 'Is there life on Mars?' (his exact words). It's hard to pick his best songs but this is one of his biggest and best. Always worth a listen:
Joe writes: Aaron Neville has a really extraordinary voice. His first US pop hit was the wonderful Tell It Like It Is, which reached no. 2 on the Hot 100 in 1966.
He also recorded my favourite version of the song Pledging My Love, originally a hit for Johnny Ace, whose version was the first single Paul Simon ever bought according to Wikipedia (if so then it stood Simon in good stead as a primer in songwriting).
Paul Simon's song The Late Great Johnny Ace appeared on his underrated album Hearts & Bones, and here's my favourite track from that album, Train In The Distance:
Joe writes: I've been enjoying this track without knowing anything about Poor Moon. Now I've researched it and two of the members are also in Fleet Foxes which makes perfect sense.
Joe writes: It can take a long time to break an artist. ie music, who manage Robbie Williams, have been managing Passenger for 11 years and finally things seem to be coming together for him. I tried to see him play at Great Escape earlier in the year, got the stage time wrong so arrived just after he had come off stage, and was amazed to see hundreds of people filing out. And now his excellent song Let Her Go has gone to no. 1 in both Belgium and The Netherlands.
His music has very pleasant echoes of Cat Stevens so here's The Wind:
Joe writes: A recent discovery for me that is already one of my favourite Christmas songs, not least thanks to the couplet "I dream of her always/Even when I don't dream/Her name's on my tongue/And her blood's in my stream." The original version isn't on YouTube so I've experimented with embedding from Spotify:
Joe writes: As a one-time regular prison visitor and Mary Gauthier fan, I was bound to like this. Be warned though - it will not get your Thanksgiving party started.
Joe writes: There's an identikit cover version of Robert Miles featuring Maria Nayler's One & One floating around which reminded me what a great song it is.
It was written by Billy Steinberg, Rick Nowels and Marie Claire D'Ubaldo. Billy Steinberg is "just" a lyricist - he doesn't write melody - but he's one of the most successful lyricists of the modern era having written Like A Virgin, True Colors, Eternal Flame, and Alone by Heart, all with Tom Kelly. I heard a story, probably apocryphal, that some time after Like A Virgin had been the pivotal smash for Madonna, Billy and Tom went to a party because they'd heard Madonna was going to be there and they'd never met her. They went up to her and said "Hi, we're Billy and Tom, we wrote Like A Virgin and we've always wanted to meet you". Madonna said "Well now you have". End of conversation.
There's more about Like A Virgin here, including the one lyric they didn't use in the end: "Ask my friends and they'll tell you it's true/Nobody's had what I'm giving to you", which I think is a shame.
Rick Nowels' CV is almost as impressive as Billy's, and more current - he co-wrote one of the biggest European hits of recent times, I Follow Rivers by Lykke Li, as well as Heaven Is A Place On Earth, You Get What You Give, and a number of Dido songs including White Flag.
Marie Claire D'Ubaldo is an Argentine musician whose song Falling Into You (also written with Billy and Rick) was a hit for Celine Dion.
Robert Miles was released on Arista in North America and I have a feeling Clive Davis was involved in finding this song for Robert. Children was of course Robert Miles' breakthrough smash in both the UK and the US. Then came Fable, which sounded a lot like Children. Then came One & One, which was a big hit in the UK but doesn't seem to have charted in the US.
