Sandy Denny

Joe writes: I've been listening to Sandy Denny again after reading a review of her biography. Of the songs mentioned in the review, my favourite is No End - predictably, as it's a bitter break-up song with echoes of The Last Time I Saw Richard and Diamonds & Rust.



I've just added it to my Spotify playlist of break-up songs, .

But I'd still say Sandy's greatest hit is Fairport Convention's Who Knows Where The Time Goes:

Ciara - I Bet

Joe writes: I very much enjoyed this throwback to the She'kspere/Rodney Jerkins era of R&B. In fact I had to double check I wasn't listening to an old Ciara track by accident.



Here's She'kspere's greatest hit, No Scrubs by TLC. I heard this played as a feminist anthem recently. I'm not sure it is, but it is a classic pop record.

Chumbawamba - Ugh! Your Ugly Houses

Joe writes: This is the Chumbawamba track that should have been re-released as the follow-up to Tubthumping. It would have been huge. Chumbawamba instead elected to go with a track called Amnesia and were soon forgotten.

Ugh! Your Ugly Houses is a political song in the best kind of way and has shades of both Clean Bandit (in the string breakdown) and Blur's new anthem of overpopulation (in the lyrics, all seven of them).

Ainslie Wills - Drive

Joe writes: I've been listening to a lot of Ainslie Wills, who is from Melbourne. I really love her voice which (on other tracks, not so much this one) has shades of Tracey Thorn, and this song is infectious.

Courtney Barnett - Pedestrian At Best

Joe writes: My brother sent me a Pitchfork link to this in February and now it's everywhere (or it might seem that way if you listen to a lot of Radio 1 in the evenings, and 6 Music, which I do).

Deacon Blue - Win

Phil writes: This new Deacon Blue single is up there is almost on a par with their best work I think.  It reminds me a bit of the Tom Baxter song 'Better' which deserves to be much better-known:

These are the greatest Todd Terje edits of all-time

good list from Thump

but they forgot this one, the Diamonds Dub (Tangoterje Edit) of Paul Simon's Diamonds In The Soles Of Her Shoes:

Dolly Parton - Jolene (Todd Terje Remix)

Joe writes: No-one is better at remixing classics than Todd Terje.

Tobias Jesso Jr - How Could You Babe

Joe writes: I thoroughly approve of Tobias Jesso Jr because I love the seventies soft rock he's referencing, and he's doing it authentically - you could play this next to Nilsson or the first Elton John album and it would stand up. OK this is no Your Song or Without You, but it's a decent song, with shades of George Michael's One More Try.

Your Song:




Without You:





One More Try:

R.I.P. Lesley Gore

Phil writes: Lesley Gore will surely be remembered for one monster hit that has echoed down the years.  It may or may not be great music.  I happen to think that it is a worthy pop classic.  When a song is played so many times over so many years it usually deserves to be on WGM:

LunchBox Lewis - Bills

Joe writes: Fun pop hip hop tune on Dr Luke's label Kemosabe/Sony.

Houndmouth - Sedona

Joe writes: This is such a clever song. The backing track is a very simple eight bar loop. The vocal seems to start midway through a line, then embarks on an extended melody that finally resolves 36 bars later (yes, I counted them). Björn and Benny or Bruce (Springsteen, circa 1975) would be proud.

Ellie Goulding - Love Me Like You Do

Joe writes: A song written from the point of view of the female protagonist of 50 Shades Of Grey could be very bad, but this is very good. It was produced by Max Martin and Ali Payami and written by those two plus Savan Kotecha, Ilya and Tove Nilsson. I especially like the line "What are you waiting for?". I also admire the relentless opportunism of Ellie and her team - almost every single seems to have an angle of some kind, and there are a lot of them.

James Bay - Scars

Joe writes: This is the first James Bay track I've really liked, but I do really like it.

OMI - Cheerleader (Felix Jaehn Remix) and Kygo - Firestone

Joe writes: Two massive tracks from round the world that haven't happened in the UK yet:

Emile Haynie feat. Lana Del Rey - Wait For Life

Joe writes: Magic

Emmy The Great - Swimming Pool

Joe writes: Someone on YouTube described this as Lana Del Rey without the artifice which seems accurate.

Jeff Buckley - Mama You Been On My Mind

Joe writes: Lapsley did the bedtime mix on Annie Mac's Radio 1 show last night including Jeff Buckley's cover of this early Dylan break up song:




Jeff Buckley was a brilliant interpreter of other people's songs. He needed nothing more than a guitar and vocal to elevate them into something magical (he reminds me of Eva Cassidy in this respect).

I've just added this to my Spotify playlist of favourite Dylan songs:

Ona Watson - Take This Job And Shove It

Joe writes: I heard this on Cerys Matthew's excellent 6 Music show. She prefaced it by saying that a large proportion of people who quit their jobs do so in January. It's a 1978 cover of a song by David Allen Coe. It wasn't a hit and Ona doesn't appear to have recorded again, but he's still performing in Birmingham, Alabama. The track is hard to find but it has been compiled by the excellent Tony Rounce on the album Cold Cold Heart: Where Country Meets Soul volume 3, which is available here.

Bob Seger inspired Prince to write Purple Rain

...as this article explains (it also explains a lot of other fascinating stuff about Purple Rain).

Joe writes: So here are my two favourite Bob Seger songs.

We've Got Tonight - you can hear how this might have inspired Purple Rain:

and Still The Same, which my dad used to sing all through my childhood, but didn't own, so I didn't hear the Bob Seger version of it until years later:

and here's Purple Rain which is even better than the best of Bob Seger: